Wizard the Guide to Comics: Unused Covers

As stated in my previous post, Bart has had a long history with Wizard, and there was a time when he really was their 'golden boy.' This is before they got all hot for the likes of Alex Ross, Joe Quesada (who I, to this day, don't get the attraction), the Kubert boys and any other artist that came around the block.

Also stated in my previous post is the fact that Bart had more covers printed between issues 1 and 100 than any other artist. He, in fact, had a total of 11 covers printed.

But did you know that there were another 9 covers that never made it to print? No? Well, here they are in all of their glory, with some of them exclusively appearing for the first time right now!

Cover 1: Wonder Woman

This stunning piece was originally intended for around #9, as you can see. It was actually drawn around the same time as Bart's Wizard #4 Batman cover.

Cover 2: Darkhawk

Another one originally scheduled for #7-10. I read a lot of comics in the early '90's and I can't even recall seeing this character!

Cover 3: The Joker

Another really cool piece, intended for Wizard #9 (eventually to be replaced by Bart's famous Venom cover). Wizard claimed that this piece didn't clearly show the character in question... a kinda lame reason I think, because it is quite clearly The Joker, it couldn't be anybody else but The Joker. I mean, who else has green hair, white skin and wears a purple jacket?

Cover 4 & 5: She-Hulk 1 & 2

Planned for either Wizard 15 or 16 (Wizard have stated these covers were planned for 15 at one stage and 16 in another). They were intended to be split into East and West Coast distribution, can you tell which one is for which? Obviously, the Daisy Duke lookalike is for the West, the Farah Fawcett is for the East.

Cover 6: Sabretooth

To be honest, I'm still not 100% sure this piece is actually for a Wizard cover (Bart?). But that little star above Bart's signature tells me it is. It's a cool piece whatever it was for. Note: Bart has since confirmed that it is, indeed, a Wizard cover.

Cover 7: Psylocke v Sabretooth

Whilst technically not an 'unpublished' cover (the Psylocke figure was still used in the final), it still features a shot of Sabretooth that was replaced by another one by Bart, at Wizard's request (another one I disagree with). I think this first version is better.

Cover 8: Wonder Woman, Batman & Superman

A cool jam piece of three titans of comicdom, planned for Wizard #63, only to be beaten out by a Superman/Lois Lane piece and a Witchblade/Darkness variant. Ahhhhh, Wizard... silly children.

Cover 9: Batman v Joker/Two Face

This was originally intended for a Wizard Batman Special, but never made it to the cover. This is surely one of Bart's more odd pieces. The style is consistent with Bart's other work at the time, making use of thick outlines and fine line detail (which reached it's peak in Bart's Penthouse ComiX work, which is highly underrated in my view). It's just wacky looking! Here's what Bart recently had to say about it - "The Batman was me having fun... doing something a little different."

It is interesting to note that Bart also produced a Wolverine cover, inked by Rob Hunter, a few years ago, that has never turned up, and probably won't at this stage. He also produced a Superman cover for issue 8, that ended up appearing on the cover of the Wizard Phildelphia Comicfest '93 Souvenir Program Guide, but I'll talk about that more when I do a post about Bart's published Wizard covers.

Guess what the Postman delivered today? #6

This is the delivery I've really been waiting for.
As I mentioned in my Mile High Comics post, I've bought a lot off of them, and this is what I got in the delivery that arrived today-

Bad Company #3 - cover by Bart. I've had a copy of this for about 10 years now, maybe longer, but about 5 years ago, the tape that I use to seal the backing board and bag got stuck on the cover, and ripped a nice little chunk off it. It'll be going through the laminator tomorrow so that doesn't happen again.

Rogue Trooper #14, 15, 17. Just cool early covers. Replacing old laminates.

Weapon X: Days of Future Now #5. My worst laminating moment. I laminated my original copy of this and the laminator chewed it up. I'm a far more experienced laminator now, and it hasn't happened since.

The Dark #1 Second Printing, Continum Comics. There are two variant covers to the first printing of this, one with a Blue Chromium cover, one with a red. I didn't know about these until I saw that Bart had copies of them when I was visiting him. They're cool looking.

Legends of the Dark Knight #200. Another replacement copy. I bought LOTDK #200 the day it came out, but didn't think to check the comic for printing mistakes, and wouldn't you know, when I got home I noticed that there was some odd ink smudging going on. This new copy is clean.

Legends of the Stargrazers #2. This comic has such a cool pin-up by Bart on page one that I've bought it twice now. Actually, this one is a case of my old laminated copy wasn't laminated the best, so this will replace it. I used to use laminating sheets of about a 150 micron thickness, I now use 250.

Ramayan 3392 AD Reloaded Guidebook. Has all of 1 reprinted panels from Bart's back-up story in Reloaded #5. Still, now I know.

Wonder Woman #28. This issue features a full-page Ad for Justice League Europe. Nice.

Wizard #37. Hands down, the best Wizard for Bart stuff ever. First off, you get the Brute & Babe Infinity mini-comic in the bag, there's a 6 page 3-point perspective tutorial by Bart, not to mention a 6 page Ominous Press interview. I've actually owned two copies of this magazine, but have needed to redo the laminating.

Wizard #61. Has a cool Sabretooth v Psylocke cover. Again, I've owned it twice, but needed to re-laminate.

Wizard X-Men Special. Another one to be put through the laminating machine. This cover is interesting in that it features Wolverine, Cyclops & Jean Grey, but Colossus & Nightcrawler were then added after printing. It features Wolverine with those dumb-ass skeletal claws.

Wizard #115 Megacon Edition. The Megacon Edition has a cool cover of Seahn & Persha from The First. It's a hard enough issue to come by, and this one will replace my previous version and it's old laminating style. For those interested, my old laminating style consisted of laminating the page, then cutting off the excess laminate to the edge of the page. I now buy A4 size laminating sheets, center the page on the laminating sheet, and store it properly. They look great done this way.


Wizard #83. Not much in the way of Bart stuff in this issue, but it does have a full-page Ad on page 129 for the X-Men Special, and the advertisement uses Bart's cover for Wizard #56, but mirrored over.

Wizard #110. Pages 14-15 have a two-page Ad for The First. Wizard #'s 109 & 111 also have two-page spread Ads. Each subsequent Ad has a shot of Elysia from above, zooming in as it goes. I got these issues when they came out and actually joined the Ads together to make a poster, but I now have them all again to laminate normally. Anal much?

So there you go. Not a bad bunch, I think.
Jay (the Laminatrix, to coin a word)