Cover of the Week 10/9 – Hawkeye #20 by David Aja

I cannot tell you how pleased I am to be writing about David Aja once again. I feel similarly to him as I do to Clint Barton: dearly missed in abstentia. This comic has moved so slowly for so long that I have almost forgotten how much I adored it, until I see fragments of Aja’s work and then reminisce fondly followed by slow weeping. I completely understand time and story pressures and there is genuinely no negativity in my thoughts, there is only love and a regretful anticipation of the end of all the romance. This cover is breathtakingly brilliant in so many ways and Aja has such a deep appreciation for style, modern art, colouring and composition. He has taken his hexagonal motif and combined it with the target symbols and produced one of his best collages. It is a seamless piece as we move from palm trees coloured in red, orange and white accentuating the locale, to friends coloured more so to merge than to distinguish, to villains captured in a deep red to Kate, our hero peering through it all. There are some beautiful black highlights emphasising each character, such as Harold’s tie and the gun of Madame Masque. Kate’s eyes are poignantly coloured to bring out her inquisitive but fearless attitude. The way she peers over her sunglasses, which reflect the palm trees around her, is so aesthetically sumptuous. All the while we see references to Hawkeye throughout and the ominous dripping of coloured paint from the targets themselves, intimating an element of danger to the scene. The sheer amount of information of the central picture is contrasted by the while spaces left purposefully around the page. Aja’s sense of composition is incredible because the areas devoid of colour merge with the complete page so it feels as one whole piece of art. The iconic font and subtle hints at archery of the main title fit perfectly as the story now enters its final phases. I do hope that David Aja sells these covers as prints because they would make fantastic pieces of wall art, but for now I am happy to admire it from its space upon my coffee table.