The first attempt at the logo design is something I nicknamed the "blurted out" version. I was looking at old books on prestidigitation and sleight-of-hand, and the typeface I chose here was reminiscent of those. So, contextually wrong for the story, and it reads a little too "Magic: The Gathering," while simultaneously being stuffy and dull. 

Prelim 2 was an attempt to mine the noir, pulp-crime sensibilities of the story, so I tried an Art Deco typeface, and monkeyed around with it a bit. I like the look of it, but it still reads too much like a stage magician's poster. 

Same problems as the prior versions: not quite right, in terms of tone, and the awkward perspective would likely be at odds with cover art, and other necessary trade dress, like the Image Comics logo (about which more later). 

Black Magick artist Nicola Scott had sketched some preliminary ideas of her own (and you can see some of them in the bonus material in the Magazine edition of Black Magick No. 01, plug plug hint hint) that included the use of runes as primary letter forms. Here, I attempted to blend an old 1930s poster typeface with hand-drawn "rune"-ish letters, to horrifying, unreadable effect. 

I was started to get really frustrated here. 

No.

Just…no.

Every design I do goes through this process. I call this "The Ugly, Desperate Phase."

I like this one a lot (and I ended up using a cleaner version of this typeface on some of the interior bits—specifically on an image of an old, tattered spellbook page), but up front on the cover, it reads too antique for a contemporary story. 

Now we're getting somewhere. The older poster typeface from the "rune" design returns. The box/inverted type started to get me thinking about police forms and casebooks, and it occurred to me that, since there's going to be supernatural stuff on the cover, the logo needed to cement the otherwordly aspects of the setting in a contemporary context. 

At this point, I started looking at scans of old police manuals and crime/pulp covers, and without any further drafts, leapt immediately to the final design and structure of the covers. 

I took a slightly more modern typeface—Alte Haas Grotesk Bold, which has a nice Helvetica feel to it, but with softer, slightly curved edges. It feels clean and modern, but has a touch of age to it, too. 

The team seemed to like it, so that was a definite plus. Especially when it's in situin the trade dress...

Taking cues from old pulps, I decided the solid, bright color background would be featured on each of the regular covers with each issue using a different color than the prior release. Issue 1 is red, issue 2 is blue, issue 3 is purple, etc.

That color is also used in the interior design pages and back cover, too, tying everything together. 

It was also important to me to incorporate the Image logo into the design; everything is on a sort of grid, with the Image logo, price and issue number forming a vertical line which acts to anchor the trade dress, and the logo and credits drawing the eye horizontally. 

One of the challenges in designing the covers for Lazarus is finding the right spot for the Image logo, issue #, and so on. I wanted to really integrate that stuff into the trade dress, as it makes for a nice, consistent look without distracting from the cover art, and it simplifies the workflow when it comes time to actually get work done.