11/2/07

Awesome Cover Friday: The Long Halloween

The Long Halloween is a 13-issue limited series by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale which came out in the late 90s. It's could have been called Batman: Year Two because it followed Batman: Year One chronologically and it involved the origins of most of Batman's rogues' gallery. The covers were different from nearly anything else on the racks at the time and they are all beautiful. By the way, Tim Sale is the guy who paints all of Isaac Mendez's pictures for Heroes.

#6



This cover is a prime example of why I love Tim Sale's work. It's a beautiful combination of art and graphic design. I'm a sucker for limited palettes when they're used well. That combined with the black, empty background really sells this cover.


#4


The composition on this cover is superb. The images of Batman and the Joker didn't hit me until I'd been staring at it for a few seconds. When I saw them I actually got a little chill. Mission accomplished.


#12


Now, this is impressive. DC found a way to make Labor Day scary.


#6


Thanksgiving, on the other hand, needed absolutely no help. It's already the scariest holiday. However, dang! Look at it! That's really creepy!

3 comments:

Yedna said...

These are all beautiful. I totally dig the contrast. Exploring further, I wasn't surprised to find Tim Sale also did the artwork for the Deathblow comics put out by Image in the early 90's. I used to have a large, black, red & white poster of the cover of #9 (nun with sword).

Vaklam said...

Wow, nice stuff. I never read Deathblow but I just checked out the covers and there are some great ones in there. Especially #9, as you said, and #8.

James Meeley said...

I got a skecth from Tim Sale this year at ECCC 2007. What i found most interesting about watching him work, was how much work and detail he puts into an image, to make it look so sparse and minimal.

Tim Sale's style is a misnomer, like jumbo-shrimp. Or, to quote Dolly Parton: "It costs a lot of money to make me look this cheap."

Here's a link to my sketch, in cse anyone wants to check it out: http://qurls.com?i=3597