Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: dc comics

Comic Science: Here Are The 128 Covers For DC Comics June Releases. Which Ones Jump Out At You?

Published Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:39:33 -0500

Last updated Fri, 18 Mar 2011 08:19:25 -0500

It's no revelation that many of us make buying decisions by doing online research first. This concept is entrenched in comics even more so than other industries due to the structure of the direct market solicitation cycle — publishers release cover graphics and a bit of info for each release in advance and hope that helps retailers and ultimately readers make their purchasing decisions.

That process is strange and interesting for a lot of reasons, but here's one that's always fascinated me — that cover graphic is so important to the process, yet it's most often seen as a thumbnail on a web page or distributor catalog. So your cover has to pop both as tiny thumbnail now and as a full sized cover on the stands later. This can be a tricky thing.

Marvel Senior VP Tom Brevoort recently took DC to task for doing a poor job with their solicit images. But do they, I wonder? To be fair, many publishers release solicit graphics without trade dress, and in various sometimes-unfinished states, and even with a "not final cover" disclaimer — and certainly, that's not a good thing overall. But it does make me wonder if solicits are now understood by their intended audience as process, and what that might mean for the thumbnail-to-shelf continuum.

That aside, let's find out what you do think of what DC did with their solicit images for June. Here's a randomized gallery of all of them. Click through the ones that interest you to get progressively bigger versions (as you normally would!), and I'll talk about the most-clicked images in our nightly BC Trending Topics posts after a day or so.

Also, please see the complete solicit info at cbr or elsewhere for creator credits and other information.