The Runaway Effect of the Internationalization of Comic Books
At first I was struck by the fact that this cover for Runaways #12 had a bit of an anime flavor to it, you can tell right away with the look of the huge reflecting eyes and the high level of attention to the hair. Although the composition gives away that it isn’t Japanese, however I was still surprised to find out that the artist Sara Pichelli is in fact from Italy! So you’ve got a European illustrator influenced by Japanese manga working for a very mainstream American publisher like Marvel. If you step back this is amazing because twenty years ago in a pre-net era you would never have seen this — in fact my thinking is that more and more international borders will mean less and less in the world of comics.
In the meantime Sara Pichelli has been working on Runaways since issue #10 and I can’t wait to see more of her artwork. What I like is that not only is she doing the cover illustrations, but Marvel is being smart by avoid a “bait-and-switch” situation by having her do all of the interiors as well:
Runaways #12 hits your local comic book shop on July 22nd, 2009.