Published on September 5th, 2012 | by Cosmic Comix and Toys

Best Covers of the Day – Wednesday, September 5

You’ll have to forgive me if the column is a few minutes late today, readers. You see, it takes an extra few minutes for it to transmit from Cloud Nine, where I have been since about 10 pm last night when the Orioles ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED the Blue Jays and landed themselves in a tie for first place in the AL East! Now, I don’t want to jinx anything… BUT… I think it’s safe to say that the O’s will easily win the division and then go all the way to World Series where they will become World Champions for the first time since 1983. THERE I SAID IT. On to the covers!

SPAWN #223

Cover by Todd McFarlane

Excellent! Kudos all around! Here we have a Walking Dead tribute AND a Shawn of the Dead tribute! Two of my favorite things of all-time, wrapped into one. I’m honestly kind of surprised this hadn’t occurred before now. The joke has been right there the whole time, just waiting to be plucked from the tree, like a ripe Honeycrisp apple.

Now, if Spawn were carrying a cricket bat? Then this would have been an instant contender for Best Covers Hall of Fame.

ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #2

Cover by Clayton Henry

This may not be a Brian Bolland cover, but I totally give artist Clayton Henry credit for getting that Bolland-y vibe just right. The situation REEKS of Jack of Fables.

I also found the first pull quote on the bottom to be totally hilarious. It comes from BoingBoing, one of my favorite websites, which bills the series as: "[B]rain-rotting propaganda…" Now if that doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what does!

FAIREST #7

Cover by Adam Hughed

For once, I think I may have to agree with Cosmic Comix Conversation panelist Matt Hetrick about the excellence of this Fairest cover. (Unless of course Matt was talking about The Cape cover, but I kind of doubt it.)(Or heck, maybe he was talking about something else entirely and just needed a place to vent! The world may never know.)

Anyway, awesome cover. Sexy lady, bloody mouth, bloody hands, fedora… it all adds up to a fine, fine cover. I was just saying the other day that comic book world needs more covers with bloody mouths. Andrew WK style!

VENOM #24

Variant Cover by Skottie Young

I generally try not to include variant covers in this column, just because we don’t get that many of them, but this one was too good to pass up. Skottie Young, baby! One of the all-time greats. If you haven’t seen his work on the Wizard of Oz series for Marvel, you should totally check it out because he does a great job. (And a new title in that series, Road to Oz, actually starts this week.)

But also, I was just informed by my staff that this month also happens to be Skottie Young Variant Month! Check it out. I cannot WAIT to see that Hulk issue.

- Andy B.