When I was drawing Buffy, I always jumped at the chance to put my influences in. The covers took a life of their own with many of them being recreations of classic covers and other media from days gone by.
Buffy Season 8 #15 (2008)
This issue was the first homage cover I did for Buffy. Taken from the Seven Samurai movie poster by Akira Kurosawa, it fit because Buffy and the gang were fighting Vamps in Japan.
Buffy Season 8 #20 (2008)
While not strictly a homage cover, I used the animated style of a proposed Buffy cartoon series that never made it past a short. You can watch it on YouTube. The reason for this cover homage was some of the team from the cartoon drew a story in this issue. It was a nice little nod to the proposed series. Here you can see what the characters would have been drawn like and the cover I put them on.
Buffy Season 8 #29 (2009)
Ever since Xander lost an eye in season 7 Joss has compared him several times to Nick Fury in print. I just took that idea to its natural conclusion for the cover. I used Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos #12. I love trying to imitate another style and who better than King Kirby himself? I had to modify the cover a bit to include the Scoobys, and I drew in the logo by hand, but I was very pleased with the way it turned out. Joss flipped for it! He’s such a comic nerd.
Buffy Season 8 #31 (2010)
From the artist whose name nobody can pronounce. Lichtenstein. When I was looking for a cover idea for Season 8 issue 31 of Buffy back in 2010, I thought about the drama of the issue. This was the story where Buffy has admitted feelings for Xander who has been waiting to find the right time to tell her that he and Dawn are an item. Lots of drama! While this cover isn’t a straight homage, you can see where I went for inspiration.
Buffy Season 8 #32 (2010)
If you’re a comic artist in the business, sooner or later you’re going to pay homage to what is arguably the cover that started it all. Action Comics #1
I thought it only fitting that Buffy, being a superhero without a costume, got her chance. Modestly, the story was about Buffy having enhanced powers. Joss once told me that Buffy is strong enough to throw a car. Here I had her going bigger. It’s also no accident that her wardrobe colors on this issue match Superman’s. There are also 3 cameos on this cover. I’ll leave it to the sharper eyed Buffy Season 8 fans to figure out who they are.
Buffy Season 8 #33 (2010)
Years ago when Buffy Season 8 was coming to its climax, the folks at Dark Horse wanted to have a little fun with how we revealed the identity of the big bad for season 8. The identity of the villain was cloaked in mystery for years. It was Obama (not true)! But we paid homage to the big reveal using the Hobgoblin cover of Amazing Spiderman #289 as inspiration.
Buffy Season 8 #34 (2010)
This cover happened around the big reveal of who was the Big Bad of season 8 Issue 34 which turned out to be Angel. Noted author and writer of this arc Brad Metzler, wanted all his covers to pay homage to an older comic cover. This was the case with Action Comics 568, but instead of Superman kissing someone whose identity I’m still not sure of. Brad wanted Buffy and Angel unmasked. Willow and Xander were also going through their romances. Oh. And for all you Bangel fans, this is also the notorious Sex issue..! Check it out, but not for the faint of heart!
Buffy Season 8 #35 (2010)
Here is another comic cover homage of Uncanny X-Men 138. Exit Cyclops. Similarly in Buffy Season 8, Buffy was leaving the group and I thought of the X-Men cover when I read the script. The Editor ran with it and wanted to recreate the entire cover, even the bicycle ad which ran through Marvel’s comics for that year. I thought that was a little overkill, but there is no mistaking the cover and its origins! I was really deep into fashion! Exit Buffy.
Buffy Season 8 #36 (2011)
When the creative staff was thinking of what kind of cover we could do for this issue, it was none other than a certain Joss Whedon who joked at first, why don’t we do a Twilight homage since that franchise is suspiciously familiar to Buffy already. The editor and I thought that was a great idea and so much of the Twilight saga had these two ‘beasts’ vying for the affections of pretty little highschooler, which is what we were looking for with Buffy, Angel and Spike. Nothing stood out more then the New Moon movie poster. It was perfect. I didn’t even have to wonder which was Angel and which was Spike. This one came together rather quickly.
Buffy Season 9 #6 (2012)
Something that seemed obvious at the time was using covers from the wonderful Tomb Of Dracula series from Marvel that ran through the 1970s. Issue #10 was the first appearance of Blade the Vampire Slayer (1973)! And while I’m sorry I never used this cover for Buffy, it is probably more appropriate that the Slayer was Nikki Woods who was the slayer in the 1970s on the show. Odder still, in all of the 75 plus covers that TOD had in its long run, I only ever did this one homage. I’m not sure why. I mean, Buffy and Dracula…? These are covers begging to be recreated!
Buffy Season 9 #10 (2012)
Crisis On Infinite Earths was DC’s mega series where they cleaned house in a big way! And throughout the series, there were a lot of casualties. Superman losing his kin Supergirl in issue #7, not being the least of the tragedies. While not immediately a classic cover, over the years this image has gain cult status because of the subject matter and just how effective George Perez, the artist of the series, illustrated Superman’s loss. 10 years ago I followed suit and while the story teased that Buffy dies, I thought it would serve as a nice homage cover for this issue.
Serenity No Power in the ‘Verse #2 (2016)
Serenity was another Whedon book I had the pleasure of drawing years ago. When it came to this cover I thought wouldn’t it be interesting if some of the crew were walking Abbey Road thousands of years in the future? I thought the street would still be there but how much would it have changed? The iconic Beatles cover has been homaged lots of times, since the album’s release in the 60s. Unfortunately, this cover never did see print.
Angel & Faith #1 (2011)
This is the first and only time I lent my talents to Buffy’s spin-off series Angel and Faith. It might seem strange that in all my time working on buffy I never really touched this other title. The cover was a lot of fun to do and all of the titles being released that year by Dark Horse would have their 25 Anniversary stamp on it. The inspiration for this one came from The Spirit, a classic long-running series by art guru Will Eisner. I’ve always loved the way Eisner would incorporate the title of the book in the art on the main page. Something I’ve tried to do in my career with varying degrees of success. In this case Dark Horse just wanted the number on the cover sans the title.
Buffy Commission
Here is a nice commission I did of a classic first appearance of Gambit from Uncanny X-Men #266 with Gambit and Storm on the cover. Instead, we now have Buffy and Spike recreated on a blank cover for BOOM studios Hellmouth #1. How old do some of you feel knowing that Gambit made his first appearance back in 1990, 30 years ago? I got into this piece and decided to continue it on the back cover to some extent. I really liked the way this turned out.
