I realize this is going off-topic in more than one direction, but it just fits so nicely.
Regarding weird covers, read the paragraph about those for the german Transformers Comic published by Condor:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Condor_Verlag...formers_comics
IMO, in this case the cause is clearly that the publisher had absolutely no respect for the product. (Which caused other issues as well.)