What Makes a Good Comic Book Cover?

So someone asked for an explanation as to why the two Aquaman covers I posted are better than the "art" that comic snob posted. I thought it was self-evident to anyone that isn't color-blind, but I guess I'm going to have to explain it.

Both images are portraits, like the snob-art, but unlike the snob-art, they show movement. They aren't static, which is a no-no for a good super-hero comic cover. You need either movement or a "moment" after or before movement. Think of the classic Superman cover with him lifting a vehicle... he's moving. The snob-art cover has no movement. It's a dead cover. There's nothing of interest in it at all, except a bunch of people dressed in stupid costumes. You can't tell anything about the people in the picture from the image.

And that's another thing both the Aquaman covers have. Context. You see that it's a person, and he's underwater (the fish are a giveaway, you know). You immediately know something about the contents of the book. There is an immediately mystery raised by the covers which is promised to be answered inside the book.

They both have interesting coloring - whereas snob-art has crappy faux aged coloring that just makes it look terrible. I might be able to handle the ugly and boring figures if they weren't so blandly colored. As it is, the poor coloring was the first bit that jumped out at me, and made me think the snob was joking.

Now, I never said that these Aquaman covers are the "best of the last decade". In fact, both of those particular Aquaman covers fall way down on the list. But both of them are significantly better than the snob-art cover, which is poorly-drawn, to boot. I'm sure that piece of work has its uses, but as a cover to a superhero comic book, it's crap.

But then, comic snob is justifying his choice by saying that superhero comics are dead, and therfore it's subtle and post-iconic. We don't even have a piece of common ground to work from if he's so blind to the realities of comics to believe that. So explaining my choices seems a little pointless, doesn't it?

Just for giggles, here's two more covers that I think are significantly better, as superhero covers, than the snob-art cover. I think these are also a bit better than the first two I posted. The Batman cover is by Brian Bolland, who is one of the best in the business. The Aquaman cover is by Tony Harris, and is a slightly different look than you might expect. Pay particular attention to the settings in each cover. They both tell a story. Heck, the Harris cover might even be considered subtle and post-iconic.