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Okay, still not well, but improving. Anyway, I’ll answer something from the forum. On the new cover art with the blonde stripper on it. The question was, who is this guy? Funny you should ask. It was one of those interesting accidents. This was originally one of the character sketches that Brett Booth sent to me when he and the Dabels were first showing me their stuff. You can see why the image helped win me over, it is yummy. But Brett thought it was Robert, and then I pointed out that he doesn’t have long hair in the first book. So then, we decided it was Aubrey, but since we weren’t planning on using the picture in the comic, actually, it didn’t really matter. Just one of those discussions you have. Then we had Guilty Pleasures #1 go back to press for a third time, and we needed another cover. We went back and forth a few times, but I finally suggested the sketch of Aubrey/Robert from the character sketches I was shown originally. Here is where my ignorance of how art works comes into play. I thought Brett could just take the original image and use some artsy magic to make it big enough for a cover. Nope, he had to redraw it bigger. My only defense is the only art I worked with when I was in corporate America was on the computer, so you could size it up and down pretty easily. But at least Brett knew exactly what he was drawing, so that was a little faster. Anyway, he drew it, it was lovely, and it went off to be colored. Here’s where the confusion begins. In the original sketches this image was marked as Robert, who is a blonde. As I said earlier in this post, it was only after I pointed out to Brett that Robert didn’t have long hair that it ceased to be Robert, and we decided it was Aubrey. Aubrey has brown hair. But I can see why the colorist chose blonde, because the original sketch is marked for a blonde character.
So, we get this amazing picture, but with the wrong color of hair. Jon used a computer program to do a quick down and dirty change of hair color, and once you darkened the hair the picture just didn’t work as well. Normally, I’d say, nope, no matter how amazing it looks it’s got to be changed, but you know what, I love the image, we’re at deadline, and it looks better this way. I’ve been easier going and more chatty in e-mails all day. I think it’s the meds I’m on. But whatever the reason the wrong hair color just looked better on the cover. Aubrey will have his brown hair in the comic art, but he’s a blonde on the cover. I guess since movie posters can have so little to do with the actual movie, we can change a hair color on the third cover for issue #1. I wonder if when I finally get off these meds if I’ll feel differently? Naw. It’s a great cover, and maybe blondes do have more fun. As a lifelong brunette, I’ll never know.