Alternative Covers

"I looked at your book while I was waiting for your father at the hardware store," Mom said.

Book? Oh, the graphic novel you took back to the library for me.

"It had these alternative covers in the back. What did they call them? It was something else...I can't think of the word."

"Variant covers," I said.

"Yes! Variant," she repeated. "My favorite had this cat girl sitting and surrounded by cats with a green wood nymph."

I knew the cover she meant because I had really liked it too. Her description amused me as it was pretty accurate. "Catwoman," I identified, "and Poison Ivy."

I explained why there were other covers in the back and a little about who the characters are, but she wasn't really interested. She had just liked the art.

"If I had to pick a more 'adult' cover, I'd go with the one where they're all leaning over a building edge with a gargoyle above them," she said.

I could kind of picture it but I didn't remember that cover as well since it'd been a week since I'd read it.

Still, it pleased me that to pass some time she choose to look at something I'd chosen to read.


*She was looking at Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, vol.3: Full Circle.


10 years ago on TTaT: A loser with perfect eyebrows; 20 self portraits from 1996, day 20, ii