comic cover

When i initially thought about what narrative i would try and communicate through the horror comic cover i at first thought that it would tell a story of a woman being shouted these 'terms of endearment' by creepy men on a street, however i then thought that it would be more appropriate both for the message behind the concept and for my overall practice (which centres around female empowerment) to show a woman as a protagonist, with male 'victims'. 

Left is an initial sketch, showing a woman in a comic book style making a man look like a doll, playing on one of the terms i received during my primary research, however this didn't seem horror based enough, and i didn't want to shy away from being gory as thats the theme of the magazine, and so i moved on to a more classic horror type scene.

The concept for this design was inspired by the terms men give to women which are often objects. I used this idea to create the narrative of a female protagonist placing the men who call her the terms of terror in to jars for her shelf, communicating the horror aspect of the magazine, whilst also representing the fact that the words given to women by men can often make us feel like objects, however this time it's been reversed.

In the above design i illustrated the woman in a style more reminiscent of the 70's horror magazines i researched in to for visual inspiration, however the style of the woman (with the hair and the clothes) felt too dated and not representative of the women these terms of effecting today, and so i subtly (whilst still communicating a similar design style) made this woman look more like a woman within todays society, however i've tried to emulate the same style with the use of shading and shadows, especially on the hair. The men in the jars all have name tags below them almost like trophies on a shelf, each presenting one of the names given to me during primary research. I wanted to add subtle details to the illustration, such as the cobweb in the top right corner; a classic symbol of horror, and the eye test behind the jars which reads 'don't call me baby' however the placement of the jars means that this isn't fully legible, it still ads to the overall laboratory-esque narrative of the design. A thought bubble has also been added to the design which i found to be quite common amongst the comics i previously looked at, this was added not only to further the stylistic choices of the cover but to also give the viewer a further insight in to what the story will be about, as the name could be quite ambiguous.





After showing my design within a crit and receiving positive peer feedback i added more details to the design such as the date and price in the top left corner, and more background illustration as the comics i previously looked at were all very detailed in their designs and so i wanted to give the viewer a lot to look at and find, such as the test tubes and notes on the wall.
Hearts were added to the wall to play on the fact that the terms of endearment given to women by men are often overly sweet such as treacle or sugar or sweetheart, and so by presenting almost a love heart wall paper in an otherwise horror setting it adds to the overall message and theme of the design.

Red is a prominent colour throughout the design as it's most typically related to the horror genre, i experimented below with using more cool tones as well as pink tones to play on gender stereotypes.


A subtle grain has been added to the design in order to give it a more 'vintage' effect, in addition to this i also believe that it allows the design to look more like an actual comic, due to the fact i've never attempted comic book design before, using prominent features within existing magazines proved very useful to my self such as the use of shadow and line details, which is different to the flat colour imagery i'm more comfortable using.

The comic cover will be printed on both thick card and thin newsprint, i believe the card printing will of course make the design more durable but also allow the details to be seen more clearly, however the thin newsprint, although it will be delicate, it will be more consistent to the material of the magazines the design side of the project has been inspired by.