Olivier Coipel Joins ‘Batman’ As Cover Artist

Batman writer Tom King announced today via Twitter that longtime Marvel Comics artist Olivier Coipel will join the title as a cover artist.

His stint will begin with Batman #32, the penultimate chapter to the currently ongoing “War of Jokes and Riddles,” with Coipel providing variant covers for the series.

DC has an open-order variant policy where the company typically publishes two covers for most of its popular titles and allows retailers to order whatever they want. It is likely Coipel’s variants will fall into that category, rather than the more controversial category of variants where retails have to buy a certain number of the standard cover in order to qualify for a copy of the variant. DC also does this, but tends to reserve it more for special occasions such as the Dark Nights: Metal event.

During an interview at Comic-Con International: San Diego in July, DC co-publisher Jim Lee hinted at more plans for Coipel at DC, but could not specify at the time what they were.

“He’s amazing; I’m a huge fan of Olivier,” Lee said. “He’s a fantastic talent, and as much as he wants to do, I think the door is open.”

While Coipel has done work for DC before, on some Legion of Super-Heroes, JSA, and Superman material early in his career, he has spent most of the last decade as one of Marvel’s most popular artists on books like Thor, Siege, and The Avengers.