I think the focus on you picking one cover everyone does is better than everyone picks any cover they want, however I think having it all focused on one topic doesn't allow for too much differences in what everyone would product.
Or, the otherside would be you choose the topic (ie "Pirates") and everyone would pick any comic book cover they would want to put a pirate touch on. Doing either way I think would expand the ability for all the creatives to get a little more personal more so than just their artistic style alone.
For example, @crittercrats killed the Spider-Man homage with Pirates, and I know there is many other pirates and even other kind of directions. Like I was thinking piracy pirates as one interpretation... however other than that or butt pirate there isn't too many directions to go. I'm a fan of this contest, I know the first run was wild with interpretation lol so I see you did it different this round.
that's true, well that's what i first intended in the beta test, with an open theme but people interpreted that as choosing any type of cover.... so we can try that again, just gotta make sure to pick my words wisely
I'll tell you what though since I had made that comment 7 days ago, other entries have come in. And while I kind of stick to the original thought that it is a little creatively limiting, the entries that have come in all have been very varied and awesome looking.