2003, the cover-up: At The Fourth Rail, Randy Lander runs down his favorite comics covers of the year. I'd considered doing something like this, but Randy beat me to it. Eh, just as well.

Many of his choices would've been mine; covers that don't necessarily showcase breathtaking comics-style pencils (although many of them do), but instead demonstrate a great sense of design. That's one of the things I've happily noticed in the past year or so: The rise of graphic design in comics covers. We'd begun to see it in the late '80s and even into the early '90s, but it had disappeared for most of the past decade.

Thankfully, though, a good sense of graphic design is back and flourishing in the cover work of Jock ("The Losers"), Dustin Nguyen and Rian Hughes ("Wildcats"), J.G. Jones ("Y: The Last Man"), Michael Avon Oeming ("Powers"), Cameron Stewart ("Catwoman"), Darwyn Cooke ("Catwoman," "Bad Girls"), Andi Watson ("Love Fights"), Dave Johnson ("100 Bullets," "Batman"), Tony Harris and Tom Feister ("The Legion"), Steve Griffen ("Hawaiian Dick"), James Jean ("Fables," "Batgirl") and others.