I had Ben Dilworth's superb comic work and unfortunately, thanks to the process used by my printer, the cover that was sent could not be used. I was left with the option of not publishing, just adding the occasional strip to an existing anthology (The Clock did appear on the front cover of the final issue (vol. 2 no. 10) of Adventure which featured a Dilworth illo colourised by my brother, Mike.
I hate doing covers! But I suck it up and get to work. Apparently, I am told, the various book covers stand out and are "unique" in not just having fight scenes on them. So I tried one idea. Threw it out. Brilliant idea next and....threw it out. Another idea seemed to be perfect. Can you guess what happened? Yup, threw it out!
There I sat looking at a rough outline sketch (by "outline" I actually mean pencilled outline) and I thought keeping that clean white background would be nice. At that point my black and white artist brain kicked in and I left The Clock as a silhouette against a white background..with some bullet holes (we all knew it was heading that way).
(c)2025 BTCG
Completed I went away and made some coffee (NOT instant. NEVER instant!!!) came back to the image and threw it to one side. It wouldn't work. I tried another design. Nope. How about that silhouette in a darkened alleyway with trash cans over turned and bullets whizzing (giggle) by.
No.
I looked at that illo and again and said something rude and it became the final cover!
Still don't think it did justice to the interior art but if you have a book you need a cover -right?
all art (c)2025 Ben R. Dilworth (except the cover I did!)
