The echo, Chicago, June 1, 1895 - poster
The pattern
This still is filed under Lettered cover hook.
Define
The cover is the hook, and the hook is lettering: a title treated as an image.
Mechanism
Type as bait. The words are drawn so they stop the hand before the contents are known.
Verdict
A journal, book, or issue must sell itself on a rack or a feed
Why it works
The whole sheet is built from one mark, a combed parallel line, used for hair, for the background hatch and for the modelling of the body, which is what makes an image of this much detail still read as a single flat shape. The masthead is pushed behind the figure so the reader has to assemble it, which converts a cover into a small puzzle. The verse at the foot is doing the job a subhead does: it tells the buyer the nudity is Arcadian and literary rather than cheap.
Steal this when
Use this pairing when an image is provocative enough to cause hesitation at the point of sale and a short attributed quotation can reframe it as culture. The quote licenses the picture.