Seriously, Why Feet?

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Here's an entertaining experiment: Maureen Johnson asked her Twitter followers to reimagine book covers after swapping the authors' genders. Some of them are painfully funny.

Of course, this just brings home to me that most book covers, aside from being gendered as FUCK, are also terrible. I remember getting fairly grumpy as I shelved books at the library: all the male authors got Jackson Pollock ink splats, and the female authors got random fruit, random flowers, or, for some reason, feet. And then of course there's the Angsty YA: dudes get monochromatic silhouettes, and the ladies get monochromatic greyscale soft-focus girls looking thoughtfully away, possibly at the wind machine that seems to be blowing their hair all over the place.

But then, y'all know my take on covers. I like covers that are splashy and pretty and brightly colored and goddamn LITERAL. Like these Alanna covers. Or any of these. That's the kind of book cover that makes me want to read the contents. I'm not so sure I'd want to read any of the books with whatever the hell is going on here.*

Probably this goes along with the simple principle that if you really CAN'T squeeze an exciting and dynamic scene out of your book to put on the cover, I probably don't want to read it. If your cover has someone chucking a spear at a dragon, or flying a spaceship over a mysterious planet, I get pretty interested pretty fast. If, on the other hand, your cover has, say, a pair of shoes and some doodles on it, I will assume your character's head is so far up her own ass that she never manages to accomplish anything interesting at all. The problem, as illustrated above, is when the books that DO have awesome scenes get stuck with shoes or mooning teenagers. Why the hell would you even PUT that on there when you could have somebody do a Drew Struzan-like splash of awesome?

Listen, publishers: unless your book is a picture book, I get exactly ONE illustration per volume. MAKE IT A GOOD ONE.


*I know I've used this comparison before, but I don't care because it's still a perfect one.

Comments

[beccastareyes]

At least the three Do Nots besides Woman Who Rides Like a Man* include some sign that Alanna is a knight/knight-in-training by giving her a sword or her horse or both. I suppose WWRLAM does have a sword, but it's barely visible in favor of three broody teenagers.

* And, given the title, that would be the one book where I'd want the cover to show a woman on a horse. Seriously.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but she loses all her points for the way she's holding the sword in In the Hand of the Goddess. After that all I can think when I see her with a sword is, "Oh, honey, you're gonna poke out an eye."

Also, she is doing Disguise Herself As A Boy wrong.

[beccastareyes]

True. Action shots may be hard to draw/photograph, but they make it look like your book is exciting.

[shadesofmauve]

It totally looks like a modern angsty teen three-way romance, too! WT?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I particularly like the jeans. Big fashion item in Tortall.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Yeah... unfortunately, the only guy I've yet seen who can do manipulated photos *and* action is Michael Komarck, and a lot of publishers have clearly decided they'd rather have photo-realism than action, so watered down knockoffs of Christian McGrath it is. I do like the simple, design-y covers when done well (like the Night Circus cover) but I can only think of a handful of books with those.

(Much like movie posters, all the illustrators and artists I know loathe the trend of stock photo + background stock photo + dark, but we aren't in charge.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Argh, yes. I didn't even touch upon the stock photos. ESPECIALLY when they then attack those photos with Photoshop. GRAAAH.

Funny you should mention movie posters--I almost added that I wish more books had Drew Struzan-type covers. Posters and book covers should not make me care LESS about the books and movies they're selling.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Yup. But Struzan mostly retired early due to his commission load dropping to about a third of what it was at its height, and that was probably a decade ago now. (Also, dude has more than made his money, and deserves it.) His son runs a studio that produces pretty standard shopped movie posters and does a brisk business, so... you go where the money is, or you leave, pretty much.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just wish the money was with the splashy stuff I grew up with and love so much.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

If you check out video game concept art, there is some truly gorgeous stuff out there; Guild Wars 2 and Bastion's concept art would probably be right up your alley, actually.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

i did get myself a copy of the Hyrule Historia the instant the English translation came out, too. It's gorgeous.

I also have the Art of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's magnificent.

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

Where'd you get Hyrule Historia from? Amazon? ... I really, really don't need to spend more money right now, but HYRULE HISTORIA. Legend of Zelda was my first Nintendo game EVER! Legend of Zelda is why I bought an N64! With my first paycheck ever! Legend of Zelda is why I bought a Wii! And discovered that huh, a 20 year old TV can't actually connect to modern technology! ... Ahem. Um. Yes. Zelda nerd.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

It's cheapest on Amazon, or was when last I checked, because Barnes and Noble didn't put their usual 30% new arrival discount on it. It's not a new arrival now in any case. Most stores in my area don't carry it, to my extreme confusion, so I had to order the thing one way or the other.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Amazon might be your best bet. And yes, the art is GORGEOUS. It focuses largely on Skyward Sword, but it also delves into all the other games. I think it's worth it.

[shadesofmauve]

Was going to chime in along these lines -- as a designer and artist, I'd LOVE to do book covers -- if they actually wanted art. I actually had an author friend (successfully published both traditionally and self-) suggest I look into doing covers -- and I actually listened, until she said the dreaded words "photo manipulation" and, even worse, template.

Look. You don't write a template story well you wrote romance so maybe you do. I don't do template 'art.' No.

You don't say "All the covers out there are bed! You could do better! BY DOING THE EXACT SAME THING." It just doesn't work like that.

[fenmere.livejournal.com]

I say that you and I and any other artist in this thread who's game should do a series of great book covers for books that deserve better. We could make an online gallery of awesome shaming.

Of course, that's a lot of work, so we'd have to take it slow.

[shadesofmauve]

As soon as my studio's done, I'd LOVE to participate. Until then, I have to keep my focus so that I have a *space* for art.

I turned in my amended paperwork today, though!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I know authors have very little say about what publishers do with their book covers, but if you make a gallery like that I will TOTALLY point them to it when they're considering covers for my book.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I don't like generic covers, but neither do I like inaccurate covers. It drives me nuts when there's a shiny, interesting book cover that then turns out to be horribly inaccurate to the character or scene depicted.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Argh, yes, that's also maddening. Who the hell ARE those people on the cover? (See again: the Bad Covers for Alanna above. WHY ARE THEY WEARING JEANS? WHO ARE THOSE DUDES? FOR THAT MATTER, WHO IS THAT GIRL?)

The copies of The Belgariad and Malloreon I have are like that, too. None of the characters on the covers look like they have anything to do with the people in the stories.

And don't get me STARTED on the mysterious tendency for characters of color to turn white on covers. NO WORDS.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I understand that sometimes an artist is just given a single scene to work from, but as an artist who gets obsessive over Getting It Right, I can't understand why anyone would settle for "close enough!" Or, as in so many frustrating cases, not close enough.

This is one of my favorite books - I have this edition and I had to put an opaque cover on it because it is ALL WRONG. I could see some of the inaccuracies in the art as being understandable if it were painted just from the single scene it depicts, but what drives me really nuts is that in that scene, there are repeated instances of emphasis that you CANNOT LEAVE A TORN WING TORN and the requisite stopgap measures being applied. ARGH NOT OKAY okay done ranting sorry.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

My Belgariad covers are all surprisingly accurate. One features a small redheaded girl in a breastplate with hilariously exaggerated breasts, for instance. They all have '80s hair, though.

[baroncognito.livejournal.com]

I'd say that I don't care about covers, but that's not true. I just don't care about illustrations. I have some books I've purchased simply because the dust jacket used reflective foil.

But that did get me thinking about Terry Pratchett's book covers, which, up to Carpe Jugulum (it looks like) consist of a chatoic background, the name of the book in a particular font, then then one clipart style image in the center. I compare those to the dust jacket of the very first Terry Pratchett book I read, Men at Arms, http://images.bookcrossing.com/images/journalpics/854/49/8541949.jpg. We got a copy in the mail from some science fiction book club and the only reason anyone in the family started reading it was because we were wondering if the writing was as bad as the cover art.

But then, I got to the Tiffany Aching books, and discovered two things: 1) They really had a change of heart on the cover design between books two and three. 2) Books three and four could have definitely been part of that gender swapped author slideshow.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

My favorite cover of all time is for Augusten Burroughs' Dry. It's super-evocative, clever, and immediately calls out the inherent lie in the title. It's great.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

I...well...erm...you said it all.

Now I need to peruse Good Show Sir some more.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Seanan McGuire is the only author I can think of who's pretty much universally had good luck with her covers. Some people complained that the InCryptid ones were kind of cheesecakey, and they are, but that's because she wanted them to be, because it reflects the character and the story. I particularly like the one for Midnight Blue Light Special because, in addition to Verity being all cheesy, as she is, it's got Sarah there doing her sensible thing as well, for contrast. And both of them fit their descriptions in the book itself.

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

It was the insanely detailed, colourful, and above all entertaining covers of Josh Kirby that drew me to the Discworld books in the first place. I prefer Paul Kidby's work now, since his way of depicting the characters is closer to how I imagine them (especially Rincewind), and I would've been drawn to them too back in the days of yore, but I would hardly have been intrigued by a cover like the one on the right here.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Okay, the one on the right was clearly designed by somebody who has never actually HEARD of Terry Pratchett, much less READ the book.

Kidby is my favorite, too! He seems to strike the right balance of parody and awesome that Discworld is all about.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I hate the trend of brooding teenagers or covers that have a single object on them. Ugh. I'm not confident to draw my own covers, but I at least have an idea of what I'm doing for River's Daughter. Even if it's just TREES.