The Harrowing of Minerva Damson · Goblin Booth Productions, LLC

Bonus Episode: The Cover Story

March 28, 2025·1 hr 27 min·5 clips

You can pump out a Botticelli, but if your poster advertises it like a Picasso, it doesn't matter how good the art is.

The episode opens with a listener-facing welcome, then settles into a practical conversation about the cover for First Degree Magic. Jessica Linkhart introduces Mitch Lewis as the designer behind the image, and the talk quickly gets into the choices that shaped the finished art. Early versions leaned into tarot cards and other symbolic structures. They were useful starting points, but they were not quite the right fit. Mitch describes sketching different compositions and testing how the hands, arms, and objects could work together. One version felt more inward. Another pushed outward, with the pendulum, cigarette smoke, and sword all pulling toward a central card. The final image kept that strong center while leaving enough symmetry and tension to hold attention. The episode also gets into how each character originally had their own weapon and specialty. That mattered in the larger artwork, but putting too much of it on the cover would have made the image feel busy. The conversation keeps coming back to the same problem: a cover has to suggest a world without trying to explain the whole thing. There is a lot of attention on the violence inside the composition. Bernie’s sword near Tino’s shoulder, the line of a threatening hand, and the danger carried in the expressions all come up as part of the design language. None of it is treated like decoration. It is part of the story the image needs to carry. The speakers also talk about how the occult side of the book should be hinted at, not announced. Tell the reader too much and the mystery goes flat. Tell them too little and the hook disappears. The final version works because it keeps the symmetry but still feels tense and a little unsettled. The rest of the discussion stays grounded in design choices. What reads clearly. What feels pulpy without getting cluttered. What pulls the eye into the center instead of letting it drift past. Those questions give the episode most of its momentum. Nothing stays abstract for long. Each idea gets tied back to a visual choice, whether that means a hand position, a prop, or the angle of a weapon. Mitch and Jessica make the case that the strongest versions of the cover were the ones that could carry character without needing an explanation beneath them. By the end, the episode has shown how the cover became a negotiated piece of storytelling rather than a simple illustration. The final image earned its shape through revision, not a single flash of inspiration. That slow work is the point. The close returns to listener sign-off and show support, but the core of the episode stays the same: a careful look at how an image can organize tone, danger, and identity before the story even starts. It is a process episode with a strong visual imagination and a clear sense of restraint.

As heard by us

A focused behind-the-scenes look at how the First Degree Magic cover was built around character, symmetry, and restraint.

This bonus episode follows how the First Degree Magic cover took shape, as Jessica Linkhart and Mitch Lewis move from early sketches to the finished composition.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want the making of a cover, not just the finished image.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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