Two words about the April 1, 2000 cover:

April Fool!

Okay, maybe a few more words. Let me take a minute to tell you about the making of our April Fools' Day Cover.

The genesis of the project came on February 4, 2000 when my late friend Al, of AHPA Enterprises, offered me a piece of custom artwork for the Comic Book Cover of the Day web site. In the ensuing discussion, we came up with the idea of making an April Fools' Day cover. A little searching turned up the photo at left, which I thought would translate into a good foreground image for Jungle Comics. (BTW, if you know the source of this photo, please drop me a line.)

I dug though my collection to find some Jungle Comics cover scans with usable background action, and emailed everything, along with my idea for the story to be illustrated, to Al on February 7. We spent the next nine days refining the story and description to make sure that the artist understood exactly what was wanted. Al has worked with artists for years, and his input was invaluable. Al then mailed the samples and specifications to professional artist, Bruce Conklin.
Al received the completed pen and ink artwork and mailed it to me on March 6, and I was thrilled. Bruce did an absolutely gorgeous job, and quick, too!

Then it was time for me to fire up Photoshop and start coloring. I'd worked with photographs for several years, but coloring line art was quite different. The first few hours were spent figuring out the basic techniques, but I finally got reasonably efficient. I put over twenty hours of coloring into the image at left over nine days, and I now have much greater respect for anyone who can make a living as a professional colorist!
I added over 30MB of saved selection areas, painting, and gradients to the original image.

Next, I swiped a nameplate from Jungle Comics #16. That issue had very little of the action obscuring the nameplate, so minimal reconstruction was required. I changed the unattractive blue-green background to a rich blue.

Then it was time to put it all together. First I resized the main image to match the nameplate's width, and stretched it vertically to comic book proportions. The nameplate was added on a new front layer. Sections of the nameplate were erased to bring the human figures to the front, and to put the tree trunk and branches between the nameplate text and background. I found fonts that were close to the lettering styles used in the real comics, and added text to show that this was issue number "164." I decided not to add cracks or creases or any other tricks to make it look too real. After all, what's the point of making a joke like this if nobody realizes it's all in fun?
The April Fool's Day cover was completed on March 18, 2000 with two weeks to spare. Phew!

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	The genesis of the project came on February 4, 2000 when my late friend Al, of AHPA Enterprises, offered me a piece of custom artwork for the Comic Book Cover of the Day web site. In the ensuing discussion, we came up with the idea of making an April Fools' Day cover. A little searching turned up the photo at left, which I thought would translate into a good foreground image for Jungle Comics. (BTW, if you know the source of this photo, please drop me a line.)
	I dug though my collection to find some Jungle Comics cover scans with usable background action, and emailed everything, along with my idea for the story to be illustrated, to Al on February 7. We spent the next nine days refining the story and description to make sure that the artist understood exactly what was wanted. Al has worked with artists for years, and his input was invaluable. Al then mailed the samples and specifications to professional artist, Bruce Conklin. Al received the completed pen and ink artwork and mailed it to me on March 6, and I was thrilled. Bruce did an absolutely gorgeous job, and quick, too!
	Then it was time for me to fire up Photoshop and start coloring. I'd worked with photographs for several years, but coloring line art was quite different. The first few hours were spent figuring out the basic techniques, but I finally got reasonably efficient. I put over twenty hours of coloring into the image at left over nine days, and I now have much greater respect for anyone who can make a living as a professional colorist! I added over 30MB of saved selection areas, painting, and gradients to the original image.
	Next, I swiped a nameplate from Jungle Comics #16. That issue had very little of the action obscuring the nameplate, so minimal reconstruction was required. I changed the unattractive blue-green background to a rich blue.
	Then it was time to put it all together. First I resized the main image to match the nameplate's width, and stretched it vertically to comic book proportions. The nameplate was added on a new front layer. Sections of the nameplate were erased to bring the human figures to the front, and to put the tree trunk and branches between the nameplate text and background. I found fonts that were close to the lettering styles used in the real comics, and added text to show that this was issue number "164." I decided not to add cracks or creases or any other tricks to make it look too real. After all, what's the point of making a joke like this if nobody realizes it's all in fun? The April Fool's Day cover was completed on March 18, 2000 with two weeks to spare. Phew!