Comments on: When Book Cover Designers Get Lazy

By: Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17 « E.Maree On Writing

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17 « E.Maree On Writing — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:04:31 +0000

[...] out the problems with the image on the blog 'When Cover Designers Get Lazy'. http://www.used-goods.net/forbidden_knowledge/?p=478 [...]

By: E.Maree

E.Maree — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:12:07 +0000

Definitely agreed. I have one of the older Tom Baker books and the painted cover is gorgeous. I’ve also got some of the new series books and the new covers are good looking in a ‘modern’ way and the photos are nice, but they don’t give any feel of what the story is about. The only thing they’re selling is the Doctor’s image on the cover, and it’s expected that’ll be enough to get anyone to buy it and the story can come second.

Oh yikes, that Spiral Scratch cover. It’s a bit someone left an old photograph out in the sun, then took a ray guy to it.

By: E.Maree

E.Maree — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:12:00 +0000

Oh yikes, that Spiral Scratch cover. It’s a bit someone left an old photograph out in the sun, then took a ray guy to it.

By: Emilie

Emilie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:06:21 +0000

I’m nodding along to this. Being a Doctor Who fangeek, you can guess what’s coming next…
In short, I’ve noticed that while the books published in the 90s, like the Virgin New/Missing Adventures have lovely (for the most part) hand-drawn cover art which often directly relates to the book’s content, things went downhill after Virgin lost their publishing licence. The BBC books just have pictures of the Doctor, his companions and maybe something else, which some sort of Photoshop effect bunged on top (Spiral Scratch is a particularly vomit-inducing example). The books accompanying the new series are no better: they just take a publicity shot of the Doctor and his chosen companion, add a nice shot of a landscape, and hey presto!

OK, I’ll stop now :]

By: Emilie

Emilie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:06:00 +0000

OK, I’ll stop now :]