GalleyCat
 
Receive mediabistro.com's Daily GalleyCat Feed via email


Daily Media Newsfeed Click here to receive mediabistro.com's Daily Media Newsfeed via email.

Book Jackets

Wednesday Jul 01, 2009

Why Nicole Peeler Loves Her Cover Art

nicole-peeler-withARC.jpg

When Orbit unveiled the cover art for Nicole Peeler's debut novel, Tempest Rising, last winter, a small but vocal contingent reacted negatively to the illustration of Jane True, the book's protagonist, emerging naked from the ocean. "It makes me slightly uncomfortable to look at it," a reader named Grace wrote. "It looks like kiddie porn." At the time, creative director Lauren Panepinto, reminding readers that Jane is in her mid-twenties, compared Sharon Tancredi's artwork to Mark Ryden and Tara McPherson, and emphasized the deliberate intent to create a look at odds with the "typical" urban fantasy cover. "This is an art style, that while may be read exclusively child-like to some who have only seen it on a Bratz doll, has had very adult art and usage and connotations along with it for over a decade," she elaborated. "I enjoy the controversy because it means we’re pushing the envelope on the art, and that’s something I’m very happy to do, and Orbit supports."

Peeler came to New York City last week to meet with Orbit staffers and prepare for the book's publication this fall, and we took advantage of the opportunity to meet up with her and discuss the controversy. She doesn't just love Tancredi's work, she told us—if it's at all possible, she wants to have Jane True tattooed on her arm. She also took a moment to explain to us why, beyond its more provocative aspects, the cover's visual "tone" aptly reflects the story's deviations from other urban fantasy tales—a mode of storytelling that may have more in common with Pushing Daisies than The Dresden Files.

Tuesday Jun 30, 2009

UnBeige Makes the Kidd/Vanderbilt Connection

It's no secret that Stephanie Murg, the co-editor of mediabistro.com's design industry blog, UnBeige, is a huge Chip Kidd fan (just like us!), so we weren't surprised to see her writing about the cover Kidd designed for Obsession, an "erotic tale" by Gloria Vanderbilt, which features striking photography of mannequin heads from the author's personal collection (which Murg links thematically to an earlier Kidd cover for a Haruki Murakami novel). UnBeige also showcases the first page of the novel—Kidd created the interior look-and-feel as well as the cover—so you may want to check that post out...

Monday Jun 29, 2009

The Literary Side of Doctor Who

In an article for the BBC website, actor/screenwriter Mark Gattis pays tribute to the Doctor Who novelizations of his youth, which were produced by a British publishing company named Target.

doctor-who-covers.jpg
"Scarcely anything was repeated on TV in those days... so, if you missed something, you missed it," Gattis recalls. "In an age before video and DVD, the Target novelisations were a chance to relive the television adventures. Many of the black and white 1960s stories had been wiped by the BBC altogether, so the books were the only record. Through them you could experience stories that had disappeared into the programme's folklore."

This was also true for American fans who discovered the show in syndication in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as they rarely saw anything predating the Tom Baker era; imported editions of the books were one of the few ways we had of fully comprehending the show's rich backstory. (Once, a long, long time ago, we even had a copy of Castrovalva that was signed by Sarah Sutton!)

"The Target Doctor Who novelisations were phenomenally successful," he points out. "They ran to 156 titles and the books sold millions of copies world-wide, becoming one of the best-selling ranges of children's books ever published." Virgin Publishing acquired Target around the time that the original show ended, and when the novelizations ran out, they published several original books. Once the BBC revived the show in 2005, the network's publishing division decided not to adapt the episodes but has continued to publish original stories featuring the characters.

(via io9, which has a whole lotta covers from the Target series on display)

Friday Jun 26, 2009

Aspiring UK Designers Test Their Skills on Donna Tartt

secret-history-contest.jpg

A while back, Penguin UK invited design students to create "a fresh and bold new look" for Donna Tartt's The Secret History "in order to bring it to a new generation of readers," and the judging committee—which included Penguin Press art director Jim Stoddart, novelist Hari Kunzru, and British designers Frith Kerr and Amelia Noble—declared the above submission by Peter Adlington the best. "I wanted to look at the hierarchy within the group, as well as their merging whilst in a catatonic state," Adlington writes of his design and its effort to reflect the book's plot. (Also, note "[the] black void in the middle, which represents the impending doom that the group faced from the moment they committed the first murder.")

The judges considered it "a bold, beautiful and distinctive cover that mirrored the themes of the book in an imaginative and succinct way," but not everybody agrees:

gail-carriger-tweet.jpg

As far as we know, though, this is not going to be the new cover for the British edition of The Secret History. Instead, Adlington will get to spend six weeks in the Penguin design studio on a work placement assignment, plus a £1,000 cash prize.

Thursday Jun 25, 2009

Ruben Toledo Is (Re)Modeling the Classics

(with apologies to Spike Jones)

ruben-toledo-cover.jpgThe good folks at Nylon passed along a link to an item on their website about a new set of Penguin Classics covers by fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo which, according to Rebecca Willa Davis, "certainly add a stylish edge to book club mainstays." In addition to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (seen at right), Toledo also did illustrations for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

If you've been reading GalleyCat for a while, you know we're a big fan of this sort of Penguin Classics makeover: It's a theme we come back to again and again and again. Although we're still waiting for them to hire Evan Dorkin for one of these gigs...

Wednesday Jun 24, 2009

UnBeige Discovers a Truly Millennial Story

UnBeige, mediabistro.com's design industry blog, had an item yesterday about the cover of the new issue of Opium, which contains a nine-word short story by artist Jonothan Keats called "Time." The only thing is, as UnBeige learned from Wired, the cover employs "a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words." In other words, it looks black now, but after prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light, the top layer will fade and reveal the words underneath, one at a time—and it will purportedly take 1,000 years for the process to be complete.

In the meantime, you could always try to track down all the words to Shelley Jackson's "Skin."

Tuesday May 26, 2009

Our Dream Team: Colleen Coover & P.G. Wodehouse

colleen-coover-wodehouse.jpgLast week, inspired by a comment from a fan on Twitter, writer-artist Colleen Coover posted a set of illustrations to her blog based on the characters from Clue, the ever-popular murder mystery board game. When we spotted the digital artwork, we immediately determined that it would be the most awesome thing ever if Coover was hired to create new covers for some P.G. Wodehouse classics—and Coover was as enthusiastic about the idea as we were.

"You can probably tell just by looking at my Mrs. Peacock that I'm enamored of Bertie Wooster's Aunts, and I love the title Aunts Aren't Gentlemen," Coover emailed us over the weekend. "I think I was thinking about Bertie's dangerous redheaded girlfriend Bobbie Wickham when I drew Miss Scarlet, albeit a Bobbie Wickham who's been around the block a few extra times... Wodehouse's men are continuously being put-upon by his women, whether through dominant personalities (Aunts), recklessness (Bobbie), or empty-headedness (Madeline Bassett). The idea of all these poor fellows in a constant state of semi-panic is hilarious, and makes for great cartooning!"

Now we just have to figure out how to make this happen! Our original idea was that Coover could take part in the ongoing Penguin Classics project of pairing comics artists with great literature; maybe, we dreamt, they could assign her Uncle Fred in the Springtime. (Coover allowed as how she's a big fan of the Blandings House characters, and particularly enjoyed Fish Preferred, Heavy Weather, and Full Moon.) But then we were reminded that Random House re-acquired the paperback rights in 2006, and then we stumbled onto the first dozen covers from the new editions published last year in the UK and Canada by Random's Arrow Books. (Like the editor of Première de Couverture, we thought these latest covers were a terrible step backwards from the Penguin covers from the late 1990s.) We aren't sure what's going on with Wodehouse paperbacks in the United States—they don't show up in Penguin Group USA's online catalog anymore—but if Random does have the rights, and it plans to augment the handful of titles published by Vintage. we think the art department should seriously consider Coover's illustration portfolio.

(And if that assignment isn't available, we encourage other art directors to take that same look!)

Friday May 08, 2009

Now Even Paperbacks Are Getting Paperbacks

delivery-man-covers.jpg

"I know that many TPO authors (myself included when I didn't know any better) lament the lack of a paperback coming out the next year as one of the drawbacks/disappointments associated with no hardcover," Joe McGinniss, Jr. emailed us yesterday afternoon. But when Grove/Atlantic's Black Cat imprint went back for a fifth printing on his debut novel, The Delivery Man, they decided to tweak the cover as well, resulting in what the author cheerfully calls "a paperback of the paperback." (Compare the two versions above; the new edition's on the right.)

"Along with better pricepoint, higher sales, fewer returns and the chance to grace the shelves of Urban Outfitters," McGinniss enthused (and The Delivery Man isn't the only book that's been turning up there), "the shot at a paperback of your paperback original is one more argument for ditching cloth altogether."

Wednesday Apr 29, 2009

In the Endcap Stands a Boxer

We're unabashed fans of Hard Case Crime, but when the monthly "care package" from the pulp fiction specialists showed up in our mailbox recently, it seemed a bit thicker than usual. A cover letter from editor Charles Ardai explained that while the house's usual "sweet spot" for its novels is 50,000 to 60,000 words, Peter Blauner's Casino Moon is more than twice that size. The boxing novel is also a departure for Hard Case in that it was first published in the mid-1990s, nearly a half-century ahead of its usual reprint strategy. But "I love this book," Ardai explained, "and I don't think it got the readership or the attention it deserved the first time out, in part because the original paperback edition had one of the least appealing covers I can remember."

Surely that old cover couldn't be that bad, we thought, firing up the Google. Well, in fact, it wasn't as bad as Ardai made it out to be—it was significantly worse.

casino-moon-covers.jpg

The Hard Case cover, which we think everyone can agree is a substantial improvement, features an original painting by Ricky Mujica, who made his Hard Case cover debut late last year on burlesque perfomer Jonny Porkpie's The Corpse Wore Pasties... (CORRECTION: We had a calendar brain fart looking at the Hard Case website, as Porkpie's novel is a December 2009 title.) The former Golden Gloves competitor and Broadway performer has also worked on children's adventure tales like Armstrong Perry's Call It Courage and Steven Kroll's Breaking Camp.

Monday Jan 26, 2009

Paparazzi Shot Duplicated on Covers

ebnerbragman.jpg

Two books about navigating the grueling world of celebrity worship ended up with the same cover.

The book covers for Mark Ebner's new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton (Simon Spotlight) and Howard Bragman's Where's My Fifteen Minutes? (Portfolio Hardcover) both share the same stock photo of paparazzi poised to pounce on a celebrity. Jossip first spotted the similarities, and GalleyCat readers love tracking such coincidental art.

Here's more from the post: "what photo is appearing on what book cover isn't put on an intra-office memo that's circulated throughout the industry. We'll just chalk this copycat scenario as a statement on celebrity: So banal there's less and less variety, and yet nobody seems to care."


Previously

Froggy Went A'Courting All Over The Publishing World

Limited Edition Poster Goes Wide for Beautiful Children Paperback

Connelly's Latest Books Are For the Birds

Thomas Pynchon Surfs Internet for Cover Art

Hey, Art Department: Iceberg! Dead Ahead!

Patrick Arrasmith: A Solid Dose of Spooky for Young Readers

Texas Indie Publisher Cited for Excellent Design

The Face of The Jewel of Medina

What's Black and White and Red All Over? Books About Dick Cheney, Apparently

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

Betcha They Still Won't Host His Book Party, Though

Who's Got the Best Cover Among Sci-Fi's Best Novels?

Again With the Fight Over Women's Fiction Cover Art

Talk About Trends in Book Covers...

Harris O'Malley: A Wink and a Smile

So Who Peed in Dan Savage's Cornflakes?

UnBeige: Chronicle's Design Fellows Speak Out

AvantGuild: You Can't Always Get What You Want on Your Book Cover

Remembering Liz Maguire, As The Open Door Pubs

Adrian Tomine, New Yorker Fiction Issue Cover Specialist

The Man Behind the New Bond Girl Gallery

Bentley Binds Bond Book

Bond Girls for the 21st Century (But Only in England)

Want to Be on Seth Godin's Next Book Jacket?

Doodling: The Next Big Thing in Book Covers?

It's a Living: Reality TV Contestant Now Book Cover Girl

Are "Women's Fiction" Book Jackets Anti-Feminist?

The "Sullen Punk Rock" Version of Vidal & Didion

Creating a Book Jacket Out of Spare Body Parts

Pam Anderson Ready to Smash the Marketplace

How One Novel Landed Its Backside Cover Art

"Today's Model Is Playing Ellie, A Magical Sorceress"

Harper, Collins: Making Us See Red and Green

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Sell 'Em All and Let the Market Sort 'Em Out

Quirky but Brilliant Werewolf Poem Packaged with Equally Standout Design

They Might Even Be Shelved Together, Too!

One More "Backsides" Post, But That's It!

Back of the Head Thing Spreads to Literati

The Backside Cover That Never Got Out

You're Still Finding "Backside" Covers

You've Spotted More "Back of the Head" Covers

One More Look at Science Fiction Book Jackets

The New Trend in Women's Fiction Covers

More Thoughts on the Sci-Fi Cover Debate

Leaving the Sci-Fi Book Covers Behind

Using "Design for Non-Designers" to Impart Things I Have Learned

Last Twinge of Olsen Squeaky Cleanliness Snuff-ed Out?

Elsewhere on mediabistro.com: Rock On, Little Man

"We Need Software Updates Here at Knopf"

Consumer-Friendly Alice Munro Not So New

Meet the New, Consumer-Friendly Alice Munro

Chip Kidd Shares the Inside of His Head

What's Chip Kidd Got for an Encore?

The Secrets of Naked Revealed!

One More Publishing Staffer With a Band and a Book Deal, And We've Got an Official Trend

Chip Kidd Rocks Out, UnBeige Is There

Teen Vampire Slayers in 17th-Century Romania

Eye-Catching New Sci-Fi Covers from England

T-Shirts Are to Sociology As Legs Are to Chick Lit: Discuss

A Peek Inside Chronicle's "Black Box"

UnBeige: The United Colors of Alice Sebold

Shock Begins to Fade from True Crime?

One Design Wizard, Two Emerald Cities

No, You're Not Tripping, That Book Cover Totally Changed, Man

Penguin UK Old School Take on Today's Hits

"A Novel" Is Busting Out All Over

Penguin UK Goes Retro with Covers

A Second Sneak Peek at the Vintage Classics

Don't Make an Art Director Break Out Her Portfolio

FSG's Brand Alterations: Knotty But Nice

Book Jacket Trends: Tattoo You II

Book Jacket Trends: Tattoo You

Vintage UK Spiffs Up the Classics

Howard Grossman: I Didn't Swipe Chip Kidd's T. Rex

Lethem Controls Electric Guitar

Debut Novelist Revolts Against Book Cover

A Blast from Our Past

Hey, I Know That Guy!

Cuz I'm Not Not Not Not Your Academy

Designer Classics with Manolo and Friends

Judge the book by its jacket

Probing YA Writer's Absence from Borders Shelves

David Baldacci Moonlighting as Library Guide

Rupert Murdoch Must Hate Ann Coulter

UK Serial Novel "So Lovely, So Nicely Designed"

Penguin Lets Comics Artists Loose
On Another Round of Modern Classics

Judging Chick-Lit By Its Covers (again)

A Great Leap Forward in Natural Health?

Another Chick-Lit Cover with Legs

The Good Book Covers Cost $100,000

Lincoln, Lincoln, I've Been Thinking

Sci-Fi Artists Support Book Covers of the Future

Memoir of Wartime Loss Re-Titled

Saving the World and Looking Extra-Fine

Anybody in the Audience Read Cyrillic?

She Oughta Know

Sucker Cover Defended

Not Even Ali Is Immune to Bashing

The Jane Austen Guide to Romance

Goodnight Moon Artist Posthumously Quits Smoking

Read more on GalleyCat >

The First Word on the Book Publishing Industry

Our Blog Network

BayNewser

WebNewser

TVNewser

PRNewser

MediaJobsDaily

FishbowlNY

FishbowlDC

FishbowlLA

MobileContentToday

AgencySpy

UnBeige

GalleyCat

GalleyCat Staff

Editor:

Jason Boog


Senior Editor:
Ron Hogan



Contact Us
Twitter


Anonymous Tips

Favorite Posts

heather-thomas-sidebar.jpg Our Chat With Heather Thomas
jack-oconnell-sidebar.jpg The (Long-Awaited) Return of Jack O'Connell
marya-hornbacher-sidebar.jpg Marya Hornbacher: "No Tortured Artists Here"
stean-sagmeister-sidebar.jpg Stefan Sagmeister: "Design for Non-Designers"
 Why Does Maureen Dowd Hate Popular Women?

Links

theBookseller.com

Buzz, Balls & Hype

Danuta Kean

E-Reads

Eco-Libris

Publishers Marketplace

Publishers Weekly

Publishing Contrarian

Publishing For Profit

Publishing Insider

Publishing News

The Publishing Spot

Publishing Trends

PubRants

Rick Frishman

Shelf Awareness

TeleRead

Weekly Publishing Moves

The Write Report

...more...

Archives

July 2009

June 2009

May 2009

April 2009

more...


Recent

Updating Cyrano for the YouTube Generation

A Moment of Appreciation for SIBA's Jewell

My People by Charles R. Smith

Subscribe

Click here to receive the Daily Media News Feed by email.

Job Listings

Featured Listings

Account Executive The Nest
The Knot, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA

Manager, Technical Services
Scholastic
Watertown, MA

Marketing Manager
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
Lanham, MD

Circulation Director
AA Grapevine, Inc.
New York, NY

ADVERTISEMENT


mediabistro.com l Member Benefits l Jobs l Freelance Marketplace l Courses l Events l Forums l Content
mediabistro Blogs: Media News l TVNewser l GalleyCat l UnBeige l FishbowlNY l FishbowlLA l FishbowlDC l PRNewser l AgencySpy
MobileContentToday l WebNewser l BayNewser l MediaJobsDaily l mbToolbox
Site Map l Advertising/Sponsorships l Partners l About Us l Contact Us/Help

internet.commediabistro.comJusttechjobs.comGraphics.com

Search:

WebMediaBrands Corporate Info

Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints, Permissions, Privacy Policy.
Advertise | Newsletters | Shopping | E-mail Offers