COVER GALLERY: 2006

Very few covers came out this year since Alex was busy with Justice and with the JSA and Astro City: The Dark Age covers.

RAMAYAN 3392 A.D. #1: Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur are two of the most recognized representatives of the Indian culture, the first one as the author of many spirtuality books, the second as a film director. They teamed up with the new and up-and-coming publisher Virgin Comics to create comic books that would spread the Indian culture just as manga comics had spread Japanese culture. This comic is the retelling of an ancient Indian tale called "Ramayana" which tells the adventures of the warrior prince Rama but this one is set in the distant future. The cover looks awesome, it's a mix of ancient and futuristic motifs which give it a cool blend of east-meets-west and all-out fantasy. Since I consider Indian culture as cool as that Alex Ross cover, I can't wait to get this issue!
RED SONJA / CLAW, THE UNCONQUERED - DEVIL'S HANDS #1: Dynamite Entertainment had such a success with the Red Sonja series that they decided to unveil their own version of Conan, called Claw, the Unconquered on this 4-issue mini-series. Needless to say, Alex amazingly captures the feel of these 2 characters on this cover to make it resemble the work of other fantasy painters such as Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo. It's spectacular.
ATOMIKA TPB: The enigmatic character of Mercury Comics' Atomika is featured here on the cover of this trade paperback collection of issues 1-6 of the regular series. The cover looks great but I prefer the cover to issue 1 better because it has more detail. The little detail this one has, gets obscured by that huge logo and the "God is red" captions. Too bad.


UPPER DECK'S ALEX ROSS SKETCHBOOK: This sketchbook was limited to 5000 pieces and it shows Alex's sketches of 2 projects he has done with Upper Deck Entertainment creators of World of Warcraft. One project is the Spider-Man & Spider-Woman litograph and the other is the Marvel Vs. System CCG. This company also works with Alex in creating busts of the Marvel universe heroes and villains (more on this awesome stuff in a future post). This sketchbook was only found in a convention, I don't recall if it was San Diego Comic-Con or Wizard World Chicago, but it's really hard to find.

IN MY COLLECTION: Only the sketchbook.