We Don't Get French Benefits?

So this week I was responsible for the cover. FINALLY a chance to showcase my skills on illustrator......except not. Because both features this week were not 'entertainment,' and the rule at Vox is that the cover must always be entertaining, I got to design the first department cover of the semester. It was a lot of fun, the fine arts department was featuring a graphic artist who has created his own local comic book with his friend. This guy was really nice, and jumped at the chance to draw an original illustration for our cover, which meant I spent the week working on a concept, and delegating the drawing to Matt.

My concept was the transformation from Matt's real life into his comic life. The comic is based on he and his friends every day antics...only SET IN SPACE (woohoo!) I wanted to show how his real life becomes more exciting and alive through the comic, and the idea that eventually was worked out was that we could show this transition through color...his real life is boring and black & white...while his comic life is full of adventure...and in COLOR.

Here are a few sketches Matt sent me throughout the week, so you can see the transition from the original drawing to final product.
Sketch 1:

He added color to this one:

Here is what is on the cover:


It was fun acting as the art director, creating a concept for others to execute. Matt is such a talented artist, I feel his own drawings to more justice than I could have done. I still feel like the cover was mine, because I came up with the idea behind the cover...and I took this artists' ability and molded it into workable cover art for Vox.