Help:Variant Cover Images

= Variant Cover Images = Variant covers are an interesting phenomenon in the world of comic book publishing, which, in part led to the speculator boom of the 1990s that nearly killed the industry. DC still publishes them, now and then, sometimes in great abundance. And when they do, we catalogue it.

Unfortunately, due to some more recent coding changes, many of our variant covers are not categorized properly.

 of them, at least, are.

Anyway, if you are going to be uploading a variant cover, or fixing any of the incorrectly categorized ones we already have, you will need to know how to properly fill out the Image Template for them. As described here, the template covers our butts legally and provides useful info about the creators of the image and where the image came from. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just filling the thing out as you might dream it should be filled out. Because of the awesome and terrible power of Category Magic, you have to be aware of what should be filled out when and how in specific cases.

So, let's look at how to fill it out, field by field, for this specific case: variant cover images.

The Fields
These are the only fields you ought to use when filling out the template for a Cover Art image:

As you can see, I've already filled out the License, ImageType, and Subject fields because those should be the same for every variant cover image.

Naming Conventions and File Type
Before we get into the template itself, it's worth going over how you ought to be naming your images, because that's pretty important, for consistency's sake.

Variant Covers, like Cover Art images, should typically be named with the same name as the article for the comic it comes from, with the addition of the word "Variant" to the end. In the example case on this page, that comic is Batman Vol 2 1, so your image should be named Batman Vol 2 1 Variant.

If there is more than one variant cover for the issue, you might have to come up with a way to distinguish between them. If the variant cover artists are different, we typically distinguish them by using the artist's last name.

So, if, for example, there were a second variant cover for by Alex Ross, this cover would be called "Batman Vol 2 1 Van Sciver Variant" and that one would be called "Batman Vol 2 1 Ross Variant."

As for file type, things get complicated for us when any image isn't a JPEG, which uses the *.jpg file extension. PNG files are great for logo images because of their transparent backgrounds, but because JPEG is the most commonly used file type on the internet, it is also the most conveniently manageable for comic covers (and pretty much everything but logos).

In some cases, we have to replace images that have been uploaded for quality, size, or other reasons and if the file type of the original differs from the replacement, things get... enraging.

So! In the end, for the example, the file name should be Batman Vol 2 1 Variant.jpg (because this issue only has one variant cover).

License & ImageType
As explained here the License field is how we cover our butts. Thanks to Category Magic, typing "Comic Cover" in the license field automatically adds it to "Fair Use (Comic Covers)".

While an image like the one on this page is obviously a comic cover, there are different types of comic cover. So, in addition to listing the image license as a Comic Cover (under Fair Use, blah blah blah), we have to specify what type of Comic Cover with the ImageType field.

As this is a variant cover, we use the phrase Variant Cover to distinguish it from standard Cover Art or a Textless Cover.

The default "empty syntax" for the template includes "ImageType2" as a field, but for Variant Covers, we should not be using it. Leave it blank or delete it, if you feel the need.

Description
Again, as explained here, the Decription field is used for one thing here, and that is using FairJust to provide the purpose for the image in the context of our wiki, which is demonstrative and educational.

Let's take a look at the text that pops up with FairJust:


 * "Used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image. The image is used as a means of visual identification of this article topic. As the subject is protected by trademark or copyright, a free use alternative does not exist."

So, what is the "entity represented by the image" in a Variant Cover's case? Well, it's the comic itself, isn't it? And it's certainly a good "means of visual identification" of that article and topic, isn't it? As such, we wrap the FairJust template around the page name of the comic that cover art is from.

And, for convenience, F redirects to FairJust, so we can just do this, in the case of the image on this article:

Which looks like this:



Remember, though, FairJust isn't like C. It won't convert the comic's name to that spiffy "Batman #1" that you crave. You have to use a direct link to the article.

Previous / NextCover
You'll notice that I did not include these fields in the required fields for this type of image. This is because not every book has a variant cover, so there's no use in going from one to the next. When Variant Cover is used as the ImageType, these fields will not appear, and if filled out, they will not display.

Source
The Source field is, of course, to link back to wherever your image came from. And while one might imagine that we want you to link to the website from which you grabbed the image, or something of that nature, what we actually want you to do in the case of Cover Art Images is to link back to the issue it comes from.

So, why not use the Issue field (which was removed from the example blank template above) instead? Well, the reasoning is contentious, but there is rhyme behind that reason. Oh, and Category Magic. See, the Issue field automatically places images in categories associated with that issue, like "Batman Vol 2 1/Images" or "Batman Vol 2/Images". It was decided, (after much discussing) that these categories not include Cover Art or Variant Cover art, and because the template is a patchwork of very old code with new code tangled up in it, the least complicated method of working around that auto-categorization was to decree that all Cover Art and Variant Cover images use the Source field instead of the Issue field.

Anyway, there's that.

But, what do you put in there? You put the pagename of the comic that the cover art comes from. Fortunately, the Source (and Issue) fields are fitted with the Comic Naming Standardization Template - C - which means that if you don't type in the article name exactly it may be able to fix it for you.

So, easy-peazy, the source field in this case would look like this:

| Source                 = Batman Vol 2 1

Woopdedoo, guys! Woopdedoo!

Under no circumstance should you fill out both the Source and Issue fields. For a while that was the standard, and now it isn't. If you see it, fix it.

Universe / Subject
For almost any other image, we would fill out these fields with the universe and subject for the image, as explained here.

In the case of Variant Covers, though, we don't want to be seeing cover art with its logos and numbers and barcodes cluttering up the character image and universe categories. And, that's exactly what would happen if we filled out these fields with a cover, thanks to Category Magic. In most cases since the early 2000s, we can find a nice, clean textless version of the variant to use for the character images, anyway. But, since Category Magic also places the image in Category:Image Subject Needed if the Subject field isn't filled out, we use "none" to override that, and show that we don't want this image to go into either category. The Universe field can and should be left blank, without consequence.

As mentioned above, for a Variant Cover image, you should always fill the Subject1 field with "None".

Credits
For Variant Covers, we use only the "CoverArtist" field. We list all of those who worked on the cover - that's penciler(s), inker(s), and colourist(s) - as CoverArtists. Sometimes (mostly for colourists) that information was not typically given in the interior credits of comic books, but a lot of cover artists sign their work with a signature. Though it is far from complete, we have been trying to compile Signature Images for staff members, so that their work can be easily recognized and credited when the interiors don't credit them, or get it wrong.

In any case, you can add more CoverArtist fields as needed by adding them on a new line. You will not likely need more than five, and rarely more than three.

For the example image on this page, the cover artist is Ethan Van Sciver, and the colourist is Tomeu Morey. So, you would input this:


 * CoverArtist1      = Ethan Van Sciver
 * CoverArtist2      = Tomeu Morey

Because Ethan Van Sciver did both the pencils and inks on the image, you need only enter his name once.

The Category Magic that this field uses automatically adds the image to Category:Ethan Van Sciver/Cover Artist Images, in this case.

Notes / Trivia
See this page for an explanation of these fields.

The Completed Template
The completed template for the example on this page (with all unused fields removed, for convenience) would then look like this:

Aside from the potential for additional cover artists, these are the only fields that you require when filling out the Image Template on a Variant Cover Image.