Sunday 9 December 2012

IDW Covers: Cerebus Attacks...

Mars Attacks: Zombies vs Robots #1  (IDW, January 2013)
Unused 'full-colour' variant cover by Dave Sim
DAVE SIM:
This was the first cover for IDW that I did. Ted Adams (IDW CEO) sent me a fax about their top secret January project with all of these guest artists doing MARS ATTACKS covers. Would I do "Mars Attacks Cerebus"? The selling point in this case was the chance to do my best Graham Ingels / Berni Wrightson ink style. Also, I was in the middle of the HARDtalk Virtual Tour at The Comics Journal's website and being called every name under the sun but "white man". So, it was like, hmm. Maybe instead of MARS ATTACKS CEREBUS -- why not CEREBUS ATTACKS... but, like being Dave Sim, he doesn't even get to SAY what he's attacking. As soon as he says "CEREBUS..." the automatic reaction is to just blow his head off. I got them to colour it glamourpuss cover style -- just a background colour so it doesn't interfere with the linework. And then they also did a full colour version. I actually prefer the full-colour version. Whoever the colourist was stayed within a narrow colour spectrum that wouldn't kill the fine lines. I forgot to mention my preference to Chris Ryall, the editor in chief, until just the other day. So I hope I was in time. It makes a nice companion piece to the Cerebus and glamourpuss Zombie covers that I did. CAN I actually ink that fine and still have it reproduce?

CHRIS RYALL (IDW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF):
Sadly, we all thought Dave would want the cover the way he described it, and had to approve the book sooner than later, so the final printed version is the one with more minimal color.

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