Well, while I was lloking for pictures on the internet yesterday, I found out something interesting: The same Comic, here "Meitantei Conan" can have so many designs!
I give you an example. Here is the original Japanese:
Please mark the photo of the London Parliament building at Westminster, the brick structure on the background and the "cloth"-structure in the name "KONAN". The first translation into an European language was in French:
Here the photo and the Brick structure were removed in favour of a plain background (which changes its colour with every volume); the drawing of Conan was subsequently enlarged and a new Logo was created. In order to recreate the Cloth structure of the original Japanese, a "Tweed" structure was used, which, by chance, envokes the picture of Sherlock Holmes who in all movies wear similar cloth.
Now, here is the German edition, which I own:
Even though the German edition is translated from the Japanese and not from the French or English (which is unfortunately quite usual), as you can see, the cover of the French edition was used as a model and then re-changed to resemble more to the Japanese Edition. Thus the Brick stucture is entirely different, less regular; the Background picture is for unknown reasons a different one, too, the Conan-Drawing bigger. The Cloth structure in the name was retained (of course it is now in Romaji, else most Germans wouldn't understand), but a different pattern was used (by the way, the colour of this cloth structure is different with each volume, but probably this is the same case in Japan, too).
I think all in all the German edition tries to look more serious, to emphasize what Germans connect with a detective story.... by the way, as far as I could check it, the German covers and the Japanese covers all feature these differences. Especially the different photographic backgrounds are quite interesting. I wonder why they couldn't just use the Japanese cover?
Here is the English Edition, which is the only one not featuring the name Conan (for fear of being mistaken with "Conan the Barbarian"?):
Again, the only features close to the Original is the drawing and a tendency to a Brown background. Apart from this, everything is changed. Especially the light spot on the left side give this design a more childlike, easier apperearance - the opposite to the German attempt, I think.
The Italian Edition:
is also the most simple made (this is nothing unusual; Italians publish a huge number of comic translations at a very cheap price, so they save on paper, printing quality, translation and not the least design). The Background here is plain brown, the Lettering is clearly done by a quick Computer Fix...
Finally, the Danish Edition:
Here, the only Edition without brown background. I wonder why...
Isn't it strange how Design varies? I now think if you could compare many covers from many translations, you could find out something about the mentality of readers...
OH, I am too late... gotta go! See you later!