I’ve tried writing this twice already. Squarespace crashed and it doesn’t have an autosave function on laptops so that’s neat. It’s ok though because I wrote a long, flowery thing and I realized it was kind of like when you’re looking for a recipe online and someone tells you about the time they broke their tibia in college and how that was the key to them figuring out how to build a better ramen base or whatever. I don’t want to write something like that, so maybe Squarespace did me a favor.
I haven’t written in a while. i’ve been busy with a new job, I’ve been tired from a new job, and I’ve been lazy when I’m not doing work for my new (wonderful, incredibly exciting) job. That’s the gist of what I wrote the first time.
I think it’s a good thing to judge comics by their covers. I think that’s a totally normal, healthy, and good thing to do. Comics are more expensive than they’ve ever been but they’re still a relatively cheap form of entertainment. Services like DC Infinite, Marvel Unlimited, Hoopla, and Comixology make them even cheaper, which is super exciting.
It’s never been easier or more affordable to read comics. So how do you know which ones to read?
Judge them by their covers. If you dig it, backtrack and read the story from the beginning. Or don’t. There’s no right way to read comics. I do my best to point you in some cool directions, but I’m not a particularly cool guy, I’m literally always home, so what the hell do I know?
Some of these covers are old, some of them aren’t. The only real thing they have in common is that they stuck with me. In some cases it’s been years, and they still come up instantly when I think about what makes a comic iconic to me.
Covers don’t need to sell you on anything but the 22 pages you’re about to read. They’re literally just an advertisement you don’t mind looking at. Some of them are advertisements you want to look at. Some of these stories suck, some of them are incredible. But no matter what, their covers - good grief. Comics, man. They’re the best.
Man, what a weird assortment of covers, right? I was able to google 90% of them with the exact title and issue number. The other ten percent, I was within 4 issues. That’s not a brag.
But it proves my point all the same. I don’t even know if all of these are good covers, let alone good stories, but that doesn’t matter. See something interesting? Grab it, flick through the pages. You might like it. Hell, you might even remember it 17 years later and be able to google it from memory.
These aren’t the best covers and they’re not my favorites either. They were literally just the ones that convinced me to spend $3 I could’ve spent elsewhere because they were so damn cool to me. They’re these nails that have been hammered into me and no matter how hard I shake or pull, I can’t remove them. They’re imprinted on me, They’re in my comics DNA. They are my comics DNA. Gary Frank is a great artist, but there’s no reason I should be thinking about his cover to Avengers (vol. 3) 62 all these years later.
Except I am. Comics, man. They’re the best.