If you didn't read BleedingCool.com over the weekend, you may have missed the notification that the original art for the cover of Formerly Known as the Justice League #6 (2004), featuring Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, is up for auction today at Heritage Auctions (HA.com).

Now, if you're the sort with an attention to detail and a good memory, you might have noticed a few small differences between this unpublished art and the final printed cover which has Booster much more front and center. As much as I love the original piece, I do think that the published cover sells the gag better.

As you can see at the top of the art itself, the piece was drawn by Kevin Maguire, who is responsible for drawing more Booster Gold comics than any artist other than Dan Jurgens, and Joe Rubenstien, who is credited with inking more Booster Gold comics than any artist other than Norm Rapmund. Jurgens and Rapmund, of course, worked on most issues of Booster Gold Volume 2, in case you didn't know.

By the way, this is hardly the only time that Maguire's art would fail to make a final cover on a Booster Gold project. This was the originally solicited art for the cover of Booster Gold Volume 2 #37 (2010) that never made it to press:

I'm rarely one to complain about Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway art, but in that instance, I do think the solicited art is more eye catching than what's actually on the cover. (Though, to be fair, I place most of that blame on the colorist's choice of unsavory yellow tints. Oh, well. To each his own.)

In any event, more Booster Gold art is always better than less, wouldn't you agree? (Thanks to J for making sure I saw this.)

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Last week, Booster booster Ariel complained about Booster's short haircut worn at the end of his run in the 1980s. He doesn't care for it. To each their own.

Personally, I happen to find it fetching, in no small part because that's the style Booster wore on one of my favorite covers: Booster Gold #18 (1987)!

Maybe I'm just old school, but I love it when the image on the cover of a comic foretells what'll be happening inside its pages. Booster Gold lying defeated in the gutter? An unknown gunman with our hero in his sights? How will our hero ever get out of this? Open the book and find out!

Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway really know how to put together a cover, don't they? In Western culture, our eyes are trained to wander to the bottom right of a page. Jurgens is clearly aware of this visual scanning tendency and redirects our eyes back up through the body of the trenchcoated killer, down the barrel of the gun straight to Booster's heart. Powerful stuff!

(Who did that color? Was it issue colorist Gene D'Angelo? The warm red and gold really pop against that receding, cool green background. It's simple but effective use of complementary color theory.)

In addition to the beautiful artwork, I have to admit in the spirit of full disclosure that part of my admiration is likely due to the story within. It's one of my favorites. In fact, I recently declared it one of the 12 Best Booster Gold Stories Ever. I'll explain why on Monday.

See you next week!

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Zero Hour, DC's attempt to correct lingering problems left over from simplifying their multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths, is 25 years old. My, how time flies.

To celebrate, the company is releasing a $150 Zero Hour 25th Anniversary Omnibus which contains over a thousand pages of reprint comics. That's about 14¢ a page, a deal by modern standards.

Booster Gold didn't play a big role in Zero Hour, but he is present (and does get in a few lines) before time is rewritten to erase him from existence. (Spoiler Alert: It's only temporary.)

Thanks to series author and artist Dan Jurgens, Booster also represents the future (in his classic, high-collar costume) in the accompanying fold-out timeline of the re-ordered DC Universe. That's always cool.

Hopefully the Omnibus will include the fold-out. It's not much of a celebration without Booster Gold!

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If the 1980s was about anything, that thing was big business. Greed was good, deal making was an art, and Capitalism finally conquered Communism. Corporate interests dominated politics, and commercialism owned everything else. Into that environment came the original superhero salesman: Booster Gold.

No cover of the era exemplifies that aspect of our hero more than Booster Gold #11 (1986).

Pencils by Dan Jurgens, Inks by Jerry Ordway

This image is a delightful snapshot of time when J.R. deserved to be shot, and Micheal Knight was a lone crusader in a dangerous world. Booster does his best Don Johnson impersonation in his square-shouldered white linen blazer. He winks at us over his Max Headroom shades, reassuring us that he knows what cool is. If this guy is selling, you're buying.

It might look like an ad for the most 1980s car ever, but what Booster is really selling here is comic books. You can't own a Brysler Boostermobile, but you can own this comic. I'd buy that for a dollar. And I did. Because I was cool, too.

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Booster booster Cort harvested a bumper crop of commission Booster Gold this season. Check them out!

Keith Giffen

Jerry Ordway

Norm Rapmund

Chris Garrusso

Boosterrific as always, Cort. Thanks for sharing.

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