Covers

[Charles RB]

You might have something in the theory that the move to comic stores has changed covers and what they're designed to do. I know covers for 2000AD and its sister titles - primarily sold at British newsagents - do tend to look a lot different to most of the American comics I get. For a start, the hysterical cover text is still there, and there seem to be less Characters Standing Looking Moody covers (not that they don't do those too).

For example, you have John Burn's wonderfully lurid M.A.C.H. One cover (http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/reprints/hires/extreme6.jpg)for the Extreme Editions, all explosions and pulpy action and skeleton Nazis, Henry Flint's psychadelic Greysuit (http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/hires/1544.jpg), and Or Simon Davis' kinetic "Prison Break!" one (http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/hires/1531.jpg). Even the ones that are more poster-like, I can't think offhand of a mainstream US title doing something like the "Kilt In Action!" (http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/hires/1540.jpg), or a character pin-up cover like the recent Blackblood one toasting the reader whilst simultaneously executing a defeated enemy. (http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/hires/1551.jpg)

The comic shop factor does seem to have left a mark. But I remember it not being that many years ago when US comics were more like that - in fact, if I remember correctly it was Quesceda and Jemas' Marvel that really started to move away from the cover text towards the more pin-up style covers (and I remember the grumbling about the covers being so generic on the Ultimate line). It looks like they were trying to make the comics look more respectible on some level.

Though as you say, that could be far too much of a bar to new readers (especially for smaller companies). The latest issue of Thunderbolts I have (#115) just shows the heads of the characters and very few of them are probably recognisable to the masses - and they're not doing anything except being heads. With the Blackblood cover, a new reader won't know who the guy is but they do know he's a nasty guy, he's fighting guys called the ABC Warriors, and there's two new stories inside to jump in on. Offhand, that seems like a more attractive cover to new readers.

[badMike]

Those are some nice covers!

[Charles RB]

Last week's showed the portal-opening corpse from the Stone Island strip, which is one of my favourites just for the cover text "ABRA CADAVER!".

Why don't Marvel and DC seem to use cover text as much these days? They're so fun.

[bartl]

I have been wondering what happened to comic book covers. As one who DOES actually go into comic book shops and look at what they have to sell (and usually ends up buying absolutely nothing), I find it annoying to look at comic book covers, and not to have a clue as to what is going on in between them.

Of course, I also used to find it annoying in the late 60's when Action Comics typically had multi-parters, and the scene on the cover would match the last panel of the current segment.

[NatGertler]

You miss one of the major reasons for the pin-up cover. For years, Marvel editors were specifically telling their cover artists to do pin-up covers., because they wanted to build a library of art they could reuse for other purposes.
(Pin-up covers can also be started far in advance to be ready for solicitations even if the writer hasn't yet worked out what the story will be.)

But yeah, for years the central message of a Spider-Man cover was that Spider-Man was in this comic, and this always seemed to give little reason to buy this comic over any other Spider-Man comic... or over rereading the ones you already have.

Which isn't to say that an occasional pin-up can't be a good thing, a change of pace, perhaps catch the eye. I thought that the idea of the big head covers that DC was doing for a while was a good one, because they'd cut through the noise on the comics rack... except they did them all at once, and thus became the noise on the rack this month. Had they done one title a week for a year, they would've stood out better... and they might have gotten people to collect the big-head covers, and thus try the titles they weren't already reading.

We seem to finally be seeing some return of word balloon and text to big-two covers, mainly DC.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I have been wondering what happened to comic book covers. As one who DOES actually go into comic book shops and look at what they have to sell (and usually ends up buying absolutely nothing), I find it annoying to look at comic book covers, and not to have a clue as to what is going on in between them.


I hears ya!

I'm a trade guy, so I normally at least have the back text to look at (and the singles readers buzz to go by), but when I walk past the monthlies section, my eyes just glaze over looking at them all.
Nothing really stands out at all.

[Steven Grant]

in fact, if I remember correctly it was Quesceda and Jemas' Marvel that really started to move away from the cover text towards the more pin-up style covers (and I remember the grumbling about the covers being so generic on the Ultimate line). It looks like they were trying to make the comics look more respectible on some level.

It didn't really start with them. These things pop up occasionally, companies enforcing policies on their covers like no dialog balloons, negative space "frames" around the pictures, etc. Various things are supposed to make the comics look more "sophisticated," but no one quite gets it's hard to look all that sophisticated when the cover characters are all dressed in odd costumes...

- Grant