Thumbnail: The Distillation of Ideas in Mike Del Mundo Covers
Comics covers are strange beasts. While comics themselves are sequential art --- pictures arranged in just the right order to tell a story or convey an emotion --- covers freeze that process into a single static image. But Mike Del Mundo's work at Marvel shows that they can be much more than pretty pictures.
You don't need me to tell you that Del Mundo's covers are gorgeous. He's an incredible draftsman with an even stronger sense of design. Covers let him push the latter talent to the fore, dancing through various styles, from stark two-color minimalism to detailed paintings, via pastiches of Escher and Art Deco posters, all depending on what suits this issue best.