• The 1st and 2nd stories are headlining features. Almost 99% of the time, superheroes. Either one could easily be the cover feature and main attraction for the book. The first one however is usually a notch above the second, and is always the cover feature.
• The third story is also usually a superhero or quasi-superhero, like Ace's Mr. Risk, but can also be an exceptional "back-up," like Prize Comics' Frankenstein.
• The fourth story in any given issue (with the exception of Spotlight Comics and Annuals/Anniversary issues) is almost always a "back-up" feature and can be from the true crime/crime, adventure, horror, sci-fi, war, western, humor, or "good girl art" (Torchy, Sheena, etc.) genre. Very rarely is there a superhero or quasi-superhero in this slot. 
• In the cases of annuals (with 6 stories) and anniversary issues (with 8 stories), this format is extended to include a few extra headliners, and a few extra "back-ups."

Normally at this point I would scan these issues (if I hadn't done so already), but these all came from Bill Nolan's out-of-production Fighting Yank CD.

After scanning, comes the cover creation. In the past I used images from the stories with nothing special done to them short of color enhancement, but recently I've been restoring Golden Age artwork, and recoloring it. I do the restoration by separating the CMYK channels of an image, and bringing out the black line art. Usually this will require that I print and redraw by hand as well. In the case of Spotlight #11, I decided to go a different route and create a brand new cover (seen above).

Next step: Image Processing.

Home
Stage 1: Pre Production
Stage 2: Image Processing
Stage 3: HTML
Stage 4: Post Production