The Making of a Cover: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison by Dave Wilkins

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The Making of a Cover: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison by Dave Wilkins

05/25/2012 11:02am

We asked Dave Wilkins to share some thoughts about his really awesome connected series of covers for the Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison comic series.

When the editors and I originally started to design the covers, we were talking about showing Vader in five iconic shots and how that would pertain to the Force. The Force is always referred to as “flowing,” so my initial thought was water. I did the layout as a massive wave of the dark side, and that became the unifying theme through all five covers.

First I started with beats that reflected impactful periods of Vader's life. Then I wanted to create a balance of elements from the Sith and the Empire woven together: archaic Sith texts combined with Death Star schematics and TIE fighters flowing in and out of the background to underscore the wave motif.

While everyone was onboard with the idea, it just didn't work for the story. This is about the beginning of Vader's career, so a lot of classic imagery was off limits (the Death Star, stormtroopers, etc.), and that sent me back to the drawing board. But then editor Randy Stradley made the suggestion to go vertical and turn the whole thing on its head. I am glad we did, because starting vertically made me think about it differently. As a result, the idea was fresh and I wasn't trying to shoehorn diluted fragments of the original concept into this new one.

We decided the best approach would be thematic: tie story-specific elements together and let them run through the covers of all five issues. I'm a huge movie buff, and obviously a Star Wars fan, so I started with what is at the core of Star Wars DNA to me personally—that opening shot of the ship in Episode IV—while drawing inspiration from Drew Struzan's amazing paintings. Basically it came down to combining those things that I love and adapting them for the opening of the series.

I kicked off cover 1 with a familiar opening shot of a cruiser approaching a planet with the menacing Vader image looming above. I wanted to set the tone that the baddest dude in the galaxy is about to pull in to a spaceport near you!

I wanted the second cover to continue like a camera pan from the films. The camera moves down to reveal Vader on the ground, lightsaber engaged and ready for action. This transition from cover 1 to 2 was relatively easy. But getting into cover 3 fluidly…not so much…

For me one of the coolest things in Star Wars is from Return of the Jedi (spoiler alert!): Vader lifts the Emperor midcombat while Force lightning is flying all around, blasting Vader and everything in the area. When the lightning makes impact with Vader, it’s like an x-ray for just a second and his skull becomes visible. I begged the guys to let me do an extreme close-up inspired by that scene. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. It's a little creepier than I initially intended, but yeah, it was definitely fun.

-Dave Wilkins

Dark Horse Comics

The Making of a Cover: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison by Dave Wilkins

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