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Simon Bisley Talks About His Favourite Comic Covers

Published

8 months ago

December 24, 2025

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What Makes A Great Comic Book Cover For One Of Modern UK Comics’ Best Artists?

During 2025 Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul Neal has presented a trilogy of articles that asked a variety of comic creators to pick out their favourite comics covers.

A link to these articles can be found at the bottom of this piece. Each of those articles asked ten creators at a time as deceptively simple question:

“As a comic book professional, you have been in the position to help create or influence the creation of numerous covers for a variety of comics, would you be able to pick a favourite comic cover you have helped create? Also, in a few words perhaps would you be kind enough to explain your choice, and what you think goes into making a successful and eye-catching cover”

With the kind assistance of talented artist Andrew Sawyers Tripwire received a handful of Audio files from Simon Bisley, and because the artist’s contribution was based on these audio files we chose to make create an individual article.

What follows are those files transcribed to the best of Paul’s ability. It is hoped Simon’s thoughts are accurately and fairly portrayed.

Tripwire also notes that ALL the images and his photo are provided from the gentleman himself rather than being randomly sourced from the internet…

Hello, writer and editor. It’s my pleasure to present my five favourite covers. Not of all time, just the five that kind of caught my eye today, which I adore, I really love. I mean, I’ve probably got my top 30 covers, but as you guys can get this, it’s very hard, you probably, you know, I mean, it’s just hard to really pick out from so many brilliant geniuses covers.

But anyway, here’s my top five, I guess we call it. Now, this is not an order of, this is just as I see them. So, of the five, we have the first one here, which is Conan, The Savage Sword of Conan, number one. I mean, it’s got to be the definitive Conan in its day, in its time. No one was doing this, no one’s painting like this.

Conan was, as all comics are in effect just black and white with the colour wash, you know, standard stuff. I think he might have got some rendered work, but you didn’t get something of this quality on this level. So, I just could not believe my eyes. I was already a fan of Conan and John Buscema and Barry Windsor Smith. I love both of those guys’ work. And so, this, to me, was so exciting. It just knocked me flat on the floor, and I just had to have it. I remember I just stared and stared at it when I bought it.

I was in Leeds. In Old Town, they call it, the Polish district where my grandmother lived. Underneath, was it Chapel Town? I think it was Chapel Town. Yeah, Chapel Town. Anyway, Old Town, yeah, Chapel Town.

Anyway, my Polish grandmother, she lived up above a newsagent. She used to go down to newsagents and get some sweets of this, that, and the other. You know, get a Coca -Cola, la -da -da, la -di -da. And lo and behold, I remember, I mean, back in the day, they used to have comic book racks, which are like a comic book tree. So, it’s like a stand with comic books on it all the way around. You know, and you used to turn it, turn the stand around and look at the comics. Oh, my God, those were the days, geez.

I mean, back in the day, we didn’t have anything but comic books. There was nothing else. I mean, you know, it was fucking Lego or something, or… or a… or jigsaws or a water pistol, but pretty much there wasn’t any tech or anything else you could stare at or Google, you know. So anyway, so comics were very exciting for me. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, digress.

Anyway, I was going to get some liquorice, and I was only a kid. And no, I still eat liquorice now when I’m fucking 63, but there you go.

Andrew’s laughing at this point, I think. Yeah, Andrew’s laughing for sure.

Yeah, so this caught my eye, Conan Savage Sword caught my eye, and I could not believe it. It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, the quarterback, Mr. Olympia pose.

And they just stuck a sword in his hand and a shield. Bloody marvellous, got Red Sonja in there. Fantastic cover. So there, it was, and the interiors were quite astonishing. Buscema, he did the grey tones, wash tones, I’d never seen that before either. So yeah, that’s that one.

I still look at it. I remember when I did buy it, and I used to look at it all day, like a week, carried it everywhere, just stared at it. I’ve had this cover actually on and off over, let me think, 40 years? 45 years? Yeah, about 45 years or whatever.

Is it 45 years ago? Geez, I don’t remember. Anyway, since the book came out, I’ve had about, I’d say, 10 copies of this. Lost it, given them away. Always buy another copy. I think I’ve got about five copies of this now.

I like to collect the same book, don’t know why, because I’m fucking strange. And I’m a fucking nerd. Great cover.

***

Detective Comics 630. What a marvellous cover. What a great invention. What a great design. The thought behind that is remarkable to me. It really is.

NOTE: Cover artist Michael Golden.

Bloody hell, look at that. So clever. I was commissioned to do my version of this, which I did. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as this, because this is the original, but I did my version of it. I just threw in more bats, but I forget what I did. This cover is brilliant. Remarkable. Just absolute genius. Genius. It’s so off the cuff. I mean, it’s very inventive. It really is the perspective.

I’d never seen Batman do that. I mean, has anyone drawn anything like this? Had they? I don’t think so. Brilliant. I mean, I just don’t know how to put words into it, you know?

Just look at it. It’s just fucking great. I mean, I know how famous this cover is, but it’s got to be way up there as far as Batman covers go, so yeah. I was quite new to this one, I’d only discovered this cover maybe about two years ago. And oh God, look at that. Marvellous.

And Jim Aparo, interiors, whoa. He’s my favourite Batman artist, actually, Jim Aparo!

***

NOTE: Cover artists Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta.

The Mighty Thor 126, Kirby and Coletto [sic]. It is Coletto [sic], isn’t it, who did this inking? Do you know what I like about this combination of the two artists is that Kirby was strikingly powerful with his line work, very frenetic, very instinctive, and angular, obviously very angular. But what I really liked about it, the way Coletto [sic] softened it, he didn’t take away any of the power of Kirby but softened it. A nice combination of hard line, and then he would soften it with some more feathering, thinner lines. He knew his anatomy, you know?

And he would render muscle sinew, you know? and add muscle tone into the inks, which I thought was remarkable. So, it’s a good combination of artists. This cover is pure and absolute genius. In fact, personally, I think it’s the greatest cover of all time. I think it must have been remarked as being so.

Words escape me, as always. I think the round form shape with the striations of the muscles, the thick black line, and the angles, all fighting against each other. You’ve got angles fighting each other. And the logo itself and all was all kind of part of the whole power of the image, with the hammer coming way forward. God damn, look at that. Look at that.

I love it. Plain white background, a couple of skyscrapers and screaming people in the background. I love it. I even like the colouring as well. like the kind of the tonal values of the other colourists instead of just doing a plain flesh tone you’ve got some more pinker tones in there on the flesh giving a little bit more shape and roundness. A remarkable cover. I’m still amazed just how fucking good this is. Obviously look at it.

***

Conan The Barbarian, Number One. Actually, one of my favourite books of all time. If not my favourite. I love Barry Windsor Smith’s work. I like his early work, actually. It was a bit more, how would you say, Kirby-esque, I guess.

But the cover, I think I like it for reasons of just nostalgia. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why I like it so much. It’s hard to put into words. I just like the whole thing, really. And I like it just because I like the book. So, I like the cover because I like the book.

It’s your, you know, your general kind of cover, you know, kind of what we call Kona’s superhero. It kind of is, isn’t he, Kona? He’s sort of a hero, superhero. He’s sort of a super person, super individual, with natural strength, obviously. But anyway, just… I think, yeah, I like the cover because I like the interiors.

I just like the whole thing. So, it’s more of a nostalgic liking of, if you get me.

It’s a cover I like having around. Yeah, again, can’t think of words. It just makes me feel really good. You know what I mean? It makes you feel good having it, reading it, looking at it. Yeah. Well, Barry W Smith had that kind of, later on his work, my God, my God. Red Nails, my God. Anyway, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, incidentally, it’s just I like that kind of number one. I just like having these books around, you know? They’re like family to me, you know? They’re like friends. Yeah, fuck, I’m such a nerd! But, you know, I think we all feel the same.

***

Superman 49. Well, this is purely very personal, there’s a very personal reason why I like this cover, and that’s because I inked Neal Adams’ pencils for the cover, which is, damn, that’s a hell of a thing, you know? Hell of a thing, especially as being a fan as a young kid growing up and then meeting Neal and getting to work with him, you know? I mean, wow, I don’t take that lightly.

Probably one of the, not probably, one of the greatest comic book artists, strip artists about forever, you know what I mean? If you look at it, if anyone’s reading this, just look at Neal Adams’ work, especially his Green Lantern, his Batman, early works, incredible.

Yes, all these artists are absolute geniuses and will live forever, forever in the minds of fans and professionals in this industry. And they’re gods.

They’re just gods, you know, in my mind, you know, absolute gods. And it’s a privilege to be able to be in the business, working alongside people like this, you know, and wow, it’s funny.

It’s the first time in, uh, this is probably the first time in all my life, in the history of me doing comics and being an artist, I’ve actually sat and felt like, wow, isn’t it amazing? Oh man, I am a nerd.

I’m a nerd and I’m proud of it.

Here as promised are links to the previous articles from 2025 that asked so many talented creators to discuss their favourite comic covers.