mat postawa | The Saga of Pandora Zwieback

Welcome back to the story behind the creative process that went into formulating and executing the cover art and design for my second Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Reign. As I explained last time, it began with my commissioning of artist Bob Larkin to paint the cover art, using as a template a Tomb of Dracula magazine cover he’d done for Marvel Comics in 1979. But since the version I had in mind was going to replace the victim with Pan and Dracula with Lady Kiyoshi Sasaki, leader of Blood Reign’s House Otoyo vampire clan, and I knew that Bob was unfamiliar with the fashion style Kiyoshi favors—called Elegant & Gothic Lolita—I brought in Eliseu “Zeu” Gouveia, artist of the Pandora Zwieback comics and the graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, to design Kiyohi’s look.

Zeu’s first attempt (which I showed you in the previous post) was good, but not quite what I was looking for, considering both Pan and Kiyoshi were wearing black, which meant the potential existed for the characters to “bleed together” into one giant mass when seen at a distance. Something was needed to separate the two, and Zeu’s solution was to give Kiyoshi a white blouse. Problem solved! After he tightened the pencil art and inked the final illustration, I sent it over to Bob, who popped it into Photoshop to add the sort of cliff edge and lightning bolts found in his Dracula painting. The result was what you see up top (click to enlarge).

One change I asked Bob to make for the painting was to replace the heels on Pan’s boots with thick, flat soles, for three reasons: heels would be too impractical for all the adventuring (running, jumping, kicking, etc.) she’d be doing; thicker soles are her way of compensating for the fact she’s shorter than pretty much everyone around her; and Pan hasn’t mastered the art of walking on high heels—a scene in Blood Feud shows her wearing a pair of dressy pumps when she gets together with her friends, but spending most of her time wobbling around on them. She refuses to take them off because, well, she’s Pan. No stupid shoes are gonna show her who’s boss. But other than that, I told Bob, all systems were go for the painting. And, once again, when he delivered the final art he didn’t disappoint. (Of course, I knew he wouldn’t—that’s why I hired him.)

After that, it was just a matter of turning the art over to Mat Postawa, who’d set the tone for the series look with his design for the cover of the first Pan novel, Blood Feud. When all was said and done, the final cover came out as this:

Spiffy, right? Just as Blood Feud’s cover design had touches of red to complement the “river of blood” in Bob’s painting for that book, Blood Reign’s played off the blue tones in the stormy sky. Of special note is the “devil girl” symbol on Pan’s T-shirt—a manga-influenced version of the one on Blood Feud’s cover—only this one was whipped up by Pan’s original designer, Uriel Caton! I’d asked Uriel to contribute to the process in some way, and once I saw this design I not only wrote it into the novel (as a T that Pan’s boyfriend, Javi, gives her), but also decided that a running joke in the books (and covers) could be that folks are always giving Pan devil-girl shirts (the first, in Blood Feud, was a gift from Mom)—which she has to wonder is meant to be a comment on her personality.

So there you have it: the VH1 “Behind the Cover” story of Blood Reign. And what about the werewolf-centric Stalkers, the third cover that Bob painted so I’d have a complete convention banner? Well, that got bumped to book 4 in the series, replaced by Blood & Iron, which will wrap up the vampire war storyline of Blood Feud and Blood Reign—and whose cover was painted by an artist named Candra. We’ll get to the stories on each of those covers when the time comes.

Next: We’re not done with the cover analyses just yet! Tomorrow I’ll show you what went into the creation of the cover for the recently published IndyFest Magazine #85—an illustration by artist extraordinaire Zeu that depicts the first-ever meeting of Pan and StarWarp Concepts’ first lady of horror, the succubus called Lorelei!

Back on June 1st I told you about the start of the creative process behind the cover art for Blood Feud, the first Pandora Zwieback novel: I commissioned painter Bob Larkin to bring Pan to four-color “life,” then sketched out what I was looking for, and not too long after Bob delivered a final sketch that I approved. And then I realized that the bloody smiley face image on Pan’s T-shirt would have to be redesigned, or potentially risk drawing the ire of a French company that’s owned the smiley face trademark since 1972. But what could replace that iconic image? Well…what about a brand-new image?

So I pulled out my drawin’ pencil again and started sketching. I wanted to retain some elements from Uriel Caton’s design, so the Band-Aid across the “nose,” the crosshatched bruise, and the stuck-out tongue stayed; now I just needed a face to put them on. Then the idea struck me: how about the head of a devil girl? Bright-red skin and horns, a pageboy hairstyle, and bright-green eyes would go really well with those “I just got in a fight, so what?” elements. In no time at all I had a design I liked, and e-mailed it to Bob for him to give it a professional finish. Thus was the Official Pandora Zwieback T-shirt born! (Which, by the way, you can purchase from the StarWarp Concepts webstore.)

Now it was on to the actual cover painting, and when Bob was finally able to clear his busy schedule he got right to work, and the result is what you see here. Nice, huh? I had just one problem with it: there was too much red in the background. The concept I’d handed to Bob was that the Hudson River behind Pan—we’re looking at Manhattan’s West Side from New Jersey, for those who were wondering—was supposed to be a river of blood; making the skyline just as red worked against it. Bob’s rationale was that sunlight reflecting off a bloody river would “paint” the buildings red, which I could understand, but still…no. I’d rather have the bloody Hudson made as unsubtle as possible.

So I turned to Mat Postawa, the series’ book designer (and part-time metal head), to ask what could be done. Like Bob, I’ve known Mat—and SWC’s other genius book designer, Mike Rivilis—for years, having worked with him in the trenches of publishing house ibooks, inc., when I was its editor-in-chief. As I explained to Mat, for the Pan series I wanted a distinctive look for the cover designs that would appeal to both teenagers and Goths, but would also draw the eye of a general book buyer curious about the novel’s content. “You’re already familiar with the kind of audience I’m trying to reach,” I told him. “So take your best shot. And, uh, can you do something about those red buildings in the background?”

After a few rounds of give-and-take, each one better than the last, this was the look we settled on:

You couldn’t ask for a better cover! Mat adjusted the buildings’ color; deepened the background and added a hint of blood splash to the edges to make Pan stand out brighter; and even hand-lettered the Blood Feud title. Having Pan on the spine was my idea—for any self-publishers out there, it’s always good to keep in mind that your book might show up spine-out on a store’s or library’s shelves, so an eye-catching graphic is essential. I also wrote the back cover copy, and thanks go out to Mike Rivilis, who, after looking at the first-pass design, remarked that I’d overwritten the copy—there were originally four paragraphs. And since Mike has a long history of designing covers for young adult novels (two examples being Daniel Parker’s Countdown and Francine Pascal’s Fearless series), I listened when he said there shouldn’t be more than three paragraphs on a YA cover. He was right—it makes for punchier text.

“Lock it in!” I told Mat. “This one’s a keeper!”

So, there you have it: the story of Blood Feud’s cover, from first sketch to final design—just as action-packed as you’d expected it to be, right? 😉

Next: Creating the cover for Blood Reign, the current novel in Pan’s saga.

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback

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Pandora Zwieback: Creating Blood Reign’s Cover, Part 2

Pandora Zwieback: Creating Blood Feud’s Cover, Part 2