With yesterday's announcement of Mike Mignola re-drawing the cover to "Detective Comics" #138, I've been thinking a lot about Covered, a blog devoted to artists doing "cover versions" of their favorite comics covers. It's a simple idea that's lent itself to some truly awesome works, and if you haven't been checking it out, you really ought to be.

But in the meantime, I spent a good part of today going through the archives to pick out ten of the best "Covered" comics!


"Action Philosophers" and "MODOK: Reign Delay" artist Ryan Dunlavey's version of Marvel's "GI Joe" #1 is probably my absolute favorite piece on the site, if only because it is exactly what every kid saw when that issue first hit stands: People just flipping the hell out and blowing stuff up with guns and flamethrowers. F--ing awesome indeed.

I'm actually surprised that "Uncanny" #141, one of the most homaged covers in comics, hasn't shown up on Covered more often. Then again, maybe it's because of all the homages that artists haven't jumped at like they have with others. In either case, Paul Shinn's version and the poster of dead X-Men in the background is absolutely fantastic.


Forget about the lolcat-esque sign, the real gem here is Robert Goodin's take on Yogi himself, which is about as hilarious as a bear in a necktie and porkpie hat could possibly be. Throw in the ranger's suspicious, narrowed eyes, and you've got a winner.


Along the same lines, Goodin is one of the few artists to tackle the realistic logistics of putting a duck into a sailor shirt. Pants, however, remain theoretical at best.


One of the more popular comics on the site for cover versions is "Avengers" #221, but my favorite is Jon Adams' take, which recasts it as an Official Survey, complete with fine print.


Kerry Callen's take on Tigra and Kraven isn't just drawn well, it's a very clever use of what you can do on the Internet that you can't do on the comics page that also give sa nice sense of motion to Tigra "falling" when her trapeze has been cut.


The original version of "Amazing Spider-Man" #121 is striking, but there's no getting around the fact that Spider-Man swinging towards a giant yellow wall decked out in portraits of his supporting cast is a little weird when you actually think about it. Just one of the reasons to love Murray's version: Spider-Man casually strolling through an art gallery on his way to fight the Green Goblin.


Amazing what a difference a subtitle makes.


One of the tricks to the trade on covered is to tweak the angle of the shot a little to show what else is going on that the original didn't capture, and that's put to hilarious effect here, where the Fighting Yank's battle with a shark is met with a stern disapproving father and his sobbing son.


As if the original wide-eyed stare of the Wonder Dog wasn't surreal enough, ComicsAlliance's own Rusty Shackles isolaed him from his background and inadvertently creates the perfect hipster t-shirt.

Those are just a few of my favorites, but there are plenty others to check out, like these retro-minimalist takes on the New Mutants and Green Lantern, and more being added all the time. Poke through the gallery yourself, and see how awesome they are.

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