I love what Joss has done with his hair.

Pointy | June 23, 02:37 CET

Impressive.

zillah | June 23, 02:41 CET

What's this? His autobiography? *squints* Oh, Runaways!

Sunfire | June 23, 02:44 CET

HAHAHAH

the FAT indian | June 23, 02:52 CET

Joss Whedon is an eleven year old girl?

Saturn Girl | June 23, 03:09 CET

I love Joss, but seriously? It's a bit tacky. But if they had to flash anyone's name, Joss' is the way to go.

Valentyn | June 23, 03:13 CET

This isn't new. But the description made me giggle. (This is only a variant edition by the way; there is a more pictoral version available without the enormous lettering...)

daylight | June 23, 03:13 CET

Wowww. Okay, I get that His Purpleness's name is a big draw, but this is going a bit too far. I mean, how many bestsellers did it take Michael Chrichton or Stephen King to have their name be more important than the title?

Joss Whedon is an eleven year old girl? Well, we *do* know he has superpowers. I guess shapeshifting was the next logical step.

On the plus side, it's cool that Marvel likes Joss so much. Mayhaps some Spidey, Daredevil, or suchlike writing is in the future. Then again, "I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne...Yes?" "No."

BandofBuggered | June 23, 03:16 CET

Okay, I get it. this must be the other version available.

...With Joss's name nowhere to be seen.

Is there no happy medium with these people??

BandofBuggered | June 23, 03:20 CET

Call me when they get to the second Astonishing X-Men hardcover.

archon | June 23, 03:21 CET

Does anyone know if the small digest will eventually come out, like they did with all the other runaways volumes? Or is that trend over?

narky | June 23, 03:28 CET

Marvel has done the HUGE AUTHOR text before with other big names, as seen here for Neil Gaiman's Eternals and here for Orson Scott Card's Ultimate Iron Man.

Actually, I just checked and Marvel also did it before for Joss' Astonishing X-Men.

However, these are generally copies of the graphic novel that are headed to book stores and sites like Amazon. Comic book stores and other stores that order through the direct market get more traditional covers with full page artwork and where the author's name isn't over powering the cover. It looks like the previous one that BandofBuggered linked to above is what you will be finding in most comic book stores and the orginal linked one above is what you will find in book stores.

Matt_Fabb | June 23, 03:38 CET

Here's hoping one day that day we'll see a book or a movie that doesn't say "From the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer," followed by Joss's name. If you're a hardcore Joss Whedon fan, then they are preaching to the choir. If you never watched Buffy then you don't really care that he created it because you wouldn't know what that means. Let the uninitiated make the call themselves. Or maybe thats what it says on Joss' birth certificate, then my bad.

delirium_haze | June 23, 04:39 CET

If you're a hardcore Joss Whedon fan, then they are preaching to the choir. If you never watched Buffy then you don't really care that he created it because you wouldn't know what that means.

Not entirely true. While not everyone has watched Buffy, it's a large enough piece of pop culture that saying "From the creator of Buffy the Vapire Slayer..." will likely mean something to most people. Or at least a fair number.

To use myself as an example, simply putting "Joss Whedon" on something before December of last year would likely end up with me not even bothering to look at it, because I have no clue what it means. Probably wouldn't even have given it a glance. Putting Buffy on it would at least make me recognize that who this "Joss" is someone who has done something that lots of people seem to be into, and it's at least worth commenting on.

Of course, now I see Joss' name by itself and I get a little drooly...

Nolan | June 23, 06:22 CET

That's so big it's funny.

GreatMuppetyOdin | June 23, 07:04 CET

That's a little... ostentatious. Reminds me of Doug Petrie's recurring commentary joke about asking that his name in the credits be multi-colored and the letters jump around on the screen.

KingofCretins | June 23, 07:13 CET

Isn't this Brian K. Vaughan's book? Right? He started it? So, like, this new hardcover is written by him, yeah?


:)

bknick | June 23, 10:00 CET

The pictoral version will have Whedon's name on it - the image for that one is strictly a placeholder.

daylight | June 23, 12:29 CET

Y'know, I seem to recall Stephen King saying that the secret to bestsellerdom is a longish first name and a shortish surname so that they can place your first name in a smaller font above your larger fonted surname on the cover. It's a wonder Joss Whedon's achieved anything at all, a true testament to his talent. We fellow short firstnamers salute you boss ;).

(IIRC the 'Identity Crisis' hardback also had a cover with 'Brad Meltzer' in special Great-Wall-o'-China-vision letters, I think it's just a fairly standard hardback variant style)

Saje | June 23, 13:13 CET

Sage, I've got that version of Identity Crisis (my kid gave it to me and I hadn't known who Brad Meltzer is -- but a good book). I'll look for the pictorial version of Runaways. Never liked horsey-type covers, Stephen King's old big-King Viking editions either.

doghouse | June 23, 16:09 CET

It's not that big...they could have put "Runaways" on the back.

Matt Fabb--That Orson Scott Card cover made me laugh too. Apparently, Joe Q isn't very big on subtlety.

alexreager | June 23, 16:22 CET