Aug 04 2010
I'm a former assistant editor with advice about how to write novels, comic books and graphic novels. Most of my content applies to fiction-writing in general, but I also provide articles specifically about superhero stories.
As if the nipples on the Batsuit weren’t bad enough. To be fair, though, it was the 1950s (Detective Comics #241).
Aug 01 2010
1. Use a style appropriate to your series. Ideally the title identifies something about the series even before the viewer reads the title.
DISTINCTIVE:
TOO BLAND:
Jun 09 2010
1. Market what you have. The genre should be clear at a glance and the artistic should be consistent with the mood and content. For example, if the story is a grim and macabre horror, you’d probably want something that suggested what danger(s) the protagonist will face. Some possibilities that come to mind include a creepy mansion looming in the background, fog obscuring something sinister behind somebody, some supernatural creature, etc.
2. It needs to stand out at a distance of 10+ feet. The single most important audience segment for most comic book covers is prospective readers browsing through a comic book store. Before they examine the product, you have to grab their attention. Bold color combinations are one effective way to do so. I find that scenes involving motion (particularly extraordinary motion, such as a Batman karate leap) tend to be more eye-catching. Obviously, it helps if something interesting and/or unexpected is happening. More on that here. Finally, the title/logo should be legible across the room (at least 10 feet).
Feb 18 2010
Jan 04 2010
Characters doing a usual activity in a way or setting that is unexpected.
Jul 15 2009
Joe Jusko did his best with a rather strange comic book cover. Please describe what you think is happening in the issue. Take as much space as you need.
Jun 24 2009
In visual media, motion usually makes a scene more interesting. It’s particularly important in a cover because you have to catch the reader’s eye.
For example, let’s say we have two covers that use the world as a soccer ball. (The issue’s title is Americans Don’t Play Soccer, and the issue is about Darfurian genocide and other things very far removed from the typical American’s life. For ideological balance, we might add a thinly veiled Obama vis-a-vis the Iranian democracy movement).
Cover #1: On a soccer field, the villain is standing next to a globe. In the background, the hero is the only thing between him and the net. The villain’s pose would probably look lifeless, like these.
Cover #2: On a soccer field, the villain is doing an insane flip as he punts the world at the hero. The cover would probably look a lot more energetic and stylish. This is particularly important because the cover will probably show the villain from the back. It’s quite hard to strike an immobile pose from behind.
It would probably also help if the hero/goalie had some action. Bracing himself for impact is a little bit banal, so I’d like something that’s striking and makes it clear that this comic isn’t really about soccer. So let’s say the hero is bracing himself behind a transparent SWAT shield.
Apr 02 2009
(Picture taken courtesy of The Baltimore Sun; you can read their review here).
This novel has been published by Harper-Collins, so I’m sort of surprised by how unappealing the cover is. It looks like it’s been slapped together for a self-published novel. There’s a typo on the cover. (“a terrific send-up not only superheroes in general” is missing the word “of”).
What do you think? What worked and what didn’t? What would you have changed?
UPDATE: The author of this book has contacted us, saying that the cover is an “uncorrected draft.” Erm, the book has been out for two months. Isn’t it well past time to correct it? Moreover, what were the circumstances that led a publisher to rush out a book that didn’t have a good cover ready?
Mar 16 2009
Feb 17 2009
When we last left off, we were working on a cover for the first issue of Superhero Nation.
Feb 14 2009
Jan 15 2009
Let’s see. Right now I’m working on the cover of our first issue and a series logo.
Oct 11 2008
War Heroes held a contest where fans could pick the cover they’d end up using. Many of the submissions were quite good.
Oct 03 2008
On art-sites like DeviantArt, if you do searches for things like “superhero” or “book cover,” more than 90% of the results will be utter garbage or half-past-strange. If you think that searching for visual references shouldn’t feel like a creepy waste of time, you might like our new DeviantArt wall of favorites. You can use that to check out hundreds of visuals we’ve found impressive. We have separate folders for superhero stuff, fantasy and sci-fi, depending on what you need your visual for.
You can also see some of the artwork we’ve had commissioned for our novel and webcomic.
Oct 02 2008
This trailer sells an unusual premise effectively. It also makes a skillful pitch to its target audience with reviews that specifically say that geeks will enjoy the book. I found its comparisons to other works of geek-culture helpful. However, I thought that its emotional cues were a bit mixed. The book-cover makes this look like a light-hearted comedy, but but the only clear emotional image in the trailer is her sobbing as mushroom clouds loom in the background. There isn’t very much in the trailer that suggests the book is actually funny, or what kind of humor it uses. For example, if this is a dark comedy about the protagonist and her failure friend trying to survive, it might have helped to show us a glimpse of the comedic relationship between the two characters.
The cover-art was very eye-catching, even though it rips off a famous scene from Dr. Strangelove. My main question is that she appears to have wings on the cover, but the trailer doesn’t mention that strange detail at all. (My guess is that it’s a nuclear mutation).
Sep 24 2008
Thinking about what to put on your novel’s cover? Jacob grades six covers.
Nov 25 2007
I’ll recap some of my past observations about cover art.
Future experimentation on reader reaction to the header art
I can’t access my art materials right now, but I will remove Catastrophe from the header for a month or so.
Here are a few reasons I suspect that will be productive.
After a month, I think I’ll be able to draw some assessments about how Catastrophe contributed to the header art.
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