the basic problem is that the cover was not right for the content of the comic. DC editorial must have some control over variant covers so it doesn't happen again.
the basic problem is that the cover was not right for the content of the comic. DC editorial must have some control over variant covers so it doesn't happen again.
I think that's crangers point. Looking at history and how often cover's get pulled "just cuz", it's undeniably likely Rafael would not have come to this conclusion had those asking for his decision to be respected actually, ya know, respected his decision to begin with.
He pulled the cover by peer pressure and internet Censorship. It wasn't a decision made for some regret about how he had done his job, but a decision made by fear of a major side effect on his next gigs. I hope you don't suffer the pressure he suffering now.
I think the next CBDF should focus to protect artists from the thin skin from the bloggers.
In my opinion it still would have looked weird. I don't think Batman or Superman would cry while facing Joker or Doomsday. Superman would have looked pissed and angry, and Batman would have looked angry, pissed, and scared, but neither would have cried (in front of the villain, at least).
If you wanna argue that the cover isn't consistent with the book's contents, that's fine. However, most of its very vocal detractors are claiming that it promotes rape without any regard for context or the artist's intentions. They sound just like the people who tried to prevent the theatrical release of Brokeback Mountain in my town.
This is all I'll say on this heated topic but I agree with the BATGIRL creative team. It's not appropriate for the comic series they've been trying to push, one that is a proven success and has started a bit of a creative spark within the DC offices. I didn't like the cover and thought it was just gross when I first saw it but it didn't bother me all that much. I believe in creative freedom but these are corporate characters and Barbara Gordon (if she's not going to be Oracle anymore) has to out grow the Killing Joke in order to move forward as a character.
If this was the cover for batgirl, then yes, recall it, there's too much heat.
AFAIK, there's a certain number of books an LCS has to get before getting a variant, maybe get 10 copies and you can get this variant cover, or they might not even get any variant at all.
Chances are this might not even be on the shelves
What we used to call life has very little worth these days. Welcome to the very edge.
--Prince Namor (Earth-616)
Variants are planned and commissioned out of the Promotional office whereas regular covers come from Editorial/Creative. In this case the creative team did not know of the Joker cover until it went up with the solicits. So yeah the problem is largely around internal communication procedures and I daresay Rafa was spurred to request pulled once he realized he was inadvertently messing with the vibe of another creative team, his creative peers. As you touched on what this also means is that as DC are expanding their range of "fun" titles they'll need to fix this process if they want prevent future instances of, say, a racy pin-up variant appearing on the front page of the new female Prez.