I was hoping that there was someone in charge here on the message board I could tos an idea too. Here it is-
I would love to see the covers of a Dragon and Dungeon put side-by-side and one big picture maybe: having the heroes on the Dragon cover and the bad guys on the Dungeon cover- basically taking one piece of art and using it to cover both magazines.
An Ebberon themed story arc would be a great one for this idea- having the final adventure of the Eberron arc in the Dungeon and the Dragon magazine of the same month have a big influx of Eberron material, a few critters, some unique spells, items, maybe an Ecology of the Shifter or Warforged in it, and using a new piece of art like the ones in the Eberron books to grace the covers.
I was hoping this would be done for the Age of Worms story arc but did not get off my butt soon enough to ask about it.
Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.
Robert Aldrich
Lansing, Michigan
That's a nifty idea, I like it!
*Trivia Moment*
Did You Know that Todd Lockwood did the very same thing with Plot & Poison (by Green Ronin) and Unveiled Masters (by Paradigm Concepts)? I'm a happy recipient of a print that links the images of both covers and it looks awesome.
If I could get prints of a Dragon/Dungeon cover image that linked together, I would be the epitome of a fangirl, jumping up and down in excitement while professing my undying love for whoever did such a thing. :-D
Right, and 'Hammer and Helm' and 'Lords of the Peaks' were another pair of matched covers for d20 sourcebooks, with the latter being one of the better giantish supplements around, IMHO. But I think such a 'gimmick' could work only once (or for the first and last adventures of AP3?), even if there'll be support material for the new AP in every concurrent issue of Dragon.
Matched covers are cool, but the amount of marketing benefit they give publishers of sourcebooks is questionable. When we published Exodus for the Conspiracy X RPG, we decided to give it a try. While I'm sure some people went out and purchased both variant covers, I'm not sure it was worth the increase in production costs. With the changes in the publishing industry in the past decade, things might be different now. But, when we tried it, I don't think it made much of a difference.
That said, your idea for doing it with Dragon and Dungeon might work better. The main reason is that both products are independent, and thus the customer doesn't feel bad about buying both.
Agreed, matched covers on separate products is cool, random covers are not cool. (Ick, had enough of that with comic books and their shiny prismatic foil embossed die cut nonsense.)
i think it's a cool idea, although i wouldn't want to see it frequently lest it become "old". :)
We did this for Incursion, back with Dungeon #100 and Dragon #309. Not sure if we're going to do the same for Adventure Path 3.
Well I know that I for one have both issues- I just thought it would be ultra-cool to have the issues more in sync in covers with such as much work as had been put into the Age of Worms, ie the Worm Food articles and the adventures themselves, along with the other material like spells, items, ect... Sure you fellows may have done it for the Incursion, but that was basically a one adventure shot in the arm- with the Adventre Paths, you have people along for a much longer ride and IMO it would be a great cap to the endinging of a long Path.