Eric Powell's The Goon Artist's Edition

Regular Edition Cover

 Variant Cover

 Title Page

 Pages 2-3

Pages 4-5

With Eric Powell's The Goon, I was dealing with a little different style of art. Powell's art is very dense and textured. Since he fully paints the pages, there is a tonal quality that isn't in most comic book art. When designing this, I wanted to attempt to give the design pages the same look as his story pages. With the design, you never want to detract from the real focus of the book, which would be the story pages. I use a limited color palette to add variety, but not overwhelm. I tried to recreate the "wash" feel of his art. The book should have rhythm and feel continuous. The design pages shouldn't cause you to stop and think, "This looks out-of-place." 

Powell's art really is very amazing. He has an ability to go from slapstick to horror, and it all works. The light and shadows are used with the greatest of dramatic effect. The gray tones and layering of his art adds dimension and mass and certainly fits the storytelling. Good stuff!

Frank Miller's Daredevil Artifact Edition

 Title Page

 Pages 2-3

 Pages 4-5

Pages 6-7

It would be hard to design something related to Daredevil without incorporating the color red. So instead of fighting against it, I decided to embrace it. The color choices were actually closer to the CMYK process colors. The blue is close to cyan and the red is sorta close to magenta, but not really. I know that may not make a lot of sense to you, but to me it does. Sorry...  

I wanted to use circular design icons through out. It represents Daredevil's sensory perception, Bullseye's mask, braille, and without sounding too philosophical, the story ends up coming full circle. When using particular elements, there is always a fine balance between "enough" and "too much." Hopefully I didn't cross the line. I think it's entertaining to have a common design thread running through the book. I look at it as being a bonus. 

Even though the title of the book is Daredevil the character of Elektra is almost more prominent. I wanted to make sure that she was represented in an appropriate amount of space too. I also attempted to balance the red and the blue, wanting each to be both primary and secondary.

Don Rosa's Scrooge McDuck Artist's Edition

 Cover Regular Edition

 Cover Variant Edition

 Title Page

 Table of Contents Spread

Chapter Break

This was my first ever project working with a Disney property (not including Marvel). It was really a fulfillment of a childhood dream. I'm sure most people have that special place in their heart for the Disney characters. I don't think you ever get to the point (if you are being honest), where you outgrow Disney. Even though it seems like the art and stories are aimed at children, there is certainly a lot of appeal for adults. This was the direction Don Rosa was going for when he created the back story for Scrooge McDuck. With the stories in this volume we not only discover the history of Scrooge, but it's also conveniently wrapped around the history of the US. Along the way Scrooge also encounters both fictitious and real-life legends. The journey is both fun, and educational!

My approach in designing this book was to embrace the artwork of Rosa and to elevate and isolate it. Because Rosa uses silhouettes quite frequently in his storytelling, I wanted to make use of that in some of the design work. I also tried to pick and choose images that were representational of each of the individual chapters. I picked blue and orange... because I like that color combination. Design doesn't really have to be complicated or overdone, in this case it can be pleasant and fun.