12 Days of Best Covers of 2013: Day #10

The tenth pick for the “12 Days of Best Covers of 2013″ list is the cover for Wesley Chu’s The Deaths of Tao, the sequel to his 2013 debut from Angry Robot Books, The Lives of Tao by Argh! Oxford. The Lives of Tao is one of the best debut books I’ve read this year, largely because how approachable and… normal its protagonist, Roen Tan, is. The Deaths of Tao lives up to the promise of its predecessor and its a book that’s an adventure from start to finish and I couldn’t get enough of it. The launch of The Lives of Tao was so successful that Angry Robot pushed the release of the sequel up several months and The Deaths of Tao was released quite recently. Which is pretty frikkin’ great actually. I’m hoping that the third novel is release soon as well.

The tenth comic cover that I pick is Marc Silvestri and Sunny Gho’s jaw-dropping cover for Ron Marz and Laura Braga’s Witchblade #170, which sees Ron Marz return to the series after a long hiatus and newcomer Laura Braga join in as the artist. I’ve read a fair few Witchblade comics prior to this and I have to say that Witchblade #170 is definitely among the best by quite a margin. Now that I’m following this series regularly, I’m very excited where things are going, especially given how Witchblade #171 ended. Can’t wait for Witchblade #172, which will be coming in about 4 weeks or so. Long wait.

Without further ado, hit the break to see both the covers in all their glory! The full list of all these covers is available here.

*****

The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu

Cover by Argh! Oxford

Why: This is the same style of cover as that for The Lives of Tao but I prefer this one more because of the black background for the key design element of the cover. It really brings out all those characters, all those lives that the alien Tao who now resides in Roen’s body has lived over its thousands of years of existence. And a lot of these lives have been quite sophisticated and are from the recent thousands of years of Mankind’s biological and cultural development, so that’s a nice tough too.

Helpful links:

• Review: The Lives of Tao
• Guest Post: On Names
• Cover Art: The Lives of Tao

Witchblade #170 by Ron Marz and Laura Braga

Cover by Marc Silvestri and Sunny Gho

Why: This cover is supposed to be a “remake” of some Wolverine cover from a few years ago, but that’s pretty irrelevant to me. This cover astutely reflects Ron Marz’s ongoing storyline right now and its a perfect fit for this issue in all sorts of different ways, both as a direct reference and as a… herald of what’s to come for Sara Pezzini and the Witchblade. I love it. The entire composition is pretty kickass.

Helpful links:

• Review: Witchblade #170
• Review: Witchblade #171