V for…well…V, I guess – V, The Comic Book Series

The new V show puts me to sleep faster than a tranquilizer dart.  The original mini-series,  however, with its creepy aliens, decent special effects (for its time), and fascist iconography, was a pretty enjoyable ride.  And this little scene freaked me out all those years ago (sorry for the low quality):

A lot of people forget that there was a comic book series that went along with the show — it turns out that V for Vendetta didn’t have a monopoly on the letter.  Several of the issues featured art from the great Carmine Infantino, but when I picked up the whole series about a year ago what most struck me most about the entire endeavor was the high-quality design of some of the covers.  Here’s the cream of the crop (I’ll put the artist’s name in parentheses)…

Issue #1 laid the groundwork, and the “V” title would always be incorporated into the cover image from there on (Eduardo Barreto):

#4 had the human resistance fighters bursting out of a stark black background (Barreto):

The reptilian thumbs down with the hovering ships and burning city was a nice combo for #5 (Denys Cowan):

I like how the “V” is laid flat on the ground and off-kilter for #11 (Jerry Bingham):

#14 had a nice three-dimensionality about it — sort of a response to #4’s resistance cover (Bingham):

And, finally, #16 makes us question where our loyalties should lie (Bingham):

The series only lasted 18 issues, but I think that the excellence of these covers makes up for the brevity of the run. To celebrate their quality, maybe I’ll unhook my jaw and swallow a rodent. Or maybe I’ll just grab a beer.  Yeah, I think I’ll go with the latter.