Welcome one and all to the most useless feature on this site, a little bi-weekly show called"Covers I Love/Covers I Hate." For those who do not know what it is I doing in this feature, it is basically a feature where I grab several random covers of comic books and manga, whether they be new releases or back issues, and I critique the quality (or lack of quality) of the covers. Recently I was looking at my manga collection, and I noticed a ton of covers that featured only one character from the series on the covers, yet all the covers had various different effects with their "pose cover" as I'm going to be calling it. While many people don't look at pose covers as being anything special (as most people would rather see some action on the cover), pose covers can reflect various different emotions too, and those emotions are worth studying. So without further ado, the covers:

The Good

"Planets"

Now this is a great cover. The picture on this cover is so good, if it was a painting it would be hanging in a famous musiem somewhere. The cover features nothing else then a lone woman floating around in space. The picture is simple but the emotions are not. The Earth below her represents how far one can dream if they want to, and the endless floating represents all the possabilities that you still can have when you go higher then anyone else can go. The look on the woman's face is that of sheer determination, the look that says she has accomplished her goal, and now she must conquer her next one. A wonderful cover, the kind of cover a series would be honored to have.

The Okay

"Please Save My Earth"

This is an interesting cover for the reason that this cover doesn't tell a story, it's honestly not much to look at, but it's effective because it's creepy. The shades of purple are extremely effective, the facial expression just shoots right through you, and the chalky background sets the tone for this cover perfectly. It may not be much to speak of, but what you see is definetly effective.

The Bad

"Doubt!!"

You've got to be kidding me. If I were going to make a "pose cover" I certainly wouldn't make it like THIS! The random colors don't mix well, the girls pose is extremely ugly, I'm not sure why the series title is tattoed on her butt, and that facial expressions tell us nothing about the series. A pretty bad cover all around

The Ugly

"From Eroica With Love"

I don't know what it is with CMX, but they constantly produce the worst covers on the market. Considering CMX is a subdivision of DC Comics, who DOES make cool American covers, I'm not sure why their manga covers look so poor! This one is no exception. I mean, I know it has some decent coloring, a sexy pose by the Earl, and a background. But regardless of all this, the cover is just boring to look at. I'm sorry, I know that's being very vague, but just look at it. There is just nothing appealing about that cover at all, and it gives you no clue as to what is inside the book itself. This cover actually makes the series look pretty dopey, and that just shouldn't happen.

And that is all we have this time around for our show. Did you like this episode or did you hate it? Let me know through e-mail, and I'll see you again in two weeks for our next show. Chow!

- -Kevin T. Rodriguez- -