Chris Ryall has unveiled the colored version of the All Hail Megatron #1 retailer-exclusive variant cover, which he gave a penciled peek of yesterday.

Accompanying this look, Casey Coller, a new-comer into the IDW Publishing fold and the man responsible for the pencils of this cover, gave a bittersweet background story of the days he drew this cover.

The following is the message from Mr. Coller:

This looks amazing! Josh really did an awesome job on this, and inadvertently did something very special for me. I have to share something a little personal with you...

The day that we were e-mailing in the morning, the day I said I would have "limited access to e-mail," it was because I was going to be spending the day at a hospital with my family. My sister was in the ICU, and we were told the outlook was not good. She passed away later that day. She had battled cancer since 2001, beating it on 3 occasions. Her most recent remission was over 2 years, but the damage that had been done had taken a heavy toll on her. She recently won an essay contest for Glamour magazine. She died the day it hit newsstands. You can read the article here: http://www.glamour.com/news/articles/2008/05/essay_winner.

Anyway, I did this cover for her, as much as myself. In the midst of the absolute hardest thing I've ever gone through, this cover helped serve as a distraction for me, taking away some of the grief for just a while. Today was her funeral, the same day I come home to see Josh's colors. The "AMC" that I added on the camera lens, right by the lens flare Josh added, is her initials. I figured nobody would know what it meant except for me and my family, so it would be safe to put there.

Feel free to pass any of this along to Josh if you'd like. I'm sorry to burden you with this news, but I thought it was an appropriate time. This is just another reason I have to thank you for this opportunity.

In case you didn't know, this cover draws inspiration from the cover the one-shot book, "Batman: The Killing Joke."