Section 9:  Comic Covers

In just a short period of time, Jean became very well known for his cover work and sought after to work for both DC and Marvel Comics. He said he has a simple goal in mind when he's crafting a cover image. "I want the covers to tell a story and be interesting in a visual and emotional sense," Jean stated. (vi)

"The challenge is always to find an interesting solution to the assignment in the development of composition and color," he continued. "I’m very lucky in that I literally get a clean slate every month with the covers for Green Arrow and Fables to experiment with composition and color. I’m thankful for the freedom that Shelly Bond and Michael Wright have given me at DC." (vi)

Your cover art duties continues to grow, what sort of time frame do you have for your cover pieces, from beginning to end? Is there a certain number that you can handle each month that you try not to exceed? (v)

Ideally, I like to work on a cover for a week, but some of that time actually consists of taking a break from looking at the piece and coming back to it later on with fresh eyes. I've gotten a lot faster over the years, and thankfully the work hasn't suffered from a lack of time.

The Fables covers look much more like your personal work than the Batgirl covers do. Consequently, both projects are from the same publisher, but they differ in art style. What are the differences and why? And how much creative freedom was allowed in each title? (i)

FABLES is under the Vertigo imprint, which started off as DC’s horror-line for “mature” readers. They commissioned painted-covers which are usually more elaborate than the classic ink and color superhero stuff. And BATGIRL belongs to the DC universe along with Superman, Batman, and other finely muscled people. In my mind, FABLES is a complex tapestry of characters and history, while BATGIRL is all action and pathos. So FABLES ends up being more finely nuanced than BATGIRL, which the latter tends to be more graphic and iconic.

Have you had to change your style at all to do cover illustration or do you have complete freedom when it comes to doing the covers?  (iv)

I've developed a way of working that's conducive to creating cover illustrations, although the FABLES covers tend to be more painterly. I'm not as experimental as I'd like to be as in my sketchbooks, but I suppose I should reserve something that's solely for myself without any commercial intent.

I've read that, with Fables, you typically work from Bill Willingham's full script, while with other titles you might only get a plot summary. How does that affect the final piece?  (xi)

The "Fables" covers might have a bit more depth than a cover for a superhero book, which is all about flash. I try to make the superhero covers more graphic and kinetic, while the Fables covers are more subtle.

Your work on Fables has to be some of the most innovative and expressive in the comics medium in years. Talk a little about your experience working on that book.  (ix)

Thanks for the kind words -- I was actually unsure about how my covers would go over after seeing the competition on the racks. My work tends to be subtle and soft, while most comic covers have terrific contrast and energy. Fables has been terrific to work on -- the scripts are so rich in details and imagery, that it's really very inspiring when I approach a blank canvas.

Do relatively straightforward superhero books like Green Arrow or Amazing Fantasy pose different challenges for you than "Fables"?  (xi)

It's more difficult in a way. I'm more free to be experimental with Fables and, for some reason, my experience with superhero books is that they are more conservative. Plus, the lack of story or script when I receive the assignment is a challenge in itself, since superhero books tend to be rushed a bit. However, I'm able to create something more simple and graphic despite my tendency to overly design and decorate a picture.

One of my favorite covers is the one to "Green Arrow" #48, which features the oddball ’80s villain the Duke of Oil. He's an undeniably silly character that your cover transformed into a fierce, steampunk-like creation. There's also a St. Sebastian aspect to the image, with the Duke stuck by countless arrows. How did you settle on a look for the character, and how did you approach this cover?  (xi)

I was sent some sketches of the character by the interior artist, and that was the basis for my interpretation of the character. Ever since I started on "Green Arrow," I wanted to evoke the ending of "Throne of Blood," where Toshiro Mifune gets shot at with a thousand real arrows. This was the closest chance I could get, and sadly, I never got another one. I wanted to give the character a grit and weight that was missing in the initial sketch. When I thought of the Duke of Oil and his mechanical body, the most obvious thing to do was to evoke a dirty, rusty oil rig, which really creates a sense of heaviness and danger in the image. Also, he was based loosely on George W. Bush, and his initials are engraved in the boots.

Some of your covers are literal interpretations of the stories. Others, like those for "Batgirl" #46 or "Machine Teen" #1 (Marvel Comics), are more abstract. How do you decide which course to take?  (xi)

It all depends on inspiration. I'm not a great conceptual illustrator like Guy Billout or Christoph Niemann. I suppose I'm more of a sensualist in terms of material, texture and form. For "Machine Teen," the image of an exploded diagram immediately came to mind, and I used vector drawing to express the perfect surface of the mechanical elements. I'll try to find one interesting aspect of the piece and exploit it to a degree that's unusual and beautiful.

It wasn't until Issues 6 and 7 of Fables that you hit upon the trademark look for the series. What brought about that evolution?  (xi)

Originally, I was just signed on for five issues, and we didn't know if Fables would do well enough to warrant a renewal in the contract. I felt a lot of pressure to do full-on paintings for the beginning of the series, but after the series was renewed, I knew I had to make some changes, since I wasn't satisfied with what I had done. Firstly, I asked if Vertigo could send me the logo so I could design around it. Secondly, I started using Photoshop to enhance the images. I was just beginning to learn Photoshop at the time as well, so it was definitely a turning point for me.

Your Fables covers always seem to give the title logo a strong presence; do you take special care to incorporate a design that will highlight that in relation to the piece as a whole?  (v)

Yeah, definitely-the logo is such a large and integral piece of the composition. Sometimes working with type is like parking a truck into a crowded parking lot, and you hope that everything fits with enough breathing room for the doors.

You've made the Fables logo and trade dress an organic thing. That's something we don't see a lot of in mainstream comics. Was there resistance from Vertigo? How did that come about?  (xi)

Vertigo was pretty open to the idea, especially since they favor covers that don't look like typical comic books. That was one reason my homage to Sgt. Rock on the cover to "Fables" #28 got some flak from Vertigo: The word balloon was too reminiscent of “comics.” Dave McKean had done some really innovative things with "Sandman," so I don't think my request to work with the logo was that unusual. I had always felt that the logo was such an integral part of the composition – it shouldn't float on top the picture, but sit within it.

In the version of Issue 35 that appears on your Web site, the logo is shortened to “Fab!”, which is fitting, given the Jack-in-Hollywood storyline. However, the final cover has “Fables” spelled out. What happened between submission and printing?  (xi)

This was one of those instances where my suggested logotype was vetoed. DC has a cover design department that usually handles all the cover dress, and they act under the guidance of the editors. There are many practical considerations to selling a book, but in this example, the conceptual playfulness of the image was trimmed a bit.

In "Fables" #49, you utilize scale – the enormous wolf's head in the foreground dwarfing Mowgli in the tree line – to tell help tell a story. The prey eclipses the hunter. But you also toy with the cover dress, thrusting the UPC box above the logo, and turning one side of the "A" in "Fables" into the handle of the knife. It's a little unconventional, even for a Fables cover.  (xi)

For 49, it was Bigby Wolf's return to "Fables," so I knew I had to do something dramatic. There was no script, so Bill Willingham told me to have Mowgli, shirtless with a big hunting knife, facing the Big Bad Wolf. After working out some tired, cliched ideas in some thumbnails – think of the many images you've seen of the hero confronting something larger than himself – I pushed the composition to the extreme, the strangeness of which attracted me. It was also a pleasure to paint the wolf's head. Lately, I've been trying to use the physical properties of the paint to describe motion, weight and texture, rather than using paint to create the illusion of an object. The more personal obsessions I'm able to work out in the covers, the more interesting they become.

How difficult is it to reinterpret the stories for the trade paperback covers? Is it tough to find new aspects of the plot to focus on, or to bring together pieces from the broader storyline?  (xi)

Actually, I had initiated the idea of creating a wraparound cover to Vertigo, and it's fortunate that "Fables" keeps doing well enough to commission one for each trade. However, it's difficult to create an image that has to fulfill so many requirements: It has to show the ensemble cast, reflect different elements in the story, work as a single cover image as well as a wraparound, and accommodate lots of type. I look forward to the challenge whenever I get the call for each trade – it's a rare chance to do something grand.

Of the six – soon to be seven – trade covers, which ones best meet those requirements, or just work well?  (xi)

I'm still happy with the first one, "Legends in Exile." I was able to use the subway car to indicate the modern/urban setting of the story, and contain the whole cast as well. I fear that the rest of the covers suffer from more of a traditional montage approach, though the "Animal Farm" cover seems to have set the standard for the rest of the Fables trade paperback covers.

Comic book covers have changed over the years (i.e cover art has become more robust, concepts have been modernized…)—what would you like to see happen in the industry during your career?  (i)

I’m just an illustrator who really likes comics, and as a fan, all I can say is that the quality of work in comics right now is amazing compared to just a decade ago.