Comic Book Cover Art Database

October 19, 2006 3:29 PM

The Grand Comics Databaseis aiming to become the IMDB of comic books cover art. I only tested a couple from memory, but they seem to have a pretty deep reservoir of content, and fairly large scans of the results. Searchable by series title, character appearance, writer, illustrator and a number of other criteria.
posted by jonson (21 comments total)

Dave McKean's Sandman work remains my favorite over the course of a whole series.
posted by jonson at 3:30 PM on October 19, 2006

Rad.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:43 PM on October 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

If the content you're presenting is cover art, then 1" x 1.5" representations sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
posted by crunchland at 3:46 PM on October 19, 2006

Also, apparently this thing has been around forever, so, apologies to everyone who already saw it. I'm a noob.
posted by jonson at 3:47 PM on October 19, 2006

Zoomable, crunchie!
posted by jonson at 3:47 PM on October 19, 2006

I used to have these

/sigh

Also of note, they have lots of Beano, but no Jackpot or Whizzer and Chips. Boo!
posted by Sparx at 3:49 PM on October 19, 2006

Ah. Clicking on the "cover gallery" link at the bottom of the page gets you zoomable images. Ok. Not the most intuitive interface, but it's redeemed a bit.
posted by crunchland at 3:56 PM on October 19, 2006

Very cool. The navigation could use some help, but the content is great.
posted by brain_drain at 3:59 PM on October 19, 2006

You've just reminded me how much I loved Bill Sienkiewicz' work (-1- -2- -3-).

I am so very sad that I sold my copies of The New Mutants #1-48 back when I needed money (all of them, plus about 50 other comics for $50CAD).

I've recently just subscribed to New X-Men in hopes of rekindling the enjoyment I had with The New Mutants and it's just not the same...not in the "you can't go home again" way, but in the too-many-ads-not-enough-panels-way-too-glitzy way. I don't think I'll renew the subscription.

What I really want now is the near-newsprint paper and a focus more on the storyline than on making the art look as computer-created as possible, while giving me a good 1/2 hour of enjoyment for my money each month. I don't think I'm going to get that from Marvel or DC (or probably the other larger publishers) these days.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:12 PM on October 19, 2006

whoa...thanks
posted by es_de_bah at 4:45 PM on October 19, 2006

It'd be nice if you could search for two characters on the same cover. I was looking for an issue of one of the Spider-Man comics that I knew had Juggernaut on the cover, and it returns no results for 'spider-man juggernaut', so I had to search for just 'juggernaut' and then text-search for 'spider-man' in the results, and check each cover individually.

Er. I did eventually find the comic I was looking for, but it took, like, almost two whole minutes that way.
posted by notmydesk at 4:47 PM on October 19, 2006

This reminds me, I need to find a TPB copy of Moonshadow again. I have no idea where mine went.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:50 PM on October 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

Crazy. I was going to do a comic book covers post tonight, but since jonson beat me to the punch, I guess I'll just add this here in the comments: Cover Browser. Fewer titles, but much larger images, plus some mags like Heavy Metal and Mad.
posted by Gamblor at 4:52 PM on October 19, 2006

(gamblor : psssst.)
posted by crunchland at 4:54 PM on October 19, 2006

D'oh! Oh well, I would have found that when I tried to post, I hope.
posted by Gamblor at 5:02 PM on October 19, 2006

Good lord, it's even got Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen! Despite being from 15 years from before I was born I somehow ended up with one of those issues when I was 7...
posted by kaemaril at 6:20 PM on October 19, 2006

Kickstart70
try powers / y the last man / ex machina writer J Michael Straczynski is usually pretty good, also, the walking dead is pretty awesome just to name a few, you're better off without the mainstream fair.
posted by andywolf at 6:53 PM on October 19, 2006

Kirby.
posted by jpburns at 6:57 PM on October 19, 2006

I find the lack of Bunty disturbing. Actually, there's isn't much in the way of British girl's comics there at all. I'd submit my own scans, but my mother threw out all my copies years ago (and since it was* weekly there were a lot of copies. I think I went through two of those full sized rubbermaid containers).



* Imagine my sadness when I discovered last week that they had quietly folded five years ago, though I had suspected as much. When I first moved to the US my grandmother would mail me a copy every week. At least I still have the annuals. It's a shame, that there aren't any similar publications available for young girls out there today, besides the translated manga in Shoujo Beat I suppose. However, perhaps the popularity of manga amongst young girls will lead to a rebirth of these types of comics drawn and written by the same girls who are reading shoujo today. At least, I hope so.

/derail
posted by kosher_jenny at 7:26 PM on October 19, 2006

try powers / y the last man / ex machina writer J Michael Straczynski is usually pretty good


?

Brian K. Vaughn writes Ex Machina and Y the Last Man. Brian Bendis writes Powers.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:18 PM on October 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

*sigh*
If only we were allowed to change our login names.
posted by hydrophonic at 6:26 AM on October 20, 2006