My favourite cover

So since I'm in a comic book mood - not really a surprise - I thought I'd show you my all time favourite comic book cover. Now, I've been collecting comic books for 30 years. I've seen a lot of truly amazing covers during that period of time. Covers that have wowed me with their art and creativity. Most of the covers from Neil Gaiman's Sandman are staggeringly beautiful and eye-catching. Like the first issue, for example.



Or even a classic like this Captain America cover from the 60s.




You can never underestimated a good cover in grabbing someone who might be looking at literally dozens of comics. Too many take it for granted, but good covers can make or break a comic book series. It was the cover of that Godzilla comic I mentioned in my last post that caught my eye.

So while I had been collecting Hitman for awhile, I still did a double take when I saw this one. Perhaps being from Newfoundland made me appreciate it more, but I remember picking it up and laughing at it for about 10 minutes. I still laugh whenever I see it. I'd buy the original artwork if I ever saw it for sale anywhere.



The actual content of the comic, believe it or not, is funnier than the cover. A mad scientist kills all the animals at the aquarium and then unleashes a gas that brings them all back as zombies. Zombie penguins, zombie dolphins (including the immortal line "Oh man, I just smoked Flipper."), zombie sharks and, of course, zombie seals. It's a completely retarded premise, but so much of Hitman was completely retarded premises mixed with a genuinely touching look at the friendships between some generally reprehensible people (the guy in the green coat is a hitman. He has his ethics and all, but he still kills people for money). The series also had perhaps the best Superman story (until the recent All-Star Superman series) of the past 20 years.

Garth Ennis, the writer of the series, is going to be at the comic con. I hope I get the chance to meet him. Although having read his bio and realized that he's only a day older than me and wrote what is considered to be one of the best John Constantine (Hellblazer) stories - "Dangerous Habits" -at 21 when I was fucking around at the Muse, makes me want to kill him right now.

There are a lot of great Hitman covers, really. I've included a couple of others below. I wish I could tell you it's no problem to pick up the collections, but DC bizarrely stopped collecting the series about half way through. I have all the original issue, but I wish DC would come out with a nice collection of the series.






Last Five
Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits