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...

PART 2 -->

ANATOMY OF A COVER Part 1

Ever wonder where does Alex Ross gets his ideas for all those cool covers? Well, here you'll find out. On these posts we'll discover that Alex's inspiration comes from many places, sometimes it's a tribute to the classics, others it comes from the strangest of places...

THE DC COMICS PRESENTS COVERS: These issues were supposed to be a tribute to the Silver Age which editor Julie Schwartz helped usher in so Alex Ross got inspiration from 2 covers from that time, with art by comic-book legend Carmine Infantino. The Flash cover (left) was inspired by issue #163 from August, 1963. Here Alex gave the cover a little more movement in the hand as if The Flash just stopped to talk on the cover, whereas the original was a bit more static. The Mystery in Space cover was originally seen in March, 1963 on issue #82. Alex gave the background images new perspectives to look more kinetic but the central character still has the same stiff pose which Alex didn't try to fix or change, probably to keep the same essence on both covers.


THE G.R.A.V.E. GRRRLS #1 COVER: This cover speaks volumes, Alex based the cover to this comic book about some zombie-hunting girls on the photo of Janet Jackson that appeared on the September 16, 1993 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which proves that inspiration can come from everywhere and anywhere, especially from a hot picture of Janet Jackson...

PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS! I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU LIKED THIS NEW SECTION. THANKS!

COVER GALLERY: 2008

Here it is! To wrap up the year in style, I'm going to review the covers Alex did on this year that's now going on the OUT pile. First of all, a clarification, I will not talk about or post covers from Project Superpowers, Justice Society of America or Avengers/Invaders, those belong in their respective posts, which will be updated by the time you read this, so just click on the links.

ASTRO CITY SPECIAL - BEAUTIE: This is a pretty nifty cover due to the fact that the character is an action figure come to life, so seeing it on a shelf breaking through the package is pretty effective, the angle makes it more believable, too.
ASTRO CITY - THE DARK AGE HC Vol.1: Nice cover which uses the darkness to silhouette a woman and a cape and the heroes going towards it. This cover is a mixed bag; style is great, but some parts are too crowded versus the all black parts which seem too empty and quiet. This hardcover compiles both "Dark Age" volumes plus the prelude, a sketchbook and a cover gallery.


ASTONISHING X-MEN #25 (Dynamic Forces Sketch cover): Alex's return to Marvel wasn't only about Avengers/Invaders, he did other stuff like this special sketch edition of "Astonishing" for Dynamic Forces that features a very angry Wolverine, a character that Alex is not very fond of but, I think he's coming around in the end because it certainly looks cool!
UNCANNY X-MEN #500:. Opposite to the simplicity of the previous cover, this one is chockfull of characters from different eras of the X-Men including heroes and villains. This cover is so massive that wraps around the issue. The art is gorgeous yet my complaint is, as usual, the odd coloring Alex chooses for the mutants, this time is a reddish/magenta palette that fits Magneto but not everyone there.



CAPTAIN AMERICA #34 (Regular version and Dynamic Forces limited edition): With the death of the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, a replacement appeared with a redesigned suit (courtesy of Alex) and a gun-toting attitude. The regular cover is patriotic and captures the new character and his agenda in a very in-your-face attitude. The limited cover is just a headshot but you've got to admire the level of detail Alex puts into the shiny cowl of the new Cap, in which you can see the old cap reflected there. Wicked!



SECRET WARS OMNIBUS HC: This massive edition collects the acclaimed series which birthed the comic crossover as we know it. Alex decided to pay homage to the original Mike Zeck cover by not changing much but instead, putting the Marvel heroes in broad daylight so they look as real as Alex can make them.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #568: There's not much I can say about this cool cover of ASM. The Green Goblin just oozes evil and is a million times scarier than the movie Goblin. This art also resembles a life-size bust Alex did of this character, both rock!
EARTH X TRILOGY COMPANION: This one came out of left field. Not having seen any new art for Earth X in years, this book's cover art was a welcomed surprise. The art is so experimental and DaVinci-esque that immediately grabbed my attention due to its complexity.
MARVELS PREMIERE HC: A very simple cover for this so-called Premiere book, right? I'm not complaining about the art, which looks fine, although Alex has done a similar one for Batman and Superman, with the spotlight and all. My complaint is why use it on a book which is about the Marvel Universe and focus (the art) on just one hero?


SUPERMAN #675 TO 681 & BATMAN #676 TO 681: One of the coolest things this year, is Alex Ross being the permanent cover artist on the Superman and Batman ongoing titles. Look at those covers! First of all, the initial covers (Supes 675 and Bats 676) are a perfect ying and yang of the characters one is light the other is dark, the alien looks very human and the human looks like a, well, bat. I love it! Besides those 2, I like these covers in general, special mention goes to Batman 681 with The Dark Knight between those gargoyles and Superman as Atlas (in #677). Krypto in #680 is an odd choice because Alex doesn't like drawing animals but the result is a heroic AND cute cover, nonetheless.

KINGDOM COME TPB: This softcover re-edition of the classic tale by Alex and Mark Waid does what the Marvels Premiere didn't, to feature a truly astounding foldout cover with new art by Alex Ross, that features the good guys around a table in Green Lantern's satellite and on the table's reflection we can see the bad guys. Gorgeous art! NOTE: This foldout cover ONLY comes with the first edition of this book, subsequent printings will NOT have it.

A TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL TURNER: On June 27th, 2008, Michael Turner, one of the great comic book artists of this time, passed away after battling for years with Cancer. His company, Aspen MLT, released this tribute book with art from a lot of the industry's best and whose profits will benefit a Cancer charity. The cover was originally pencilled by Turner and Alex added his paints. The end result is a gorgeous rendering of Michael Turner's characters from his series (Fathom and Soulfire) but instead of being digitally colored as usual, Alex is able to achieve and even surpass the digital tools with his watercolors and airbrush magic and finally blend it all in an image that looks very little like his art but that is undoubtedly and unmistakably Michael's art as well.


This was a busy year for Alex as you can tell. There were other works by him, which were reprinted from previously published art or that is already in other sections of this blog. Back Issue #30 and Age of TV Heroes HC book can be seen in our Twomorrows Publishing section. Black Adam: Dark Age TPB reprints the 2007 cover seen here. Red Sonja #30 reprints the cover to the 2007 SDCC sketchbook you can see in our sketchbook section. And finally the DC Comics Encyclopedia got a new cover which I wrote about here.

COVER GALLERY: 2007

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #12: This is a fan-favorite cover! It depicts the Justice League as Alex has never painted them before, and that means with new characters. Yes, this isn't the classic JLA that Alex is so fond of doing, this is 2007's Justice League, with the redesigned costume for Hal Jordan and new team members such as Red Arrow (he was in Kingdom Come, wink, wink) Black Lightning and more. The 2 interlocking covers produce one image that is very energetic and vibrant. These 2 covers appear as one, tilted sideways, image on the 2nd printing of this issue.
BLACK ADAM #1: This is the variant cover to this issue which spotlights the Shazam villain, which became popular after the events in the Final Crisis and 52 mini-series from DC Comics. The image is incredible and shows how much Alex loves the (Captain) Marvel family of characters, and how much he loves to paint really menacing villains. It's superb!
THE ESCAPISTS HC: This hardcover volume collects the Dark Horse Comics series of the same name, created by Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, who are themselves characters from Michael Chabon's pulitzer-prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay yes it's hard to understand but any way, this is a character from a fictional 1930's - 1940's "Golden Age" of comics and the cover reflects this by using the old comics' printing method of colored dots in the background, it's a pretty clever gimmick and makes the cover stand out, yet Alex already used something similar for the cover of Astro City #21. Anyways, it still looks quite nice although it's not one of my favorites.

HEROES HC#1: The Heroes hardcover volume No.1, is a collection of the web-comics that appeared online during the TV show Heroes' first season; so why pay for something that is on the net for free? For the kick-ass Alex Ross cover, that's why! Look at that cover, all the characters are there in that awesome composition and their likenesses are dead-on, well except maybe for Claire (Hayden Panettiere's character) she looks waaaay too old (and more like a "femme fatale") in this picture to be just an innocent schoolgirl / indestructible cheereleaderlike like she is on the show. But it's a great cover nonetheless.

IN MY COLLECTION: Everything except for the Escapists hardcover book.

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.

COVER GALLERY: 2005

A lot of DC Comics work for Alex this year and some very unusual indie work too.

SUPERMAN - STRENGTH #1-3: This series, written by Scott McCloud with art by Aluir Amancio, centers on the character of Superman as a moral compass and as a human being because that's where Supes' strength comes from, his values given to him by his parents. Now the covers describe various, classic Superman poses; issue 3 (right) has him breaking a wall, which looks very in-your-face but a bit too simple; issue 2 (center) has a very heroic pose which is really nice, he is saving some people from what I guess from the coloring is a burning building. But my favourite is issue 1, because not only, does it have Superman's iconic pose from his first issue but the character's pose has this flow to it that really conveys the idea of the guy actually flying. It looks fantastic.



















GREEN LANTERN #1: This series launches a new era for Green Lantern, especially for everybody's favorite emerald-ringed hero, Hal Jordan. This issue, written by Geoff Johns, returns this hero to the title he was part of since the 50's. And Alex Ross being such a Silver Age enthusiast couldn't let this chance pass him by so he provided this gorgeous cover for this premiere issue and let me tell you this is the quintessential look of the hero, the image is so iconic and, in my opinion, is one of the best paintings Alex has ever done of Hal Jordan. Just look at the use of light from the sun and the ring and the way they combine, it's beautiful.
CAPTAIN ATOM - ARMAGEDDON #1: Captain Atom is one of those small-time superheroes in the DC library, that's why they decided to kill him off in Superman/Batman #6 and ship him off to the Wildstorm Universe. So he didn't die, instead he travelled inter-dimensionally to this other imprint and now with an Alex Ross designed costume. Yes, the new Captain Atom sports an exact look as the Kingdom Come version of the character, which is a big improvement, because his regular duds, were awful. The cover shows the new suit in a very nice way, with him flying off into space. It's too much of a cool cover for such a crummy character.


RED SONJA #1: Dynamite Entertainment, who publishes Alex Ross' Project Superpowers, asked him to draw this character which spun from the Conan: The Barbarian stories. Of course, thanks to Alex, she looks extra hot, and extra scary with that sword. Alex Ross' version of the character is closer to the idea of her being this strong, buff, barbarian woman, not like her usual look of a bikini model that some artists do, Alex's Sonja looks like she can kick your butt in ten different ways.
ATOMIKA #1: Created by some of Alex's friends, including Batman model Sal Abbinanti, Atomika is an insightful comic about the deification of technology. The cover features the god Atomika from this story, it's a very powerful, yet surrealist image. This series was originally published by Speakeasy Comics and now by Mercury Comics. Support this indie book by visiting the Mercury Comics site
G.R.A.V.E. GRRRLS #1: Scott Licina is the guy who composed the music for the Earth X Special Slipcase Edition, he is also the writer of this comic book that mixes hot girls and zombies. Being a friend of Alex is a good thing as you also witnessed on the Atomika comic. He painted this very amusing cover to resemble the famous Janet Jackson - Rolling Stone Magazine cover. It's a horror comic taken lightly, just like this cover.

IN MY COLLECTION: Superman - Strength #1, The Green Lantern and Captain Atom issues and, as I was writing this post, I bought Grave Grrrls on eBay.