Some comic covers tell you exactly what you’re in for. Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume One’s cover both is and is not one of those covers:

What do you think the tales inside this book are about? Do you have any ideas based on the cover?

If you do, you’re likely wrong. Tales Designed to Thrizzle is a mash-up of comedy bits that have no real throughline (though there are many gags which repeat or reference each other to great effect). As far as I can recall, none of them include either an astronaut or a person in a bunny suit. In this regard, Tales Designed to Thrizzle‘s cover is a weird misleading lie. It gives a potential reader no real clues about what they’ll find inside.

Except! The tone of this cover is exactly the tone of Tales Designed to Thrizzle‘s interior. The gags are strange, off-kilter, and always at least slightly surreal. Many of them work beautifully; some of them don’t work at all. (If you’ve read Tales and the many Grandpa bits make you laugh, feel free to tell me why in the comments. I’ve got next to nothing for them.) In that sense, the cover is an accurate representation of Tales‘ tales. And if the book’s misleading but possibility-packed cover doesn’t do it for you, the inside’s also likely not for you …

(Want to check out more posts in the Cool Comic Covers series? If so, click here.)