Lately I've been thinking about the cover I will make for Eskeldia, and it got me thinking and researching manga covers. Obviously- the cover is the first selling point, if it looks interesting then people are going to pick it up off the shelf. Clear text, eye poping poses, colors, positive and negative space, all determining factors in making a good cover; and a good amount of thought should be put into designing a good cover.

What Manga/comic covers grab your eye? Which ones do you feel are the best at selling the book? What don't you like about them?

Ideas and thoughts to get the creativity flowing!

http://view.thespectrum.net/series/tenj ... +01&page=1
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Look at every volume color and you will know all the secrets you ever wanted to.

First of all if your doing something black and white (Im aussuming you are) then its best to do something in colour, because viewers love to see these black and white figures come to life, because they are so used to imagining the colours and whatnot, and then you get a nice big vibrant cover that drags you back into reality!
As for what draws me in, I would say something to do with the main plot, say if it's one with a fair bit of fighting, I would do like a huge battle scene with the main evil boss! Or even something imaginary incorporating what could be, as we see in dragonball it has Goku sitting upon the dragon, and if I remember it also features the seven dragonballs, what I mean here is incorporate your main character into something that plays a major role, basically a could be scenario, that just captures the basline of your manga. Also as for poses, if its action, probably some awesome battle poses, with impact lines and a raging face shouting something awesome in japanese. For maybe something a bit romantic, maybe a man and a woman embracing each other, with a passionate kiss, you know this kind of stuff, don't be afraid to go cliche with a cover, maybe paint over the cliche with your own unique style. Something that represents you manga!

I don't look for all the technical stuff in covers, but I know you have to have that stuff in order to sell.

Personally, I look for good art on covers. If the art is subpar or in a style I don't like, I usually don't pick it up.

My project is in full color actually =) so I may end up doing a partially colored cover maybe some colored line art with a lot of white also, I have a few ideas up my sleeve i'll post when I get them finished. These are some pretty good tips and you're absolutely right on how you have to create a cover that captures the essence of your project.

Ha, I was actually experimenting with cover page layouts for my comic a few days ago. I have a few sketches down, but nothing worth bragging about lol. Now, when you mean "cover pages," are you talking about volumes?

Traditionally, manga has volume covers, and chapter covers. Volume covers are the fancy-schmancy color pages everyone sees, and chapter covers are usually less fancy. One of these days, I'll upload my layout sketches if you'd like

I actually had the same dilemma when creating the cover for my manga.
I ended up researching other comic covers and looking at "top covers" lists or something like that.
From my research, I gathered that there is just one goal that you hope to get and it's grabbing people's interest for your story.

Typical manga covers, from my experience, are pretty basic and I personally don't find myself very impressed with them since they're usually just characters posing in front of a simple background.
What really catches my eye are covers that have cool lay-outs and graphic design elements.
A couple of examples that I remember coming across where the Honk-Fu comic covers.