About going stylistic instead of 'comic bookey'

I like the idea of going stylistic, doing something that implies rather than throws the images into your brain.  It's a book, not a comic, so you want people to have their own images of what the characters are supposed to look like.  Sure thing...

But it's inspired by the world of comics, it's kind of a genre-bending book, and you can't draw a clear defined line to distinguish whether it's a comic with no pictures, or a book that reads like a comic.

I'm torn, to be honest, between doing something classy that you could find on the shelves of your nearest bookstore, and doing something cool and slick like you'd find on the shelves of your nearest comic book store.  I just think that a cool cover will attract people, then the words will do the rest.  It's a cool story, an interesting bunch of characters, and it's written pretty well.  To me, the cover is kind of a way to get people to stop as they browse by, and give it a look.  Once they turn the page and read the first paragraph, I think they won't want to turn away.

It's something you see in comic books a lot.  The artist on the cover is some famous guy, like Alex Ross, Adam Hughes or Jim Lee, but the interior art is done by a different artist.  You see a cover by one of those guys, and it gives you pause.

So I need my Alex Ross cover.  The rest, I think I have covered.