Forum’s Favourite Festive Front Tourney

[Colin YNWA]

So for a bit of fun, a change of pace and to celebrate this special time of year AND to distract as little as possible from 'Presents under Tharg's Forum Thrill-Tree'   I've got a silly little tourney planned, even by the standards of these silly little tourneys.

Let's decide what's our favourite Christmas Cover??? Easy huh. But I'll still have a whole thread setting out how this will work. Nothing like a whole thread setting out how something will work to kick the fun out of something good and early is there. Watch out for exciting updates in this thread detailing such festive treats as:

What makes a Christmas cover
Format of the tourney
Mince pies*
Any other blather I decide to blather about...

Ho Ho Ho...

Or you could just come back tomorrow (Wednesday 2nd) when the votes start... up to you really.

*There will be no mince pies....

[TordelBack]

There's no stopping you, is there!   

Eligible covers presumably include penultimate annual progs, and Year End progs - but are there any festive Annual candidates? I can't think of any. Winter specials?

What about snowy covers, relating to the Apocalypse War, Enceladus,  Shako, Snow:Tiger (I'm reaching)?

[Colin YNWA]

I'm nothing if not relentless! I suppose I should be questioning how I use my time, but hey why worry!

Yeah the squarebound annual bookends get their own grouping in this vote (as you'll see in a wee bit) but I've stuck to Progs alone.

I've not counted just snow - again as we'll see soon - but must be specifically X-Massy...

[Colin YNWA]

To follow on from TordelBacks question below - here's a post I prepared earlier...

So the question on everyone's lips is Colin - what makes a Christmas Cover oh official arbiter of such things. Well gather round, get comfie and I'll tell you all.

A Christmas cover is the cover of the Prog that is on sale over Christmas. It seems as easy as that BUT there's more. To qualify it must have a specifically christmasy theme. So for example this year end of year bumper Prog, lovely as the cover is (and I do think its a cracker (no pun intended... possibly)) isn't specifically Christmas themed so it's not included.

In fact having done a trawl I was surprised how few are. Of the 44 covers (including this years) of Prog that will straddle Santa's delivery window I've judged only 24 to be Christmas covers... I know really I was shocked to. Which 24, well that will reveal itself over the next few days...

[Colin YNWA]

So the way this one will work is going to be pretty quick and dirty so we can get it in December entirely. After much toing and froing I've split the Christmas covers into groups based on the period of the comic and from this group stage 8 will get through to the knockouts. How many from each group is based on the size of that group as follows.

Bog paper Years - 7 covers 2.5*  to get through
Transition Years - 4 covers 1 to get through
Full Colour Years - 6 covers 2 to get through
Squarebound Years - 7 covers 2.5* to get through

There'll just be one vote a day so as not to clog up the General Topics section and to hopefully not distract too much from the real star of December (I hope)  Presents under Tharg's Forum Thrill-Tree (linkie). We'll kick off with a vote tomorrow.

After the groups there will be one head to head vote until - if my schedule is right, on X-Mas eve we will have our favourite X-Mas Cover EVER

*Which ever runner up get the most votes out of 'Bog paper years' or 'Squarebound' will get the extra slot

[Funt Solo]

I looked them all out last year and posted them in an amusing format.

(I wouldn't count that as necessarily comprehensive, though - layout was key. Although I'm a bit OCD, so why would I skip one?)

[Colin YNWA]

Looks like you got most (if not all) - you also made me think I'd missed one but lucky not - I've just been lazy with the double page spreads!

Anyway

Rules

1. it's Christmas - you must have fun*

2. It's Christmas you know how these work by now so you don't need me bogging things down with rules and such nonsense.

*You are of course in no way obliged to have fun, nor give a fig about it being Christmas...