There should be a "best cover" Eisner

My pick for best cover ever

Earlier this week Brian Cronin put up his latest post on comic covers at Comics Should Be Good, this time rating Marvel's October offerings. The column is always worth a read, and though I don't always agree with Cronin's selections or analysis, he consistently has an interesting angle.

But the latest piece has got me thinking - why aren't there any prominent awards out there for individual cover work? sure the Eisner's and the Harvey's have a "Best Cover Artist" category but that's not really the same thing - it rewards the totality of an artists' work over the year, not any single piece by them. There are plenty of awards for individual achievement in internal story work - why not for covers?

It seems to me that the most positive effect of such awards is to encourage the improvement of the general standard of work in the industry - giving out specific awards for good covers would encourage artists to create more ambitious pieces by giving them specific guidance as to what quality work looks like. "Cover artist of the Year" already kinda does that but it seems to me that the effects are pretty diffuse. Making it specific would focus the effect much more.