For his book about influential and enigmatic cartoonist Steve Ditko (co-creator of, among other things, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange), Zack Kruse, PhD. Scholar of American Literature, Comics, and Film, wanted to use an actual Steve Ditko comic book cover as a template. We selected “Out of this World” #6, published in Nov. 1957. It was chosen for its distinctly Ditko design, as well as the fact that it was conveniently in the public domain.
Though Photoshop manipulation and a few other tricks, I converted the “Out of this World” image to the cover of Kruse’s book, “Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity,” which will be published by the University Press of Mississippi in Feb 2021.
For the title of the book, I used (and altered) the logo of another 1957 Ditko comic book cover, “Tales of the Mysterious Traveler.”
One of my favorite touches was changing the logo from “Out of this World” to “University Press of Mississippi” in the left corner (check out the top two images). I have no idea if anyone will even notice, but it’s those small details that make a job like this fun.