Marvel gives each NBA team a comic book cover

For the NBA season this year, Marvel and ESPN teams up to give each NBA team their own comic book style cover. Basketball fans will enjoy seeing their sports idols depicted as super heroes (which they are, I suppose, in a way), but what about the comic book fans who aren't that into basketball?

They still may want to take a look, as these covers --- a total of thirty for the two conferences (15 for the Eastern conference, 15 for the Western conference) --- were created by well known comic book artists including J. Scott Campbell, Olivier Coipel, Terry Dodson, Leinil Francis Yu, John Romita Sr., Kaare Andrews, and Marvel Editor-In-Chief, Joe Quesada.

I'm especially excited for two names: J. Scott Campbell, who made the awesome and sexy Fairy Tale Fantasies; and Leinil Francis Yu, a Filipino comic book artist who has been with Marvel for quite some time now.

It's interesting to look at the covers, and figuring out the story behind it. Some are similar to previous comic covers (like the one with LeBron mocking a 1967 Spiderman cover) or an artist's take on the teams they're illustrating.

Here's a few of covers. The rest can be found at the ESPN site. You can also look at the sketches gallery. All images belong to Marvel, NBA and their respective artists.

I protest!

A news article at the Philippine Daily Inquirer about Carlo J. Caparas now a National Artist for Visual Art and Film sparked comments from the Filipino blog community. Not surprisingly, these comments were in protest of the win.

I don't really have much to say about this, except that I'm against it and will stand behind those who protest it. I believe that there are far more worthy artists out there who deserve the title. Here are a few blog entries that also air the same sentiments. I will edit this to add more later.

Gerry Alanguilan "A Questionable Victory"
- Gerry has long aired his views about the praised heaped upon Carlo J. and fought for the recognition of the artists who worked on the komiks that Caparas produced. His blog entry lists several good reasons why the win isn't just, and if you care to browse back in his archives, you'll find his other related posts.

The Marocharim Experiment "In protest of Caparas as a National Artist"

The worst part about this is that the masses don't and won't care because the bottomline is they get entertained.