Nova #12 : Anatomy of a Mighty Marvel Comics Cover

Now there are numerous quality books published on how to draw comics and break into the comic art business, not to mention all the online courses, schools, and other programs on the Internet to help artists both young and old. But back in 1977,  "How to Draw The Marvel Way" was one of the few books Marvel Comics ever published at the time to instruct new artist's on their method of drawing for the company. Using one of their best artists,  "Big" John Buscema was chosen to illustrate the book with instructions by Stan "The Man" Lee himself. One of my favorite sections is Chapter 10 and the process followed for a making a Marvel cover design. As we can see from the art provided below, first it begins with some very quick pencil thumbnails for a design, before landing on one (here the bottom right) to do an initial rough. In this case John used his cover for their star-crossed hero, Nova, for issue #12 where he encounters the amazing Spider-Man. Next its followed by a more detailed rough pencils before moving on to more full pencils to fill in all the last needed details. Finally there is the published pen and ink cover to the book, with some slick inks by Frank Giacoia, and it appears that may have a few touch ups by Spider-Man artist, "Jazzy" John Romita Sr. But for young kids dreaming of one day drawing their heroes, it was a real sign to behold, and still is today.