When we decided to switch things up this year and change our annual Pet Issue to an Animal Issue, I came up with the idea of a cover design putting a common dog collar on an animal not usually associated with pet ownership: to show the broader range of stories we were including in this week's issue and, to be honest, because the idea of putting a dog collar on a penguin made me laugh.

The penguin design you'll see on this week's City Paper cover ended up being the clear favorite. After all, pretty much the entire city just celebrated the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team becoming back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, and what better tie-in than to jump on the bandwagon and give a shout-out to the second cutest penguins in Pittsburgh? (Don't miss our story on how you can feed the penguins at the National Aviary.)

But in addition to the final covers you see all over town each week, I often mock-up multiple versions of cover designs before we choose the final artwork. This week, I'm sharing three alternate covers that were rejected, so you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the creatures who were almost staring out at you from our street boxes.


What would the goat say? "This cover isn't that baaaaaaaad, is it?" Read about the goats cleaning up city lots in our news story this week. Fun fact: Editor Charlie Deitch specifically requested I mock up a design using a goat. "Even if you don't use it, I need to see it. I love goats."


This rejected cover couldn't bee more cute. It's in homage to our story on honeybees in this week's issue. Fun fact: Text from my photographer John Colombo at 10 a.m. last Sunday after shooting the beekeeper for that story: "I was limited to what I could do while being attacked by bees."


Been wondering how bats are doing these days? Check out our update on Pennsylvania's bat population after first reporting on the effects of white-nose syndrome, a deadly bat disorder, in 2009. Fun fact: City Paper publisher Vance Smith told me he didn't like this cover design because it creeped him out. I told him that just made me like it more. (Sometimes people are a little batty.)