Category Archives: cover art

I love this quote about cover art from The Look of the Book.

I was reminded of that quote looking at the 1958 cover below, by James Meese. Does it make genre visible?

The cover copy tells us it’s a mystery involving pearls and microfilm. The image gives us the tropics, a beautiful, worried woman in a swimsuit and a villain. Without the copy I think I’d assume it was some kind of “jeop” (‘woman in jeopardy’ story) — with the woman targeted by some kind of stalker. Or maybe a romance. Nothing about the cover says “spy” or “mystery.” Without the cover copy it doesn’t make genre visible.

However the cover does have copy so the genre comes across. I suppose it was reasonable to factor that in and go with a sexy woman as the hook (as so many paperbacks did in that era). Still, it’s at best adequate, nothing special

For another look at the same topic, one of the books I read during my recent Charleston trip was GOOD MOVIES AS OLD BOOKS: Films Reimagined as Vintage Book Covers by Matt Stevens. The premise is exactly what it sounds like. Here are more examples.

Most of the covers look cool. Some of them, like The Usual Suspects and Cast Away, are inspired. However I don’t think most of them would make good real book covers. Where The Usual Suspects is arresting, John Wick doesn’t tell us anything about what makes the movie compelling — hell it doesn’t tell us anything other than it involves a man with a gun. Ditto Say Anything on the book cover. They would not, shall we say, move the merchandise even though they’re pretty.

Part of that’s because Stevens is working primarily in the style of serious, tasteful literary paperbacks as I remember from the 1960s and early 1970s — the kind that, as Look of the Book says, doesn’t do anything so tacky as a vivid cover scene. The subtext is that you’re supposed to pick the book up because it’s Quality, not because it grabbed you with a lurid image (if you check out my cover art posts you’ll find lots of those).

The covers also have a certain sameness after a while (I’d have parceled them out over time but I had to get this back to the library). The book would have been more entertaining if we’d had more variety — the only really off-the-wall one is the psychedelic 1970s style for Fury Road. Great idea, not entirely satisfactory results.

All rights to images remain with current holder.

I don’t know the artist, nor the book. It looks interesting though John Brunner’s work is very hit or miss with me.

And a cover by Richard Powers because that’s always worth posting.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

First, Jack Gaughan’s cover — weirder, I think, than many of his, though the lack of background is typical of his work.

Second, Ed Veligursky’s cover foreshadowing the world of climate change.

Third, a nicely weird looking but uncredited cover.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

Another one where I don’t think either cover works.

This Stan Zuckerberg cover, for instance — I like the use of the reflecting mirror but the cop’s expression looks too dyspeptic at the sight of the woman.

Despite the swastikas, Julian Paul’s cover here looks more like shenanigans around a swimming pool than anything else.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

This Tom Dunn cover captures an era when women working in Washington way outstripped the number of available men. This was a thing in WW I; I don’t know if it was true when this book came out in hardback in 1951.

This is one of those covers that looks a little strange in every era. Artist is uncredited.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

This Lou Feck cover makes me want to find out what the book is about.

This Frank Cazzorelli cover has a German expressionist quality to it, as if the woman’s terror were distorting the surroundings

This Richard Powers cover is from a Y/A book I read as a teen. It’s not as wild as many of his covers but it conveys the sense of Olympics+Science Fiction well.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

First this paperback cover. “A century ahead of her sex” refers to the adversaries being homo superior, I believe.

Second, this one, which the source credited to Bergey. Those are some comical looking aliens, aren’t they?

For more Bergey covers, click here.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

I did read a couple of books this week but I’m still exhausted from coping with sick dogs so the reviews will be postponed. Instead, here’s a cover by Ralph Brillhart —

— and two uncredited covers.

And to finish up, here’s an old favorite, Gervasio Gallardo’s cover for The Last Unicorn.

All rights to images remain with current holders.

First, the one and only Richard Powers

Second Paul Stahr.

Third Clark Hulings.

All rights to images remain with current holders.