



So… Frank Cho…

Is this the first time cover artists on Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman have walked off citing intolerable interference?

Adam Hughes ended a multiple-year run as cover artist of Wonder Woman three issues into Greg Rucka's first tenure as writer, after Wonder Woman #196. The printed cover looks very different to the original solicited version, though you can still see reused images, such as the large foreground hands being moved around and Wonder Woman's own hands raised.

The owner of one of the preliminary sketches of the cover to Wonder Woman #196 writes,

This cover had quite a few prelims, one of which I'm lucky enough to own. The eventual cover (far right) was quite different to the study. What I heard is that someone at DC said that in the first colour prelim (the central image) having one of the autograph hunters touching Wonder Woman's thigh was inappropriate. Adam was asked to redraw it. I don't think Adam was that impressed with the interference and he changed the whole piece, put Diana in a skirt and cloak, raised her arms up to cover her chest and obscured as much flesh as he could – just to make sure no puritans were offended. The end result was actually a beautiful cover, with a very innocent Wonder Woman looking like a rabbit trapped in a cars headlights. Quite different from what was originally intended. Only Diana's face survived the cut more or less unchanged.

One cover later, Adam Hughes stepped down from drawing covers for the title, replaced by JG Jones. Recently Hughes tweeted a reminder,

Here's some fun: rejected, unfinished WW 196 cover & the redrawn final. Editor's comment on 1st: "I HATE this." pic.twitter.com/WudsBXyltz — Adam Hughes (@AH_AdamHughes) July 2, 2016

Which might suggest that it was more an editorial note than from the writer, Rucka. Here are some procedural sketches for the covers