The Forbidden Planet International Blog

The quest to discover the Best Cover EVER? continues. We’re asking people just what they reckon the BCE is and the results, thus far, have been top notch. So here we go again…. we may never know the definitive answer….

Providing the cover suggestion here is Jamie S. Rich, recent castaway on our FPI Desert Island, author of prose and graphic novels including his newest novel the serialized Bobby Pins and Mary Janes.

His current comics work is the Image series It Girl And The Atomics with issue 4 (cover by Michael Allred above) out this very week! In the pipeline there’s the follow-up to You Have Killed Me and Volume 3 of Spellcheckers with Joelle Jones, and a new series with Oni Press, with artist Natalie Nourigat A Boy And A Girl. All three of those should be happening in 2013.

But for his cover Rich goes back to the 80s and a bit of classic Sienkiewicz…..

Phaze Issue 1 – Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, Eclipse Comics, 1988

I haven’t a clue what Phaze was about. Two issues were released by Eclipse in 1988, written by Fred Burke and drawn by Rafael Kayanan. I couldn’t have told you any of those facts off the top of my head, I had to look them up.

Yet, the first issue cover by Bill Sienkiewicz is one I never forgot about. It might be the first time I bought a comic just for the cover, despite having no interest in the interiors (I know I never bought #2). I wasn’t a Sienkiewicz completist like I was Dave Stevens or Arthur Adams, his work and I probably still had a somewhat shaky relationship around then (I was 16).

Looking at the image again, the technique is marvellous  The abstracted background stands apart from the figure in both style and texture. The choking face is emotionally evocative, and I love the way the bubbles blend with his hair, almost like he’s dissolving. I know this cover came to mind a lot when I was writing my novella I Was Someone Dead several years ago. Drowning never looked so good.

Thanks for Jamie for that – and as a special bonus…… synchronicity strikes – as I was setting this up and googling around for a good sized pic of the cover, I only come across the actual original art, up for auction on ebay. Bloody hell. Drowning looks even better!