Back in the day, retailers used to commission star comics creators to draw a cover for an upcoming comic book, usually from DC or Marvel, that would be exclusive to a store. And would have to order thousands of copies to make it worthwhile for the publisher.
Some enterprising artists realised they could commission themselves to draw exclusive covers of such comics that they could then sell online, or at shows, signed even. J Scott Campbell, Rob Liefeld, John Tyler Christopher have done so and the habit has spread.
At Dynamite Entertainment, which asks for fewer minimum copies to be printed than Marvel and DC, Dan Panosian did such for Red Sonja #1 as did Paolo Pantalena as have other artists for different titles.
The latest, it seems, is Ethan Van Sciver. No longer working for major comics publishers and fresh from last summer’s very successful Indiegogo campaign for Cyberfrog: Blood Honey, the comic is yet to be published. But Ethan is now commissioning himself to draw Cyberfrog variant covers to Dynamite Entertainment titles, showing his cyborg amphibian interacting with other characters published by Dynamite. At one point, Vampirella and Cyberfrog were both published by Harris Publications, and he’s done artwork for Vampirella trading cards and inked the Vampirella/Shadowhawk crossover in the day, so this wouldn’t be the first time he’s been involved with the character. But I hear there are more to come, one might consider Chaos!, Pantha and others as prime Cyberfrog crossover comic book cover candidates.
Traditionally, creators who purchase the comics are treated the same as any retailer. Whether the creators of any of those books will have any say in who gets to do retailer exclusive variant covers of their books, I don’t know.
The post Ethan Van Sciver Commissions ‘Retailer Exclusive’ Dynamite Crossover Covers With Cyberfrog, Beginning With Vampirella appeared first on Bleeding Cool News And Rumors.
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