The annual fall issue presents the reader choices for area businesses and locales. The process for preparing this issues starts months in advance, and we gave ourselves a lot of time to work up the cover. In addition to adorning the front, the image would also be placed on certificates given to the winners to serve as advertisements for the paper. It had to be good. The editor had the idea to replicate a Commodores best-of CD with a championship belt, and I created the image in Photoshop and Illustrator. This was done over a long period of time; literally dozens of hours went into this. Inside, we ran drawings of boxing props and ring girls holding title placards for the beginning of each section. I love this cover, but I still wince at the amount of time that went into it. It gives me a sense of exhausted pride.