New Brevoort Formspring

I grew up in an era where the covers were often very misleading, so I’m sensitive to it.

That all said, given that we need to show our covers in Previews three months before the books come out, there are instances where we get something wrong.

Quite often–in almost all cases these days–we’re getting the cover done well before the story itself has been written. So we only have whatever information the writer can give us ahead of time to guide us in the execution of an image. And sometimes the writer in pacing out their story winds up with events in different issues, or with events dropping out along the way. Or, over the weeks and months, they’ve forgotten what was discussed. Or the artist, in getting the information about an image may execute it in a manner different from what the writer had in mind. Or a million other things.

And sometimes, a provocative image is simply better at attracting attention to the story.

We try to have our covers accurately reflect the content of the books, within reason. which includes sometimes commissioning new covers at the eleventh hour, or switching the issues that the covers are on. But especially with so many titles released every month, sometimes we get it wrong. Or sometimes an image that’s within the comfort zone of the creative and editorial team in terms of representing the issue doesn’t strike you as an individual reader in the same way.