WIZARD MAGAZINE part 1

Since Alex jumped into the limelight with Marvels, way back in 1994, Wizard Magazine, being the premiere publication about comic books and geek entertainment, has followed his progress throughout the years. So it's only fair that we honor those covers in a series of posts that will feature the fantastic art of Alex Ross as it appeared on Wizard magazine. All of these issues are IN MY COLLECTION from which I have scanned the covers.

WIZARD #42: This issue has a cover date of February 1995 and it came in 2 versions, which meant you had to buy the same issue twice, but it's worth it. Each foldout cover featured Marvel Comics characters separated into heroes and villains, although originally the cover was supposed to be only about the villains, but the guys at Wizard liked it so much that they asked him for the heroes too. Anyway, as you can see, the heroes have that heavenly white tones in its cover and they are wearing their classic outfits as they appeared in the 1960's. Just check out the X-Men and that retro Hulk, it's a big tribute to Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and all those artists from that time. On the other hand the villains are portrayed in a menacing blue, black and purple light with giant menaces like Galactus and Mephisto on the back and Dr. Doom and the Green Goblin on the front, I like the way Alex renders the Goblin and the Red Skull's mask as if those were the guys' faces, brilliant! This issue also includes an article and interview with Alex which I will be posting later on. Now, check out the art below!

Here are Alex Ross' comments on this covers (his first Wizard covers) taken from the Wizard Magazine website:

"It was a concept which I bit into like a hungry wolf, doing the 1960s versions. Having just done Marvels, I was very interested to do a pure 1964 version of these characters, like the third armor design for Iron Man, or the red and yellow Daredevil costume. One of the things that’s funny, I pulled the design of Klytus from 'Flash Gordon' and put it on Dr. Doom, which was a seamless fit! One of the coolest things about doing stuff back then was that Wizard used to do covers where they'd put the logo on the bag. So I put stuff that would be directly behind the logo and once you took it out of the bag, you'd see Angel flying behind it. That was a great period where anything went and I was lucky enough to be in on it with some of the craziest, experimental stuff that just doesn't occur anymore. That's the nature of my career. Right place, right time!"

Hmm! No wonder that Dr. Doom looked oddly familiar...