Cover Contest November 30 - December 6: It's in the Details

[worstblogever]

Anyhoo, foxley picked the cover I probably would have sent with first. Love that Frankenstein piece.

[babyblob]

WPP. I always loved that cover and trying to spot the different heroes.

HM to Foxley and Ravin Ray

[Kirby101]

Iron Maiden, with WPP as a very close second.

[Zelena]

Many superb covers… Shalla Bal’s Weird cover caught my eyes. It makes me think of an Aboriginal painting.

And nx01a’s cover has such a subtle and appealing warm/cold contrast.

But I go for the moving and amazing Spider-Man cover posted by Ajax_X.

[Dalak]

Gotta love Transmetropolitan, going with Kirby101

[Jack Dracula]

Nschornhorst please.
Kirby101 was my runner-up.

[Scott Taylor]

CaptCleghorn for the cameo cover of cameo covers.

[Ajax_X]

way too many good choices, i liked the Godzilla from Kai "the spy"

[Iron Maiden]

When I first saw his entry, I didn't look at it that closely, I just assumed one of the several dozen variants for Conan's relaunch at Marvel had used the Frazetta cover with the BWS corner box, not noticing the price on that image. With all the dozens of variants for every #1 launched at every company these days, it gets harder and harder to parse what is a real cover and what isn't.

-M

We are so used to variants these days but they didn't exist back then, unless the story was reprinted with a new cover like they sometimes did.

[Iron Maiden]

foxley since that Bernie Wrightson cover was my first choice

[Iron Maiden]

Or... if you don't think it should count, don't vote for it.

But as I found it as a Dark Horse release, and what I posted was listed as a "Variant" of that cover. I ended up finding a ton of Frazetta's works have been repurposed as covers for different books, but the classic Conan was what I went with.

I am curious....what site has this cover? Marvel did produce a Conan #1 with the Barry Windsor cover back in 2021 but if you notice the price box is blank. Marvel has been selling a few landmark issues in a new printing for the past year. For example, to tie in with Wakanda Forever you could buy a reprint of the Black Panther's first appearance in FF #52 a couple of weeks ago. So did Dark Horse sell a new printing of Conan #1 with the altered cover instead of the original Barry Windsor Smith cover but using the Marvel logo? I just find that odd. I first read Conan stories from my oldest brother's collection of the Lancer paperbacks and Frazetta did do the cover for those.

Here is the page on Dark Horse that shows all of the Frank Frazetta Covers and they all have the Dark Horse Logo. issue #3 has the same image as your cover. I'm just curious as to why they would have a comic with the Marvel brand on it.

2021 Marvel facsimile edition

[worstblogever]

I am curious....what site has this cover? Marvel did produce a Conan #1 with the Barry Windsor cover back in 2021 but if you notice the price box is blank. Marvel has been selling a few landmark issues in a new printing for the past year. For example, to tie in with Wakanda Forever you could buy a reprint of the Black Panther's first appearance in FF #52 a couple of weeks ago. So did Dark Horse sell a new printing of Conan #1 with the altered cover instead of the original Barry Windsor Smith cover but using the Marvel logo? I just find that odd. I first read Conan stories from my oldest brother's collection of the Lancer paperbacks and Frazetta did do the cover for those.

Here is the page on Dark Horse that shows all of the Frank Frazetta Covers and they all have the Dark Horse Logo. issue #3 has the same image as your cover. I'm just curious as to why they would have a comic with the Marvel brand on it.

All I know is I saw the Dark Horse version, the same image search had what they said was a Marvel variant, I figured Marvel has Conan rights again, and went with it. In hindsight, the Dark Horse version is the one I should have picked, but voting started before I came in to notice the cover, so too late. I'm not upset that it "doesn't count", but I'm more asking... must we referee this so hard?

The finer point... the contest is supposed to be fun, and lawyering about what should and shouldn't count isn't. Our recommended rules are to just post covers and try and keep commentary to a minimum. Coming in and seeing a whole debate over whether something should count or not feels like it detracts, whether it's my cover, or the bunch of times it's someone else's and this happens.

When we vote, everyone individually can make these calls on "what counts". If my cover is out of bounds, folks can not vote for it and I ain't even mad. Hell, I'm fine with it when I have a legit cover and folks don't vote for it.

But let's please not make this a regular debate, because there's too many of those around this forum already, and just have fun with it. Just let people vote on Tuesdays as they will.

[MRP]

We are so used to variants these days but they didn't exist back then, unless the story was reprinted with a new cover like they sometimes did.

I wasn't thinking back then but about the 2018 return of Conan to Marvel with both Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan having double digit variants for their first issues.

-M

[Iron Maiden]

I stand corrected, and edited my post. But the cover wbe posted is still not a real comic.

I still am not convinced. The Frazetta family is highly protective of his work and IIRC Marvel does not have the rights to any of his work. (but he did do some work for the Epic Magazine of the 1980s) If they used a Frazetta image it was done without permission. I didn't find any Marvel variants of a Frazetta cover on the Previews page. I did find an Alex Maleev variant but he is under contract to Marvel.

[MRP]

I still am not convinced. The Frazetta family is highly protective of his work and IIRC Marvel does not have the rights to any of his work. If they used a Frazetta image it was done without permission. I didn't find any Marvel variants of a Frazetta cover on the Previews page. I did find an Alex Maleev variant but he is under contract to Marvel.

They are super protective only if you don't have the money to pay them. If you have the money, you can get any Frazetta image you want for just about any product imaginable from shot glasses and coasters to throw rugs and pillows to covers for roleplaying games and jigsaw puzzles. There is a bigger cottage industry for Frazetta images now than there were in the 70s when every other van on the road had an airbrushed Frazetta image and his stuff was everywhere. My wallet gave up trying to keep up with Frazetta merch several years ago. If Marvel wanted to use a Frazetta image, I'm pretty sure Disney had the money for them to do so. But the Frazetta license is different than the Conan license, so the wouldn't have been able to use a Frazetta piece unles sthey took that extra step of licensing the image from the estate.

-M