I’ve designed more than 25 covers for IDW Publishing’s The Transformers comic books.
My first series was All Hail Megatron where I worked closely with writer Shane McCarthy. The concept was to produce a series of covers that were eye-catching and different to the usual range of covers seen on the shelves at comic book stores.
I started the project by visiting local comic book stores and taking note of what drew the eye. The main thing I noticed was that many of the covers were quite ‘busy’; lots of action, and lots of different colours. The ones I noticed most had large areas of flat colour or subtle restraint of the colour palette, and I felt this was something I wanted to incorporate. If everything is yelling at you, the thing that stands out is the quiet thing in the corner.
With this in mind I would discuss the theme of each issue with Shane and then try to capture that theme visually in a simple, symbolic and stylistic way.
One of the main themes of All Hail Megatron was “leadership”: The different ways of leading, how the characters dealt with no leadership and their choices when they disagree with the direction of their leaders. To capture this, the designs often used elements of vintage propaganda art, particularly when dealing with the idea of a dictator leader.
Recognition
The covers were well received and keenly sought-after by fans.
IDW released a stand-alone compilation book of my All Hail Megatron covers in late 2009 called The Art of Trevor Hutchison.
My cover for All Hail Megatron #9 was included in Comic Book Resources (CBR’s) 50 best covers of 2009