Judging by Covers

I just discovered that James Jean has excerpts from 5 years worth of sketchbooks online. There are figure drawings, landscapes, fantastic ideas, and bizarre imagery galore, in everything from pencil to pen and ink to paints of various sorts.

Jean is an illustrator whose work always strikes me with it's remarkable design sense and use of color. His compositions are dynamic, even when portraying static or abstract images. Unfortunately, aside from his work in the Project:Superior anthology, he hasn't worked on a lot of books that interest me. He does a lot of superhero covers for DC, which usually doesn't interest me apart from the covers. I've heard some good things about Fables, and might check that out at some point, but at this point I'd have to pick it up in trades, and might not get as much cover art goodnesss in those. I'll flip through one and see next time I'm out shopping.

Also on the topic of incredible illustrators adorning the cover of books that don't necessarily appeal to me: Tara McPherson. She does a lot work on Vertigo genre books, which could be interesting, but I haven't really cheked out. Her work is deceptively simple, with clean lines and usually soft, pastellish colors. I don't know if she's doing any more comic book work int he future, but I hope to see more from her in this medium.