Buy My Cover: Andrew Wildman

It is the year 2005 and it has been far too long since a certain “superstar artist” took away the ability to throw down money on a monthly Transformers comic. If the sales numbers for IDW’s preview issue were any indication, you are all anxious to get back to buying some! Come January, IDW has you covered. The New Year starts off with Transformers: Infiltration #1 by Simon Furman and EJ Su. When you enter that comic book store, or order a copy from one of the many online outlets offering the book, you will be faced with a decision. This goes far beyond Trukk or Munky. No, dear reader, you will have to choose just which cover you will plunk down your hard earned money for. Now, you could be like The Smooth One and purchase every cover. But nobody, least of all your friends at IDW, expects that. Sure, if you’re in the US, it’ll only set you back a bit under twelve USD to pick up every cover, but if you’re outside the US, the cover price per issue is likely to have doubled (or even tripled when shipping is factored in). You know it’s going to be a hard decision to make. Well, my fellow Transfans, I feel your pain. That is why the fandom’s favorite freelancer has offered an open invitation to the artists of the four (regular) covers to plead their case before you, the comic buying consumer.

Professor Smooth: The first to take me up on the offer was the legend himself, Mr. Andrew Wildman. Yes, I’m as shocked as you are. I asked Mr. Wildman why YOU should buy his cover. And this is what he said…

Andrew Wildman: Interesting question with a very simple (if lengthy) answer.

When IDW asked me to do covers for the series they didn’t have any kind of brief. They gave me completely free reign to do whatever I wanted. This would have been a great opportunity to do some fantastic pin-up shots of whichever characters I wanted to draw. Although this is generally how artists approach covers these day so as to get maximum shelf impact this was not the approach I chose. As I am sure you are aware I have a long term working relationship with Simon Furman. I spoke to Simon about the covers and said that I wanted to approach them in the same way that we used to approach the old Marvel Transformers covers. This was that I wanted the cover to be a reflection of what occurs in the story. So. Simon is coming up with rough descriptions about what he feels should be on the cover. His experience as an editor means that his choice of cover image will always be spot on.
As an artist this means that I will not simply lapse into drawing whatever feels 'easy' or 'sexy'. The cover image for 2 and 3 are examples of this especially the Blitzwing cover. No way would I have chosen to draw that one but as a professional artist it is important to be able to draw to a brief. So. In short, the covers that I do are representational of what is inside the book in a traditional comic sense. That said. The other guys are doing some wicked stuff :-)

Cheers and hope that helps

Professor Smooth: Thank you, Mr. Wildman!

Which IDW cover artist will respond next? Keep ‘em glued to Seibertron.com to find out! Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Transformers: Infiltration, on sale in January. If you missed the preview issue (and shame on you if you did), don’t worry. We’re going to be giving away several free copies of the BotCon ’05 incentive cover absolutely free to several lucky fans! Details on that will be forthcoming as well.

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