C.B. Cebulski Talks Doing Covers Right

C.B. Cebulski is much smarter and more lovable than me. Let's just get that out of the way. He's also an amazing source of knowledge and insight when it comes to the finer points of making comics. Today he offered a mini lesson about covers and I felt the information merited being preserved here rather than lost in the twitter stream.

C.B. says:

After looking over certain June solicits, I feel like going on a cover rant again, but will instead offer advice on creating cover art.

A cover is the most important piece of art you'll create for your comic. It's what will sell the book. Especially in today's direct market.

This is even more true for indy/self/small press comics as you don't have recognizable characters to grab a reader's attention on the shelf.

You need a simple, bold, striking piece that should immediately standout & distinguish your book from the rest of the comics surrounding it.

Don't get overly-complicated or designy. Don't overthink your cover. Don't get too cerebral. Simply give readers a taste of what's inside.

These are simple, basic cover "rules," I know, but I'm always surprised how often they're forgotten. Especially by the bigger publishers.

Gold.

#MakeComics Wednesdays

Since I hadn't posted anything about it here, I wanted to make it known that for the time being, every Wednesday (aka New Comic Day), I'll be doing a twitter-based Q&A as well as posting any random advice I can squeeze into 140 characters.

There are a lot of folks that want to break into this industry, and quite frankly many of them are going about it the wrong way. While there are some excellent comic pros on twitter giving advice, it's sporadic at best and there's no guarantee your question is going to get answered. And as someone who has worked on both sides of the desk, I know a thing or two. I'm like the less-prolific and more xenophobic C.B. Cebulski...

Every Wednesday I'll announce when I'll be doing the Q&A, which will run about an hour, and I'll take questions of all kinds from pitching to script format to whatever comes into your head.

Here's a transcript of the first Q&A from two weeks back.

You can follow me on twitter @roblevin or search for the #makecomics hash tag for advice from some of the best and most helpful pros around. Keep in mind, no bit of advice is 100%, and this is the Internet so keep your thinking caps on before you charge blindly into battle.