For anyone wondering what happened to Kevin Melrose’s Comics, Covered feature, Kevin has decided to launch it as its own blog … again. Kevin explains:

I collect blogs like some people collect comics, or little ceramic owls.

It all began in October 2003, with Thought Balloons, which I wrote for about 1 1/2 years before helping to launch the horror blog Dark, But Shining in 2005. From there, I started a personal/work blog, and then the earlier incarnation of this blog, Comics, Covered.

Wait, I’m not done yet. I closed those two last year to join The Great Curve just before it became Blog@Newsarama. That brings us to today, and the new Comics, Covered.

Like the previous version, this one will focus on comic-book cover art and design. But here I’ll also post reviews and creator interviews, and write about all-ages and young-adult fiction, contemporary fantasy and whatever else piques my interest.

If you browse through the site you’ll find archived pieces that originally appeared at Blog@Newsarama, Comic Foundry and on the previous version of this blog. And shortly, the new content will begin to appear.

Next week, Kevin reveals how Fenton & Fenton grew up to be accountants …

Holiday-themed comics seem to have made a comeback of sorts in recent years, with books like Franklin Richards: Happy Franksgiving, the DCU Infinite Holiday Special and the Marvel Holiday Special. But from the 1940s through the 1980s, and trickling into the early ’90s, the holiday comic — specifically, Christmas-themed — was a regular event.

Annual, even.

Special issues of regular series, standalone one-shots, reprints and collected digests — they all celebrated that most wonderful time of the year.

My first Christmas comic was the one pictured at the right: a 1972 issue of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which the fine folks at Comics.org label as “Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-50.” It was a holiday fixture at my grandparents’ house, brought out each year along with the artificial tree, stockings, and the lump of coal that taunted me from atop the enormous floor-model TV.

The cover date leads me to think it was originally bought for my older brother; I couldn’t have done much more than spit up on the comic when it was new.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about the stories themselves, beyond what’s shown on the cover: Something about Rudolph, the elves Winky and Blinky and a hot-air balloon. I recall a scene at the reindeer stables, which Little Kevin drew again and again in a spiral-bound notebook, and that the cover and many of the pages were so tattered and frail that flipping through the book was like handling the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I imagine Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer played a healthy role in the development of my love for comics. It was certainly among the first I saw as a child, even if it was for only a short time each year.

In the tradition of the Halloween and Thanksgiving installments of “Comics, Covered,” I’ve put together a gallery of Christmas-themed covers. Some of them are great, some of them are just funny. But they all say, “Merry Christmas” (or “Happy Holidays”):

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Between a big project deadline and what feels like the creeping tentacles of the flu, I sort of lost a couple of days. So let’s pretend like today is Tuesday, and “Comics, Covered” isn’t late.

Obsession No. 1: The Pirates of Coney Island

Normally I write about cover art, but I’m going to make an exception for The Pirates of Coney Island. Oh, I like the covers well enough — both those by Vasilis Lolos, and the variants by Becky Cloonan — but I’m particularly taken with Lolos’ interior work. Specifically, his use of color.

The pure cyans and magentas and muted pinks and purples on those covers only hint at what is going on inside. Lolos bathes his pages in color: The opening of Issue 1 — a tense night episode featuring runaway-protagonist Patrick — is drenched in pink and purple, with flashes of yellow and blue occasionally fighting to break through in the form of the flame from a lighter or the color of a character’s hair.

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Deadlines and Thanksgiving planning conspire to prevent me from writing a regular installment of “Comics, Covered.” So I thought, Why not put together a quick-and-easy gallery of Thanksgiving covers?

Easier said than done. It’s neither quick nor particularly easy: The Thanksgiving theme apparently isn’t popular among publishers and creators. (Remind me not to try this again around Easter time.)

I loathe Dennis Mitchell, and I can’t imagine the turkey thinks a lot of him either. I like, though, that the cover artist senses impending bloodshed, as the “Still 10 Cents” banner is frighteningly reminiscent of police tape. Is Dennis using a garrote?
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I’d initially planned to look at the covers of crime comics in this installment, but I abandoned that once I realized DC and Marvel were releasing their February solicitations this week. I’m timely, if nothing else.

One of the things that struck me about DC’s solicitations was the importance given to setting in at least four of the covers: 52 Week 40, Desolation Jones #9, Jack of Fables #8 and Superman Confidential #4.

More often than not, attention is focused on character or action as the protagonist strikes a pose against a blank background, or the hero and villain battle it out in front of a generic cityscape straight out of an Olan Mills studio.

Granted, most readers who pick up a Spider-Man comic probably want to see Spider-Man on the cover, not a moody, but faithfully rendered, depiction of Manhattan. Still, the setting can be key.
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After three fairly lengthy installments, this week’s “Comics, Covered” is a collection of quick-hit items:

Jack of Fables #6-7

The December and January issues of Vertigo’s Jack of Fables bring something rare: a diptych that isn’t part of some elaborate alternate-cover scheme.

The covers, by Eisner Award-winning — and now World Fantasy Award-winning — artist James Jean, are more in keeping with his recent work on Fables than on the spin-off. For the first five issues of Jack of Fables, Jean employed warm, vibrant colors: reds and pinks and golds. But here, for the two-part “Jack Frost” story, he shifts to a cooler, more subdued palette: blues and grays, with spashes of pink — like a sunset reflecting on ice.

I particularly like how Jean, who’s always good at integrating a book’s logo into the cover art, transformed “Jack of Fables” into matching scrolls to bookend the diptych. The vines — beanstalks? — are a nice touch, too.

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One of the highlights of the January solicitations is the first issue of Scalped, the new Vertigo crime drama by Jason Aaron (The Other Side) and R.M. Guéra (Heavy Metal), with covers by one of my favorite artists, Jock.

Best known for his collaboration with writer Andy Diggle on Vertigo’s The Losers, Jock is an Eisner Award-nominated cover artist whose vibrant illustrations have fronted that series, as well as Batman, Nightwing, Catwoman, Detective Comics, Rush City and others.

His upcoming projects include Faker with Mike Carey, and Green Arrow: Year One with Diggle.

Scalped #1 is one of my favorite Jock covers to date. It’s not as dynamic as his work on Rush City, or as “designerly” as some of his work on The Losers. But it exudes attitude and quickly establishes the mood and setting for the story. It’s stunning.

Being a process junkie, I asked Jock to walks us through the creation of the cover, from concept to final product. Here’s what he had to say about Scalped #1:

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I can’t remember where I got the copy of Detective Comics #455, but I was too young in January 1976 to have grabbed it, brand-new, off the spinner rack. It most likely came from a flea market or garage sale several years later, in a carboard box full of similarly well-read and well-worn comics.

All I know for sure is that cover, by Mike Grell, scared the bejeezus out of me. The story — Batman versus a vampire in a creepy old house — was thrilling, but that cover … I had trouble getting to sleep if it were left out in the open. It had to buried in the bottom of a crate, stored safely in a closed closet.

Only then I could turn out the lights.

Some three decades later, I’m not as creeped out by a good, scary cover; in fact, I like them. A lot. And most of the time I can even go to sleep with one of them left out in the open.

So for Halloween, I put together a gallery of 20 great creepy covers. These aren’t necessarily the Best Scary Covers Ever; they’re just unsettling, and well-done. You’ll notice a few prominently feature little kids. That’s because there are few things as unnerving as the soulless stare of a child. (Blame The Omen.)

Tomorrow, I’ll return with the regular weekly installment of “Comics, Covered.” But for today, enjoy these:

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I briefly had a blog dedicated to comic-book cover art and design called, appropriately enough, Comics, Covered. Unfortunately, I had to abandon that to focus on other things. But now I’m bringing it back as a weekly feature at Blog@Newsarama.

How’s that for a brief introduction?

The Man from SHIELD

Shortly before I wandered away from the Comics, Covered blog, I’d intended to write an appreciation of Jim Steranko’s late-’60s Marvel covers, such as The Incredible Hulk King-Size Special #1 and X-Men #50. Mostly, though, I wanted to focus on his brief, but groundbreaking, stint on Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD.

I’d nearly forgotten that plan until last week, when Marvel released its January solicitations. There I saw Greg Horn’s cover for She-Hulk #15, which makes use of the black-and-white psychedelic swirls and op-art elements introduced by Steranko back in September 1968′s Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #4.

It’s easily my favorite Steranko cover and, arguably, his most influential.

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