Whenever a new title is decided on, the first step is soliciting it to the distributor. In the case of most any comic book, that means Diamond Distrubution. The way this works is, Diamond releases a phone book-sized catalog called Previews every month, that has advance solicitation information (cover image and book description) for comics shipping three months away. The purpose for this is three-fold.

Primarily, the book is used to show retailers what's coming out for a given month, and decide what comics to order for their store. It also serves as a way for comic buyers to see what's coming, and, ideally, to pre-order the comic from their retailer. They do this because most comic publishers print to retailers' orders and aren't able to print much beyond that (over-printing). So if demand is under-estimated, this can lead to quick sell-outs, shortages and higher back issue prices. The other reasons fans are encouraged to use this book is to just help the retailer know what to order--there are literally hundreds and hundreds of comics available every single month, and having advance orders from readers helps a retailer gauge interest, or order things he/she might ordinarily pass on. This is especially helpful for smaller publishers, who all fight it out for limited shelf space.

Anyway, the solicitations for any products that will appear in a given month of Previews have to be turned in months in advance. And it just so happens that the early solicits for books coming out in February have to be turned in the second week of October. This means cover images and a block of copy describing the book and the art team have be turned in at that time.

THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW #1 is set to debut in February, so while we just settled on the book's artist a couple weeks ago, it's already time to figure out an initial cover image for these advance solicitations. Clear? Alright, moving on.

So far, the books Gabriel Rodriguez has done for us have either had photo covers (in the case of CSI miniseries) or had stylized art covers (LAND OF THE DEAD). Gabe's never really gotten a chance to do covers for us before. But more than anything he's done with us so far, I want this book to be a real tour de force for him, and show the world just what he can do.

Gabe had recently shown me some illustrations of famous mathmeticians that he'd done for some textbooks, and they showed me an entirely different side of his work. His use of color on these illustrations convinced me even more that we could do something special with these covers (and by "we," I mean "he."):

Now, to me, the thing about doing an adaptation of a book like THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW, or any book, really, is that covers shouldn't necessarily show a scene that appears in the book as much as they should be representative of the book and its mood and settings overall. Especially in the case of a first cover. I didn't want to show characters, really, since the book's cast of characters is so large and diverse that picking one or two people to appear on the first cover wouldn't really work.

The cover of Barker's original novel, at least the domestic release, was this:

The book opens in the Dead Letter Office of a post office in Nebraska, about as central as you can get in this country. So the mailbox was a striking image, even though it's not exactly a recurring theme in the book. But like I say, an image that's more representative of the book works better than a literal image taken from the prose.

I liked the idea of paying homage to that original cover from 1989, so started with the idea of us using the mail box.

The book takes place in a small town North of Hollywood, but it also takes place in other lands/dimensions. One of these lands is known as "the Loop," a place outside of normal space/time (I'll explain a bit more as I get into the book's story later on). For now, just know that the Loop feels a bit like a town in New Mexico post-nuclear testing, and there's a large radio tower that is a recurring element in the book.

In fact, a sketch that Clive did years ago, taken from CliveBarker.com, showed this tower (with some other elements, too).

Now, Clive isn't the type to say "hey, draw THIS." He's much more interested in seeing the way other people interpret his works. So I never intended to ask him to explain this sketch. Rather, I felt that the tower was a nice visual element, as was the mailbox. I started discussing this with gabe, and didn't give him much more than that to go on at the start. I was still trying to visualize it myself.

Luckily, I have someone like Gabriel to keep me from having to visualize everything myself. On just this barest bones description, Gabe quickly came back with this:

As you can see, with just a description of "tower," he took things in a much more artistic and interesting direction. At this point, too, we hadn't settled on the background. There's another land that appears in the book, Quiddity, the "dream sea" that becomes the focal point of the entire book. Quiddity, like the Loop, are both visually striking ideas, Quiddity dark where the Loop is sun-baked, a world of dark oceans and islands, which is where Gabe was headed in this first sketch. With the second, he visited the Loop.

As much as I liked the tower, the tower in the novel was more simple than that, so I described a bit more of what I was after, and he tightened things up a bit:

We were getting somewhere. The thing I've seen with Gabe so far is, I ask for one thing, and I get it, clearer and better than I envisioned, with some extra touches that help make the scene that much better. That was certainly true here, too. Gabe had the idea of adding magical symbols to the mailbox, since various forms of magic are the crux of this book. He was closer than he knew, since there is a medallion that shows up early on, featuring a figure that's neither man nor woman, on a cross (not crucified), with circular symbols protruding from where the hands and feet lie at the ends of this cross. We'd put this symbol on the post of the mailbox. More and more, I started feeling that the cover was incorporating elements that appear throughout the book, and would set a good mood, and be rewarding more and more, the deeper people got into the story. Which was exactly what I wanted with this first cover.

With Gabe narrowing in on the cover with the Loop, the desert area, in the background, he had the thought that the lightness of that land, and the darkness of Quiddity, might make two good, distinctive first covers. We'd use the same mailbox in the foreground, and do one background that is filled with the yellows of the arid Loop; the other would be filled with the darkness of Quiddity.

Gabe tried an initial color test for the "Loop" cover (incidentally, doing multiple covers for comics isn't a foreign thing, really. We do these sorts of covers in equal quantities, so you're free to pick which one you like, and get the same exact story inside. If you're inclined to check out both, they're available to you, but either one will provide the same exact read. Kind of like TV GUIDE and their multiple covers, only with much better art):

Things were coalescing nicely. Now that we'd settled on just what the image should be, and what the various elements on it would consist of, Gabe went to work on finishing the pencils and inks. First I got the black and white, fully inked version:

And then, one last step--applying the final cover to the cover. The finished cover once again exceeded my expectations and only sets this book even more on the right path. Click the thumbnail below to see the cover in its full, colored and so far logoless glory:

We had our first issue cover. All that remained was the final blessing from Clive, and development of the logo. In a week or so, Gabe will take a crack at the "Quiddity" cover (he's doing all this work in the middle of finishing up LAND OF THE DEAD for me). Meanwhile, I'd get to work on initial solicitation copy. This copy is essentially hyperbolic ad copy, designed to explain the book's contents and creative team, and also convince readers and retailers alike that it's worth ordering. Which isn't so different than the home page teasers we've been doing here. The finished copy will read something like this:

CLIVE BARKER'S THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW #1 (of 12)
Chris Ryall (w); Gabriel Rodriguez (a & c)
It begins here! A 12-part adaptation of master of horror Clive Barker's journey into the fantastic, THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW. Adapted by Chris Ryall (Shaun of the Dead) and artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Land of the Dead), this debut issue presents the beginning of a battle between good and evil that will span many decades and different dimensions. Issue 1 will feature two special covers by Rodriguez.
$3.99 - FC - 32 pages

Next Time on The (Hopefully) Great and (Not-So) Secret Show: The first issue's been solicited. Now, onto the character designs and the first script

/chris

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