WIZARD MAGAZINE part 7

WIZARD #123: This is the last of the covers which promotes the oversized book of the year featuring the most famous DC characters in their 60th birthday. This time the turn was for Wonder Woman. Inside this issue there is the usual sketchbook and interview with Alex Ross. Now this cover, and this Wonder Woman, aren't my favorites. My problem is with the change in the model Alex used. In Kingdom Come he used his friend Lisa Beaderstadt to portray this character, she looks very pretty and very feminine with a cool attitude. For this cover he used a different friend, Rhonda Hampton who, pretty as she is, she's a bit more muscular so the character looks more like a wrestler. I still like the KC Wonder Woman more.



WIZARD #138: With his Battle of the Planets series as successful as the revival of 80's properties in comics, Top Cow Comics, publisher of the Battle of the Planets series, decided to do a couple of crossovers, one with Witchblade and the other with the Thundercats. Needless to say that fanboys all over the world went nuts and Wizard celebrated this retro insanity and released this brand new cover with the two main characters from both of these series/TV shows. I, particularly, am not a fan of the Thundercats but I got to admit, that Alex Ross' Lion-O rocks! he's just so fierce and the pose has "bad-assery" written all over it. He completely overshadows Mark from BOTP, and the sword just looks terrific.



WIZARD #141, 144 & 146: To celebrate the release of the final oversized book JLA - Liberty and Justice Wizard decided to have 3 consecutive issues that feature a single image of the Justice League but, something went wrong and the word "consecutive" went out the window so they published the covers on June, October and December 2003. Frankly I don't care if they messed it up 'cause this is still one of the coolest images of the JLA Alex has ever painted, I love the tones and the sky-at-sunset background and how each cover focuses the attention on one of The Three, and the lighting is so amazing that even though it's a sunset, Batman is still in the Dark. Awesome!

WIZARD MAGAZINE part 6

WIZARD #108: Similar to what happened with issue #42 (see part 1) this issue from Sep. 2000, came with 2 covers, both of them by Alex Ross. The one on the left celebrates the successful ending of Earth X and the beginning of Universe X. The gorgeous cover, drawn and painted by Alex, features the main characters of U-X Captain America and Captain Marvel in his both incarnations as a little kid (in the foreground ) and as a spirit (in the background) I love the colors but, like I usually do, I hate the captions blocking it.
The cover on the right was drawn by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada and painted by Ross. Although the colors are bright and engaging, and Alex's rendition of Spidey has a black and red suit, instead of blue and red one, which is an interesting choice, I don't like Daredevil's pose, he doesn't look like he's fighting, it's more like he's dancing.
This issue contains an interview with Alex and Jim Krueger about Universe X.

WIZARD #111: Continuing with the Wizard covers that celebrate the release of one of the treasury-sized books Alex and Paul Dini were releasing every year, this one from Dec. 2000 contains a sketchbook for Shazam - Power of Hope. Now the cover, just like every other piece Alex has done with this character, shows how much he loves this character in particular by putting him in such heroic and inspiring poses. It's such a delight to see how this character's innocence and idealism seem to come from these art pieces, well except for the Kingdom Come version, which was evil, misguided but evil anyway and eventually he came around and sacrificed himself to save the day.




WIZARD #115: This cover marks the first time Alex Ross has ever painted The Punisher, and since he's into paying homage to the ones who came before, he designed this cover to somehow look like a different side of Amazing Spider-Man #129 from 1974, which marks the first appearance of this character created by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and John Romita Sr. Notice how Alex captures in this cover such small details as the guy's hair in the back and the eyebrows. It's a great interpretation of this vengeful character, who may not look too "bad-ass" with those white gloves but Alex manages to pull it off nicely.

WIZARD MAGAZINE part 5

THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM ISSUES

WIZARD #99: With a cover date of November 1999, this issue (left) sports a fantastic cover of Batman with his most vicious villains fighting to the finish. This cover, although obscured by the logo, captures the essence of who batman is; a guy who never gives up. I like the way Alex painted this image as though it's being watched from above. Also note the retro costume on The Riddler and the creepy, never-ending smile on The Joker's face, even when he's being choked. This issue includes Alex's sketchbook for Batman - War on Crime.

WIZARD #2000: Skipping the count the following month to celebrate the new millennium, Wizard came up with issue 2000 (center) which has the biggest mistake this publication has ever printed (and they even accepted it on a later issue) Obscuring this amazing splash of the Kingdom Come characters versus the Earth X ones. They haven't even made a poster out of this; what a shame! Anyway I enjoy Alex's art any way I can and on this incredible piece, at least they didn't cover that hilarious thing happening to the right of Superman's head. It's the Red Skull messing around with Lex Luthor, literally getting on his hair, if he had any. Click on the image and check it out for yourself.

WIZARD #100: To begin the next hundred issues, Wizard celebrated this milestone, by going back to its own roots, the cover of issue one, which featured a Todd McFarlane drawn Spider-Man dressed as a wizard. Alex Ross pays homage to this cover with his very own rendition of this classic. It doesn't differ too much from the original concept, but Alex combines the image with a nice yellow sky and a more flowing pose which makes the image more harmonious and subtle.

WIZARD MAGAZINE part 4

ANATOMY OF A COVER VIDEO EDITION

WIZARD #95: This issue with a cover date of July 1999, marks the first time Alex has painted the X-Men; not the original ones from the 1960s which we saw in Marvels, but the so-called "new" X-Men from Giant Size X-Men #1. These characters include Storm, Banshee, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Wolverine. He painted them the way they appear in their early issues by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Dave Cockrum. I'm just going to say that I really like this painting although I'm not too crazy about the lighting of the characters, I prefer it when Alex puts them in broad daylight. But there's a reason for this odd lighting, check out the video I uploaded below to see and hear Alex's comments on this piece.

WIZARD MAGAZINE part 3

ANATOMY OF A COVER EDITION
WIZARD #89: The self-proclaimed "Best Issue Ever" of this magazine came out on January 1999 and it featured one of those covers in which Alex pays tribute to a classic, in this case it is the 1976 crossover issue titled Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man: The Battle of the Century and that says it all. The original was written by Gerry Conway and pencilled by Ross Andru. As you can see Alex captures exactly the same poses on the characters and of course, the same perspective on those buildings below. These covers look as if one is a comic book and the other is a movie in comparison, due to Alex's extreme attention to detail in fleshing out these characters.
This issue of Wizard, also features an interview with Alex Ross in which he gives a step by step explanation on what went on when he painted the Crisis on Infinite Earths cover we talked about on our Cover Gallery: 1998 post. I'll be posting this article soon.

WIZARD MAGAZINE part 2

WIZARD #57: "To fold out or not to fold out" that is the question that Wizard faced on these 3 covers. On your right is the full art for the cover of issue 57 with the characters from Kingdom Come (front to back: Superman, Wonder Woman, Red Robin, Flash and Green Lantern) yet when the cover came out it only featured the first 3 characters and Red Robin is now Batman, originally, in Kingdom Come, Alex wanted to give the idea of Red Robin being the successor of Batman, but the cropping of the cover messed up this "subliminal" message in a big way.

WIZARD #75 & #83: The first cover (#75) is amazing, yet it was cut in half and you can't really appreciate the art as a whole, but Wizard fixed the problem by adding a mini poster on this issue with the full image and it is one of the most amazing JLA images ever painted by Alex and my personal favorite. The characters look so iconic and god-like, it's just unbelievable.
Issue 83, had a fold-out cover plus it came with a mini poster of this image. I didn't know anything about Astro City at the time but I just loved that cover/poster, with all this new characters in heroic poses and the goodness they reflect, it just made it look so familiar, like you've met these characters before and you know they're going to help you. Inspiring stuff!


Left to right:Issue #75, the JLA poster, Issue #83 and the Astro City poster.

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