Making a Marvel Comic book Cover

Wolverine Costume Variant cover for Marvel. A few months back Marvel asked me if I was interested in doing another variant cover for them. I did an Iron Man one before and I was looking for another shot at a cover. What's that you say? It would feature Wolverine? WOULD I?!

They were planning on doing a set of covers to feature the life and times of our favorite adamantium enhanced mutant. I immediately zeroed in on the Patch persona. Why? I had not read those stories that was set in Madripoor so I had no attachment to it. What did it was the look. I am a big fan of the paperback covers of Robert McGinnis and Mitchell Hooks. This was a chance to try my hand at it.

A quick round of thumbnails first. I find that I solve big design problems right off that way. Once I had the ideas narrowed down I test it again in color. These thumbnails are about an inch wide. It keeps me from noodling. I did two versions though I thought I liked the first one already. I just had to make sure that I'd be happy to do either version regardless. Marvel liked the one I wanted. Yeah! That starts another round of prep and solving design problems. That's for the next post.


I mocked up the image against a Wolverine banner just to see what clearance I needed for the banner, whatever book the cover might appear in. Marvel didn't know at the time. Now we know It's for Uncanny X-men #7. Lucky! Love that book.