Since a young age, Ace has been obsessed with writing and telling stories. Since 2004, he has split his time between writing and publishing Masterpiece Comics, and publishing the online magazine The Written Word, a place where he has tried to give other writers a voice.
Beyond Masterpiece Comics and The Written Word, he has written for other small press comic companies and wrote numerous short stories, the most recently of which, He Waited, was published by Long Story Short. In 2008, he branched out further by writing the play Fallen by the Numbers, produced by Cloverleaf Productions.
Recently, in addition to his writing, Ace has turned his hand toward acting and was cast in the lead of the short film Five Minutes for the Phoenix 24 Hour Film Challenge.
2009 is shaping up to be a great year, with new and better opportunities that Ace is fully embracing.
Maximum Coverage
By Ace Masters
What is the first thing you see, the first thing you look at, when you walk into the comic book store?
Well, unless there is a hot woman in the store–and let's face it, what are the odds of that?—if there is one, she's either into manga or looking for directions–then the answer to the question is comics, or, to be specific, the covers of the comic books.
Usually the only hot women in comic book stores are on the covers of the comics. And those covers are designed to do one thing: get the male blood flowing and get them to dish out three bucks to buy the book, not caring about anything beyond the half-naked girl on the cover.
A primitive example to be sure, but it does show the power of the cover and brings us to the point of this column.
A simple subject? Then why does it seem lost on so many small press and indie publishers?
The cover is a book's first, biggest and most important selling point, and that importance comes into play long before the book hits the shelves on a Wednesday afternoon.
If you check most submission guidelines for comic companies, you often see a comment on "the hook." Almost every time this a reference to its literary value—the hook that brings people into the story. However, for comics, your first hook is your cover. If that doesn't get people to look at your book, then any hook your story may have is meaningless.
Your cover needs to do more than hook the reader. It first needs to hook the distributor and retailer, long before the reader will usually see it.
The distributor, usually Diamond, will see the cover and the whole book, but ninety-nine percent of the time the only thing the retailers will see, and base their orders on, is the listing in Previews and your cover—so it better stand out. The same is true thing for those discerning readers who pour through Previews each month—you only have a few seconds to catch their eyes, your cover better do that.
Once the orders are placed and the book is on shelves, the cover better stand out because it now needs to grab the attention of the general reader, who probably has not heard of your book before today.
The cover is the hook. It's used not to get the already initiated, but the uninitiated. The readers of Spider-man will pick up the latest issue, usually no matter what. The cover should be designed to hook new readers first and then please the fans of the ongoing series.
That's where the term "killer cover" comes from.
That's the whole trick of the cover. It's not to look good or be fancy. It's to get someone's attention, make that person pick up the book and hopefully take it to the cash register.
If a comic has that killer cover, it will get someone to buy the book. Now, for the most part what you want is someone who will keep with the book.
Covers can be a blessing and a curse.
The blessing is if you have a killer cover—if you have Alex Ross—it's going to get you sales. Even if you don't have Alex Ross, but maybe a great newcomer whose art stands out, that will get you some shelf sales.
Now the curse. If you have Alex Ross, Bill Stienkowist, or a big name do the cover, or if you just have a killer cover, and your interiors don't hold up, or the characters on the cover don't look like the characters in the book, then you've fallen victim to the curse.
The interior art artwork of the book should be of a quality at least seventy percent of that of the cover.
Of course, a bad cover will not sell a book.
The problem with most covers, especially on the indie scene, is though they may look great, they don't attract attention because they're stagnant, they're stale, and they're flat pieces of art. Instead of doing a standout cover, they do a pin-up piece, a splash page or a poster piece for the cover.
A pin-up piece, a splash page or a poster isn't a cover. A cover needs to be dynamic. It must mimic the book. It needs have motion on it. It needs to look like the characters are doing something. 
The best covers do one of three things:
1) They show an actual scene from the book.
2) They show the ending or aftermath of a scene.
3) They show the beginning of a scene.
Why is that true?
If you show something that happens in the book—the most dynamic scene, a fight scene—someone may pick it up and think, "Wow, I want to see this!" They flip through the book; the scene is in there. Your cover is showing something that actually happens, which will help the reader decide if they want to make the trip to the cash register.
Portraying something that just ended and its aftermath will make a person look at the cover and wonder, "What happened? How did we get to this point?" And motivate that person to buy.
Showing the beginning will draw someone in and make him or her think about what is going on or what is going to happen. We see what is beginning to happen, but what actually does happen? The potential reader will want to know what happens next.
It doesn't matter if the cover gets people in; you have to have something inside to get people to stay.
Like the interior of the book, the cover should tell a story. Remember, the cover is selling the book and the story. The cover should have the same visual attributes as the interiors. If it doesn't do that, you don't have a good cover.
If there is a hot half-naked girl on the cover, then she better be in the book. She better be doing something. And more importantly, she better be as hot as she is on the cover.
Burning Question:
I would like to leave you with this question:
Did The Dark Knight truly transcend the super-hero genre?
Until next time.
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Leave at message at the Ace's Cinders Forum.