A GEEK DADDY: DC Comics is going Looney in November

Comic book cover artwork is the big differentiator between print and digital publications. Collectors and hobbyists really want standout art that can be displayed or pulled out and shown off in a collection. Knowing that these covers play a big part in drawing customers into comic book stores and sustaining the market for traditional print comic books, publishers are commissioning more and more artwork for variant covers for their titles to keep fans satisfied and encourage them to buy multiple copies of the same issue just for the cover art. That's why you are starting to see issues more regularly with multiple covers and comic book publishers creating specialized marketing campaigns to promote the sale of variant covers. DC Comics for example likes to regularly have monthly themes where all their issues will have a corresponding variant covers featuring artwork tied to it.

For example in 2015, March was "Movie Poster" month with each title having a variant cover that was tied to a memorable movie. Aquaman was based off of "Free Willy", Batman & Robin was inspired by "Harry Potter", Green Lantern had a "2001: Space Odyssey" vibe to it and Justice League played off the popularity of "Magic Mike." In July all the variant covers had promotional artwork tied to the Cartoon Network's animated television series Teen Titans Go! which features youthful versions of DC Comics superheroes. August's theme is "Bombshells" which transformed DC Comics characters into WWII pinup-inspired creations that grace the covers of 21 of its most popular titles throughout the month. They'll continue their popular Halloween inspired Monster Mashups in October.

Fans of Bugs Bunny and his friends will want to pay special attention to the month of November as DC Comics variant comic theme is Looney Tunes. Looney Tunes, like DC Comics, is owned by Warner Brothers so there is some corporate cross-promotion going on here but I don't care because I like both of these brands and the pairing make for some wacky fun. There will be over two dozen hilarious variant covers that pair up DC Comics super heroes like Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman with the likes of the Tasmanian Devil, Wile E Coyote, Sylvester the Cat, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and numerous other Looney Tunes characters. For non-regular comic book readers, just note that the art and script for the stories inside are the regular continuance of that title's story line and doesn't feature a special adventure tied to the cover artwork. I've heard of parents picking up comic books with variant covers that would appeal to their kids only to get home and find out the story and cover didn't correlate. These monthly themed covers are fun for displaying or for sprucing up a collection, but they most often don't relate to the stories inside.

Here are a few of my favorite Looney Tunes covers that are coming out in November 2015: