Drawing The Covers

Cerebus #122 (May 1989)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from Comics Interview #107, 1992)

...It's very funny, there are so many covers that we get done and we think that, well, we'll just have to live with it. I don't like it, you don't like it, but I spent too much time on it and now you are spending too much time on it. We've got a whole issue to draw. I think there's more time spent on the covers than just about anything else and a lot of times there's a feeling on both our parts that for the amount of time we put into it we didn't get full value out of it. Usually, the reaction is much better from out there than our reaction is.  We do have a certain number that we like. Most of the time Ger likes what I did on it and I think it sucks. In the last while a lot of the reason there haven't been people on the covers, it's like "Take it away Ger"; let Gerhard do the cover. Just make it all background so I'll like this one - because I hate what I do on them. I'll give you a good example: during Jaka's Story, the cover where Pud is crouching down and watching Oscar and Rick through the window and you can see the reflection of Oscar and Rick on the window and you can also see Pud looking out through it, which is a very complicated sort of thing to draw. You are talking about a brilliant sunshine reflection so it has to look literally, like a painting on top of a painting. All I have to do is draw a very large Pud head and a little tiny Oscar and a little tiny Rick and after that it's just one big series of reflection problems for Gerhard...

...I'm always very pleased that people like the covers as much as they do. It's a common compliment; I just wish I liked them as much as they liked them...