Comicon’s 5 Best Cover Artists Of 2021

Welcome to Comicon.com’s Best of the Year Awards, gathering the best comics and comics talent of the strange year that was 2021. This year we will be awarding in the following categories: Best Original Graphic Novels, Best Comic Series, Best Single Comic Issues, Best Writers, Best Artists, Best Cover Artists, Best Colorists, Best Letterers, Best Digital/Webcomics, and Most Progressive Comics.

Contributors to Comicon’s Best of the Year Awards this year include: Oliver MacNamee, Brendan M. Allen, Rachel Bellwoar, Scott Redmond, Benjamin Hall, Tito James, Tony Thornley, and Richard Bruton.

The following are Comicon’s 5 Best Cover Artists of 2021.

5. Peach Momoko

If you read any comics this year, it’s highly likely at some point you either purchased or caught a glimpse of a Peach Momoko cover. Beautiful would be the exact word to perfectly describe any of the art that Momoko creates. Stunning would be another good one. It can seem almost unearthly and airy at one moment and then heavy and dark the next all while maintaining the overall style. Watching how she takes characters that are known and beloved and can bring a whole new look or energy to them never ever gets old. There is a reason that Marvel included her amongst the rising artists that they called the Stormbreakers.

— Scott Redmond

4. Bruno Redondo

Covers done by the artists that also do the interior art work is always a lot of fun, because sometimes it gives you a glimpse of their amazing artwork before you even open the pages. Redondo has been doing absolutely amazing work this year (and in the past) and the covers are no exception to that. Each and every cover for Nightwing is distinctive and gorgeous, but also tells its own story outside of the book’s contents. Through the ten issues, and one trade, the covers mix wonderfully between those that are closer to a pin up style and those that are a miniature story (see the cover to #83 for a neat mini-story before the story). Solicits have already shown us that we’re in for quite a beautiful ride cover-wise with Redondo in 2022 as well.

— Scott Redmond

3. Dan Mora

There is such a distinctive level of detail and energy that comes off of Dan Mora’s work that most would be able to identify it right away. No matter what book or colorist, the covers that Mora provides are memorable and stand out on the stands. A good cover tells a little story, one that is similar to what one will find within the book but at the same time it’s own thing. These are the types of covers that you want to just pin to the wall right away as posters, because they are dynamic and, in some cases, already iconic.

— Scott Redmond

2. Joëlle Jones

A cover by Joëlle Jones stands out from a crowded shelf not only due to her distinctive, bold style but in her incorporation of art nouveau convention in much of her output. Incorporating such strong stylistic choices into her composition has helped create some of the most exquisite covers of the past year for titles such as Catwoman, Wonder Girl and more.

— Olly MacNamee

1. Sophie Campbell

Campbell’s love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is clear within the pages as both the writer and sometimes artist, but that love is also plastered on the front of several the issues’ covers. There is a very distinct dramatic flair in these covers, giving us a glimpse into the world in a different way than the art within. This year, those covers came with the emotionally charge introspective time travel/fix-the-future arc to kick off the year, and the covers matched this tone perfectly. They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but if you did judge that these books were awesome because of the covers, you would not be wrong.

— Scott Redmond