It didn't take long for me to pick up on what tingramretro is saying either. Take for instance this week. An old gold key comic I found and have never read because the Herculoids comic I do have isn't old enough. Lots of likes already. Posted a Lady Death cover for "candles" a few weeks ago, as it had like a dozen candles. No likes, no votes.

It's not intentional, no. It mostly comes from the same core of posters that participate in it weekly have a lot of the same likes. It less about how much to pertains to the criteria, and more about just what one likes aesthetically, or judging it by the contents of the comic. Edit: So maybe we can find a avenue to encourage more to participate and vote so that we can get a more varied pool of participants?

I dunno what Juggernaut was referring to in his post, but I can see what I mentioned frequently. And it's not just me with 90's comic covers. There's posters that use foreign comics, underground comics, humor comics, adult comics, etc ... but superheroes of a certain time frame tend to win out every time. So maybe the frustration might be, do I post what I really want to that fits the OP's criteria. Or do I post a cover that I think will win that fits the OP's criteria.

I do agree it would be nice to have more, and more varied, participants, not necessarily because it will result in a different "less biased" outcome, but just because it would be fun to see more covers, and more covers I'm not familiar with.

There's no big secret to why I have the most wins so far. I'm very familiar with all the most iconic covers from my favorite periods in comics, namely the Bronze Age and the Silver Age of American comics, which also overlap with most of our personal tastes and contain a lot of fond memories for many of the participants. Many weeks, when I see the topic, an obvious classic or iconic cover immediately springs to mind for me. Now, I don't always post that cover, because sometimes the topic for the week also suggests a cover that has personal meaning to me, or a cover that I find funny or interesting that I know nobody else will necessarily like enough to vote for. On those weeks, I follow my heart. Other times, the topic doesn't suggest anything of particular meaning to me, so I go with the more iconic pick, as that happens to suit my taste in covers as well. On rare occasions, including this week, those two impulses meet up.

I vote the same way I post covers. I tend to like the classic, iconic covers, and will usually vote for them as long as I think they actually meet the spirit of this week's topic. There have been some winners that I didn't vote for because, while they are great covers, I didn't think they really met the week's criteria; the fact that other voters disagreed with me certainly doesn't bother me. Onother occasions, someone posts a cover that have special significance to me personally, and I will vote for that cover because I like it even if objectively there are "better" covers to pick. Last week was a perfect example: I thought mrp's cover was the "best" cover, and I expected it to win, but I personally voted for DubipR because that Sgt. Rock cover is a personal favorite. One thing I never do while voting, though, is look to see who other people have voted for before I cast my own vote; I don't want to be influenced by opinions, or be swayed by vote totals. I'm sure that at least once I ended up casting the deciding vote for someone else on a week where I would otherwise have won. Whatever!

I do like winning, but it's hardly the point of this "contest," which really isn't a contest at all but a means to learn about everyone's varied tastes and opinions and discuss them in a fun and open forum. I see covers here I've never seen before, and people post covers that really leave me scratching my head why they picked that cover, but it's all fun, and it's a good way to learn about everyone's tastes and the way they think. I really enjoy the discussion of covers as well, whether it influences people to vote for a certain cover or not. That doesn't matter to me. It's the discussion and the sense of discovery that make the thread fun.

Don't get me wrong, I plan to win as much as possible going forward. but that's because I also enjoy the challenge of trying to find a cover that best fits the topic - and also best fits the tastes of our varied community here. It's a fun puzzle to try and guess what people might like - and again, even when I guess right, sometimes I don't post the cover because I myself don't like it. I've certainly passed up posting covers that I thought would be good picks because I didn't personally care for them, only to see someone else win with that cover. Again, whatever!

Bottom line for me: there's no need to take the "competition" part of this that seriously.

The implication of any sort of irregularity with the contest results is absolute rubbish. Each week, I struggle mightily to pull a dazzling and appropriate cover from the recesses of my brain.  As the contests have became more difficult and competitive, I have worked hard at memorizing lists of comics covers, and carry with me a book of such covers. No covers were suggested to me by others, either verbally or in writing. Here is a candid shot of me trying to think of a cover for this week's contest (the headphones are to prevent my hearing shouted suggestions from passersby):

Simon(?) /Kirby Charlie Chan:



Hanna/Barbera Chan Clan:

I admire your taste, Wes. I could have gone with almost any cover from this series, but I chose mine because it was only one to have Zatanna on it.