WILDSTORM SPOTLIGHT 3 by Cully Hamner

The cover to WILDSTORM SPOTLIGHT 3 by the then already great Cully Hamner (1997).

To those of you who know my CAF gallery, it is no secret that I absolutely LOVE Cully’s art and have right from his start in the industry. The storytelling heights he has reached since then are absolutely fantastic.

I also love the Wildstorm stable of characters even if this one, Loner, is a minor footnote in the history of the imprint (I had to look his name up).

Now what is there to say about this great cover other than it is incredibly effective.

From a design point of view, the fact that most of the scene happens in shadows safe for a spot of light that divides both the cover vertically and showcases/enhances the hero is quite simple but brilliant.

In terms of storytelling now, it raises interest to what might happen to this (visually striking in my humble opinion-I don’t know if Cully designed him but he could have) character on the cover but he has obviously seen better days and you really can feel the hurt. Those knifes look damn sharp and if they could pierce wood that easily, imagine how our hero must feel with two inside of him. The crouching pose translates pain and handicap. The blood is elegantly fluid while running down his arm and not drawn as a big splatter (a pet peeve of mine often embraced by superstar artists nowadays giving in to facility). All this conveyed without having the hero’s eyes to play with in order to mirror the pain which is another difficulty (or would have been less easy for a lesser artist).

A lot of details that the reader picks up, probably not consciously though, while “reading” this cover which are proofs of intelligent storytelling.

And of course the art is much more striking in glorious black & white (see the published cover below for comparison) and the inks are spotless, something I am particularly fond of as well. Those Gaijin guys sure can ink!

This is part 1 of my yearly CAF B-Day celebration. Welcome back ;)