Was Superman A Spy?
Author: Brian Cronin
Designer/Illustrator: Mickey Duzyj
Publisher: Plume Books
Typefaces: Hand-lettered

I ran across Was Superman A Spy? on a comic book blog. When I saw the cover I was so impressed with the design. The cover looks like it was pulled right out of the golden age. Every detail is done so well. Great job Mickey and thanks for sharing.
—Charles Brock

What is the book about?
Was Superman a Spy? is a collection of comic-book-industry "urban legends" that have been passed around by amateur historians over the last 70+ years, all of which are put to the test by an uber-comics-mythbuster named Brian Cronin. The book gives you a thorough tour through his discoveries and debunkings (many of which are unexpected and strange,) and also paints a portrait of what the 20th century comics industry was like.

Who is the audience?
This book is written by a comic book fanatic, for comic book fanatics, so was no time to mess around with inauthenticity. Considering that pages and pages of this book are dedicated to things like misprints or incorrect draftsmanship, I tried my best to draw something that could withstand the critical eye of its target readership, while at the same time signaling that this was a book beyond a collection of reprinted material. Also, since the book makes some interesting discoveries into the origins of recognizable stories and characters, I thought that including some of those things on the cover might intrigue casual fans as well.


What are the typefaces being used?
I hand-lettered all the typefaces on the jacket, but they were inspired by classic comic fonts from the 30s to the 70s. The title was drawn to evoke the original Superman title font, though after I found out DC has the block-lettered "SUPERMAN" trademarked, I made a few changes so that (hopefully) I don't get everybody sued.





Where is the image from, what is its background?
The main image is of Superman dressed as a spy, and makes reference to a story inside the book where it was accused that Superman comic books were revealing American nuclear secrets. The smaller images in the side panels describe other comic book legends from within the book.

Were there any constraints placed on you by the client?
The biggest challenge in this design was trying to avoid using trademarked characters and logos on the cover. I didn't realize this going into the job, but nearly everything in the comics industry is trademarked. We had many discussions about what technically about a character was trademarked (for superman, his chest logo and font) vs. what I could use to identify him (like red boots, blue tights, blue hair, etc.). As we realized that each character had their own specific traits that couldn't be be shown, it became almost like a design game to try and do something legal. My favorite thing that made it onto the final cover is the panel on the top of the right-hand stack, where I was able to draw what Batman was originally designed to look like, A) because Bob Kane never trademarked that unused design and B) I drew it from a pencil sketch that artist Alan Porter drew from Bob Kane's description.

Beyond that, the only other constraint I felt during the process was the heavy load of copy that I received for the verso, which somewhat limited the amount of drawing I could do around it.




Were there any steps taken before you started designing?
Being an amateur comics-nerd myself, I started with my own connection to comic book collecting, and the things about old comics that give them their fetish object appeal. Of course, no new book can be printed on that nice/crappy/yellowing/thin paper that most old comics have aged into, nor can they arrive with that musty old paper smell (though I'm convinced that somebody can figure this out,) but I thought I could work with how the books physically looked, and began experimenting with dot, line, and ink textures. After messing around for a few days with rubber stamps, markers bleeding through multiple sheets of paper, and scans of some actual paper textures, I made a digital folder of a few textures I liked most, and used that as a starting point. Also, I used this job as an excuse to reread many of my old comics, which was fun and inspiring.

Was there a clear working process that lead up to the final?
The process went as smoothly as I could've hoped for, where I submitted 3 concepts drawn in pencil to the AD, who presented them to everybody at Plume. I heard back that none of them was a clear loser (which is rare and nice), but most everyone agreed that the one of Superman-in-profile was the best. That sketch was then forwarded to Brian Cronin, who gave his blessing to the design so long as I fixed a few small errors in the sidebar stories. He and I emailed back and forth to came up with a few different, & more legal, stories for that section, and eventually agreed on the Batman/Wonder Woman/Elvis combination. There was also the aforementioned issue with the legal department nixing the way I'd drawn the titles, so that required a few revisions too. Beyond that though, the first sketches for the spine and for the verso were approved, and everything happily went to final.

Did you collaborate with anyone? How was that process?
Nothing out of the ordinary, though I did have a correspondence with the author to make sure I didn't make any (more) mistakes.

Author Brian Cronin's comments on the cover.
The cover for Was Superman a Spy? was a difficult task for any artist, to try to maintain an iconic cover without using any of the familiar trademarks that make these characters icons. With only the rough idea of what the title of the book conjured up (Superman as a spy) to go on, Mickey beautifully maintained the iconic feel while also giving the cover a dynamic feel not unlike the best comic book cover.

For the inset, where he drew three other legends, he had three legends in place at the beginning and after he and I talked over e-mails, I suggested that the original look for Batman would make for a rather unique approach and Mickey agreed, and he came up with new sketches for the inset and it is these drawings that made their way into the finished cover, which I couldn't be more pleased with.
-Brian

Were there any known influences that lead to your solution?
I used many of the artists described inside the book — from Jack Kirby to Steve Ditko to Jack Cole — as the starting-point for my drawing, and I looked to their work to come up with my favorite aspects of the "classic comics presentation." The look of the comics, partly having to do with drawing style and partly the methods of printing, is the most important thing that I felt would signal that this is a book about classic comics, but I also looked at how the varied fonts and font sizes created that wonky dramatic pacing effect, and the 'aww shucks' style of humor that was popular too. There are a lot of great contemporary designers and cartoonists (Jonathan Gray, Chip Kidd, Chris Ware, Jon Gall, Seth, Dan Clowes and Charles Burns just to name a few) who've also experimented with the visual language of classic comics, and their wide-ranging interpretations inspired my effort too.



Do you have any sketches that led to the final?
I submitted 3 Superman-as-spy concepts to my Art Director, all of which featured a few other story panels. I've always really liked the look of the old Superman covers with the Hollywood Squares-esque mosaics in them, so thought it might be interesting to incorporate something like that into this design. The first two sketches had the panels on the right hand side, while the third had the panels running across the bottom. An idea that I liked a lot, but that had to be cut, is the panel with Venom (the Spiderman villain) putting on lipstick, since he was originally written to be a female. Legal department said no.


What is the message behind the design?
For what could be looked at as a history book about comics (yawn,) this book is unexpectedly funny, weird, and packed with obscure trivia. I hope the cover strikes the same tone.

What would you say makes this an effective design?
My favorite thing about reading Brian's book was making small discoveries through the history of comics, and having those discoveries deepen my appreciation for stories and characters that I've known about for a long time. The most I can hope for is that my cover gives the reader somewhat of a similar experience, (while at the same time being nice to look at.)

Is there anything unique you learned from the process of this project?
With the right motivation, legal departments can work really really fast sometimes. Like, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet fast.

6.15.09 // Ian said:

Brilliant through and through. I love the little treatment of the Plume logo on the back cover and spine. This shows a very dedicated attention to detail that shows from front to back. The concept sketches are wonderful too and all would have made great covers just as well as the final. I can appreciate all the legal hoops that had to be jumped through to make this cover happen as well. It's hard to pay homage these days.