Thursday, August 03, 2006

Detective Comics + Simone Bianchi = Hot, Hot Covers

I am so, so into the Simone Bianchi covers on the current run of Detective Comics.

I don't even care that we have gratuitous female nudity all over this last cover. Poison Ivy just makes more sense as a naked lady. And this cover is kind of hilarious anyway. You can see Batman wrestling with the situation. I like that Poison Ivy is always in control of the situation. It's hot. (Of course, she always inevitably loses control of the situation by the end of every story, but still).

The only weird thing about Bianchi's art is that the characters tend to look a little underfed. The ribs stick out like crazy. I mean, your clothes have to be seriously tight to define your ribs that much. And I know that, as far as clothing goes, superhero costumes are very tight. Still, though...look at Robin in this next one:


I really love that cover though. Even though the Dynamic Duo look more like they are doing interpretive dance than fighting crime. Batman is sort of...prancing. And Robin is...surfing?

You know what I really love about these drawings? Batman's utility belt. It's really well defined and realistic. Each compartment is a different size and shape. It's not just a yellow bar divided into little squares that somehow hold batarangs.

On the re-issues they've been adding some spot colour. That looks pretty nice too:

Oooooo...intense.

Thumbs up, Simone.

A friend of mine said the other day that right now is a great time to be alive because the best artists and writers are working on the Batman titles. It's so true. And that is why I can still get out of bed in the morning.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that Bianchi is one talented cat. He did a series of really awesome Green Lantern covers (and interiors on one issue). He just got snapped up by Marvel to do a run of Wolverine with Jeph Loeb starting with #50. Good for him, but I wish DC coulda hung on to him a bit longer. I met him at San Diego last year, and he was a really cool guy, too--very excitable, very enthusiastic, very Italian. Seriously, he kinda talked like Super Mario!

-dave

rachelle said...

Dave, I hate to break this to you, but Super Mario doesn't talk.

I saw those Green Lantern covers. They were sweet. I see he's selling one of them on his site for $6,000 or something.

I don't like Marvel, but I do like Jeph Loeb and Wolverine. So this could be good. You can add that to my account when it starts.