The big cover-up: At Ninth Art, Paul O'Brien bemoans Marvel's generic pin-up covers, and looks at what some books are doing to stand out on the shelves:

"The good news, however, is that when the general standard of covers is this monotonous, it shouldn't be all that hard to stand out. A good strong design idea that takes the comic out of the norm has a good chance of getting noticed. The DC Focus books at least have a distinct look to them, and don't have the appearance of normal superhero comics. I'm not quite sure what specific message they send, but at least they say, 'I'm different'. WILDCATS has had some clever, pseudo-corporate covers - not that they've done much good when it comes to sales, admittedly LOVE FIGHTS stands out a mile, through a combination of minimalism and recurring design themes (the hearts, the limited colours) - from that point of view, it's got some of the best covers around."