Designing a Cover

Why is it so haaaard?

For me at least. I really am stumped when it comes to drawing covers for my webcomics. So much so that I would always find clever (?) ways for other people to do them for me.

I can't get out of making one now though. With four out of the eight chapters of Without Moonlight complete (which is basically Volume 1), I absolutely MUST make a cover for the Volume 1 edition that I want to have. The one I made all the way back in 2010 for it is just not cutting it.

Why, would you ask?

Because, unsatisfactory art aside now it's aged 8 years, it doesn't tell too many things about what Without Moonlight is about. Look at it:



All you can tell from it is that it takes place in Greece (since there's the Parthenon in the background) and there's going to be a bunch of kids and a soldier in the story. I have to literally write it out that it's a WWII story. It could've been any point in time in the 20th century. It isn't even necessarily wartime!

But that is not enough for a webcomic cover, as much as it would be for a movie poster (especially if it had famous actors in its cast, who would draw in the audience).

All the "how to draw webcomic/ comic covers" articles I searched through have one piece of advice in common:

The cover has to be able to communicate to the reader the following things:

1. The tone and genre
2. The art style
3. What the comic is about (i.e. not just the main character's 'photoshoot' pinup, but an image with enough context to give some basic parameters about what the reader should expect)
4. A compelling composition that 'hooks' the reader by making him/her wonder what the deal is.

Normally I would post examples of "good' covers and "bad" covers, but I'm only just starting to wade into the logic of this beast.

So what is a good cover in your opinion?

What is YOUR webcomic's cover like?