Al Capp Biography Dust Jacket

 My design version #1 dust jacket

 My design version #2 dust jacket

Published version dust jacket

Denis Kitchen and Michael Schumacher researched and wrote a very in-depth biography of Lil' Abner cartoonist, Al Capp. The book has won awards and received great critical praise. It's not a sugar coated version of his life story, but rather a dirty and gritty expose of a man who in spite of his success, remained bitter and resentful. How after achieving fame, he chose to use his celebrity to manipulate and take advantage of people. Let's just say, it ain't pretty.

Denis asked me, if I'd like to take a run at designing the dust jacket to the book. In version #1 of the dust jacket, I placed Al Capp within the setting of his comic strip. I think it's pretty obvious as he leers at Daisy Mae, what's on his mind. Lil' Abner peeks in, and doesn't seem real pleased at what's going on. This visual imagery, is foreshadowing to what can be found inside the pages of the book.  

On version #2, I placed a dirty stained beat-up picture of Al Capp on top of a Sunday newspaper page of the Lil' Abner strip. I liked that the image wasn't a smiling happy glossy pristine photo. The picture has seen better days, and seems to elude to the darkside of Al Capp. I added the cigarette smoke to give it an illusion of dimension.

The bottom image, is a design of the dust jacket, that was done in-house at the publisher. This is the one they ended up going with, and what you will find on the book.

John Romita's The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 Artist's Edition

 Title Page

 Chapter Divider Page

Chapter Ending Page

These are some of the design pages for the second volume of IDW's John Romita's Spider-Man Artist's Edition. Since there was a first volume, I wanted there to be familiar design elements that carried over from the first book. But I also wanted it to be unique enough so it didn't seem like I was being lazy or cheating. Since I enjoy designing so much, sometimes it's hard for me not to want to create something totally different. Part of my inspiration for this design style, were book and poster designs from the early 1970s. There is a boldness in it's simplicity. Going for period accurate design is part of the challenge but also a major part of the fun!