THE COVER:
 
It’s a bit of an unwritten rule around VERTIGO that the interior artist doesn’t do the cover art. Some of it is a tradition that goes back to SANDMAN, some of it’s a time management thing, and some of it’s that often artists who are great at interiors aren’t always so great at the single image needed for a cover. It’s two totally different parts of the brain for an artist and not everyone can pull it off.
 
So we set out with the same approach to SAUCER COUNTRY...trying hard to think of someone cool to do the covers. We approached a couple of artists but it just wasn’t coming together. Ryan Kelly was pretty sure he was NOT the right guy for the job. But, as so often happens in life, fate stepped in...
 
We needed something to show at New York Comicon last fall and we were running out of time. So I asked Ryan to throw together a “promo image”. A promo image is basically a teaser image that we could show at the panel when we announced the book. Ryan sent a bunch of sketches for this and behold, they were AWESOME. So much cool thinking and energy...I felt right away that he should stop worrying about it and start doing the covers. He fought me on it saying, “There must be someone better for this!”...He lost that fight and got the job. Ha Ha!
 
So here’s the original sketches he sent and one of the final covers...With any luck we’ll be able to squeeze some more good ones out of Ryan!
 
-- Will Dennis