THE EPIPHANY: MIKE MIGNOLA X-MEN CLASSIC COVERS

 DAY 1 OF 7

It was this series of covers for Classic X-MEN in the early 90's

that sold me on the wonders of Mike Mignola.

This series of covers published over a 14 month period reflect an artist on the edge of brilliance.

He had been working for Eclipse and Marvel for a time and while his work had been interesting it

hadn't in my mind been inspiring -

until the slow roll out of these sublime images.

In my opinion the maturing and honing of his artistic abilities occur

upon these wonderful covers.

As the months pass the compositions become bolder, tighter and more focused.

The mastering of Chiaroscuro, so evident in his later works, initially appears timidly but later 

in these series of covers the shadows fall heavy as the light illuminates these most

Gothic of X-MEN images.

      

It seems ever so fitting that we start with a Fairy Tale.

Actually it most be noted that the fantastic inks upon this cover series where administered by

the wonderful P Craig Russell no stranger to the odd Fairy Tale himself.

Two years after this cover series the Mignola/PCR combination worked wonders on Howard Chaykin's  Steam Punk drenched 'IronWolf : Fires of the Revolution' original graphic novel for DC.