ANATOMY OF A COVER: ERIC WIGHT ON JLA #7

[MattBrady]

by Troy Brownfield

You’ve seen it by now, the eye-popping cover for this week’s Justice League of America #7. Featuring a number of artists and various incarnations of the JLA over the years, it’s a strikingly rendered piece of work. The guy behind the basic design happens to be our old friend Eric Wight. We asked him about the process, and he’s shared his insight (and his sketches!) with us.

Newsarama: How did you get involved in the project?

Eric Wight: Brad (Metlzer) asked me if I would be interested in creating a concept for the double cover that would somehow incorporate all of the various incarnations of the league drawn by the artists of their era like in JLA #0 (with me of course filling in for (Mike) Sekowsky). I thought it would be cool if each era flowed right into the next, and designed it in such a way that you could look at each section and see the heroes of that League, or look at all six parts as a whole and see a giant spread of the League. And then Benes’ era would be leaping towards us out of the past. Out of history.

I happened to be in the DC offices to talk about a different project, and I showed Eddie my concept as Chiarello walked in, and everybody was immediately talking about making it into a poster. It’s always a great feeling when you know you nail a concept like that and get people excited. From there, I had the arduous task of taking my little scribbles and actually making it function. It was a really complicated undertaking, trying to arrange the pieces just right so that I had the original seven bookending each column of their respective era.

Newsarama: What are your basic theories on cover design as a whole?

Eric Wight: When I first sit down to thumbnail a cover, I try to think in terms of
bold, graphic shapes that will grab your attention. Because I knew there would be so many characters, I thought long bands of color might be a cool way to delineate each era.

Newsarama: How did you choose the characters to represent each era?

Eric Wight: I started with the original seven: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter, and from there tried to pick characters that were standouts of each era. I deferred to Brad a lot to make sure I included his favorites for each era. Of course, there were so many more we would have liked to include.

Newsarama: At what point did the other artists begin to become involved?

Eric Wight: After the layout was approved I enlarged it and printed it out onto
bristol using a non-photo blue ink, and then drew my section of the cover. After I completed my part, I FedEx’d the pages into DC and they sent the pages to the other artists. Once it left my hands, I was pretty much out of the loop until the final art came back.

Newsarama: Clearly, they each have their time with the League, but how did the
process work?

Eric Wight: I’m not sure of the exact order, but I drew my column, which was then sent to Perez to draw his, which was then sent to MacDonnell. Since we were working on two covers, we had two boards being drawn on at the same time. And while all of that was happening, Benes was drawing his layer separately to then be placed on top.

Newsarama: Did each artist offer input, or was there a feeling that “Eric’s
leading the band”?

Eric Wight: I didn’t really have any communication with the other artists, but they stuck very closely to my thumbnails. With a piece like that, there isn’t a whole lot of room to deviate from the plan, otherwise all of the pieces wouldn’t fit together properly.

Newsarama: Please give us your impressions of each of the artists.

Eric Wight: I thought everyone brought their “A” game to the piece. One of the biggest fanboy moments for me was to have Perez continue my drawing, because his work on Crisis and Teen Titans was probably the most influential in my wanting to draw comics as a kid. So I kind of felt like at that moment my career had come full circle.

Newsarama: I notice that you move from a more static “standing” sketch to the more active version; is the “standing” version a draft, or was the plan to always conclude with the “explosion” of the Benes figures?

Eric Wight: My original take was to just have the columns of characters, but there was concern that since we were splitting the covers that the current team wouldn’t appear on the left cover. Brad had the brilliant idea of letting Benes create a top layer of the current team charging at us, which I think added so much more drama and energy to the piece.

Newsarama: Given that you’ve participated in this project with storied artists of the League’s past, would you want to go the distance and have your own run on the characters?

Eric Wight: JLA has always been one of my favorite books, so yeah, it would be an honor to be able to carve out my own little niche. The problem is that I’m just spread so thin with my personal work that to find the time to do a run on any book would be almost impossible. So these small opportunities are perfect for me. You haven’t seen the last of me on JLA just yet!

Newsarama: Now that it’s complete, how do you feel about the overall experience?

Eric Wight: This was a really tricky piece to pull off, having to coordinate with so many artists, all of the moving pieces, and of course, there was a very tight schedule. It could have gone horribly wrong. But everyone really did an amazing job with their part, and I think the final product speaks for itself. I love how many fans came up to me at Wizard World LA to tell me the cover was the new desktop for their computer.

Newsarama: Last question: when can we expect the poster?

Eric Wight: I’ve heard rumors, but you’ll have to bug DC with that question. I’m as anxious for it as you are!

Look for more of Eric Wight’s work in the next volume of My Dead Girlfriend from Tokyopop and at www.ericwight.com.

Troy Brownfield writes lots of stuff for Newsarama.

[FireLight]

Spectacular stuff - I'm really psyched about a poster as well. And yes it WAS my desktop -
Leinil's Dark Tower sketch is on there now...

Love the generation representation on the cover - and I like the insight here about how it happened.

[cncoyle]

So, they moved Black Lightning to the back of the group?
Poor Jefferson.
(At least they're using him instead of creating another Black Vulcan, though.)

[vbartilucci]

A lovely piece of work. Is there a final list of who did what somewhere?

and yeah, add me to the screaming hordes demanding a poster

[FireLight]

Originally Posted by Nathan

So, they moved Black Lightning to the back of the group?
Poor Jefferson.
(At least they're using him instead of creating another Black Vulcan, though.)

Just guessing - but it was all men leading the charge in that thumbnail - they apparently tried to balance the image ...

[The Escapist]

We spoke with Eric Wight about his design work for the cover to this week's Justice League of America #7, featuring...everyone...

Everyone except Wally!!!

(still a sweet cover...)

[DeTroyes]

Originally Posted by FireLight

Just guessing - but it was all men leading the charge in that thumbnail - they apparently tried to balance the image ...

Woah. Good observation.

Looking forward to this issue.

[HartyPotter]

Looking at the sketch pre-Benes layer, I think that would've looked better than the final product. Not to take anything away from Benes, but I think his layer is covering up a lot of cool stuff, and the project would've been better without it.

[aeast317]

gahhh i cant decide if i want to buy both covers or nt

[Spade]

Yeah i was wondering why Hal Jordan in the background would be with the new team and not the original but I guess the reasoning made sense. Too bad some people Like Fire, Ice, Captain Marvel, Rocket Red, Captain Atom, etc are not on the cover to represent Internation League and Connor Hawke, Azareal, Hourman, and Wally West for the Morrison league. But I understand you can't have everyone on the cover.

Looks like the only league missing is the Gerald Jones League. I don't think that league was that important. They might as well recton out that team. Metamorpho's death seems to be the only thing of importance during that run.

[mpdfuzz]

Really getting tired of all these artists ignoring Firestorm in league history over and over...

Alex Ross... looking at you buddy.. prime instigator....

[Uchiha_Prodigy]

Eric Wight should do a JLA classified arc set in the Brave and the Bold era. His style reminds me alot of Darwyne Cooke's in the New Fronteir.

[j-rod]

Originally Posted by The Escapist

Everyone except Wally!!!

(still a sweet cover...)

I guess we're playing - Where's Wally?

I've just noticed that the books are called Where's Waldo? in America. Guess the joke only works in Europe. Oh well.

[EmaHalJordan]

Originally Posted by The Escapist
Everyone except Wally!!!

(still a sweet cover...)

AND FIRESTORM!!

[hugo]

Originally Posted by Spade

Azareal,

= Aztek + Zauriel ?

Yeah, several main players of those different eras are missing, but if they had included them, that would have become a four-part cover ^^

[O.J. Flow]

...that it is one specTACular cover.
Currently my desktop wallpaper as we speak.

[vbartilucci]

Originally Posted by j-rod

I guess we're playing - Where's Wally?

I've just noticed that the books are called Where's Waldo? in America. Guess the joke only works in Europe. Oh well.

They actually touched on that joke back in JLI - "Wally" is a slang term for "boob" in the UK, so Booster (I think?) was introducing him to girls as "Wallace".

"Waldo" is more a geeky name in the US, so they changed it.

And in the UK, Wally's friend is "Wilma", but since they planned to do an animated cartoon eventually, H-B complained (Flintstones, y'know), and "Wendy" was taken too, so it was changed to the very odd "Wenda"

Martin Handford did a couple new non-Wal(ly)do for Art Spiegelman's "Little Lit" books - WELL worth seeking out.

[Darthphere]

Originally Posted by mpdfuzz

Really getting tired of all these artists ignoring Firestorm in league history over and over...

Alex Ross... looking at you buddy.. prime instigator....

Who's Firestorm?

[OM]

...Actually, I'm surprised he didn't mention the obvious knock-off this cover represents: those nonsensical all-in-a-line charge-to-the-case panels that Mike "I use beer barrels for male torso shapes" Sekowsky use to draw during his JLA run in the 60's.

[hugo]

Originally Posted by j-rod

I guess we're playing - Where's Wally?

I've just noticed that the books are called Where's Waldo? in America. Guess the joke only works in Europe. Oh well.

I think it only works in UK ^^;

If I'm right, those books are called "Où est Charlie ? ", in France.

[bigdaddyhub]

Just a flat out sweet iconic cover.

[dethmtlmetro]

Originally Posted by HartyPotter

Looking at the sketch pre-Benes layer, I think that would've looked better than the final product. Not to take anything away from Benes, but I think his layer is covering up a lot of cool stuff, and the project would've been better without it.

I agree, man. I f they sold a poster of the background art--withou the Benes layer--I would buy it.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by hugo

= Aztek + Zauriel ?

Yeah, several main players of those different eras are missing, but if they had included them, that would have become a four-part cover ^^

hahaha I did have both on my mind.

[cfutino]

Originally Posted by j-rod

I guess we're playing - Where's Wally?

I've just noticed that the books are called Where's Waldo? in America. Guess the joke only works in Europe. Oh well.

Nah.. It works pretty well in Brazil ... Now I know why none of the Flash writers ever did a joke on that...

[Philminder]

I would've liked this to be a wrap-around cover, because I want both Wonder Woman and Black Canary on my cover! I ended up getting the half with Supes and Black Canary, though. Still looks great. It was my desktop wallpaper for a little while.