Friday, January 14, 2011

Johnny Comet Deluxe

Front and back cover to the Johnny Comet Deluxe Hardcover

This is the third cover I did for Johnny Comet. I actually started out doing this cover for fun, (I know it sounds weird, as if I don't have enough to do). I wanted to create or explore the idea of using Johnny Comet imagery, and turning it into a movie style poster. For some reason I hadn't had enough of Johnny Comet yet. After a year of working on the book, you would think I would want to move on...sigh. There is just so much great art in the Johnny Comet series, I wanted to see if I could produce one more fresh look on it. The fun part is, I get to play with Frank Frazetta's toys.

Shortly after I got done playing with this, and trying to figure out now what to do with it, I received a call from J. David Spurlock. David is the publisher of Vanguard Productions books. He had decided after we had finished up the soft and hard cover versions of the Johnny Comet book, that he would like to do a third very special version. This third book would be a Deluxe Edition with 16 additional pages containing original Frazetta artwork along with a slipcase. He wanted to convert the original Hardcover artwork into the slipcased version. Do you really think it was a coincidence that just that day, I had finished up my experimental cover? Well, I showed it to David, and it really didn't take too much persuading for him to decide to use the "movie poster" version for the Deluxe Edition. I'm glad it worked out, I have a feeling the movie poster idea might end up being used again...stay tuned!

2 comments:

  1. These covers are nothing short of stunning Randy. Love your use of bold retro color and graphics and the lettering is spot on.

    If you're up for it I would love to direct the readers from my comics blog (Cloud 109) in your direction.

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  2. Thank you, Peter. I hope my passion for the material shows through. I'm a design junkie.

    I certainly would consider it an honor if mentioned me on your blog site. Thank you for your consideration.

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