Author Topic: COVER ART  (Read 6017 times)

sortitus

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2009, 07:21:23 PM »
The mass market paperback versions of the Mistborn series are all awesome. The hardcovers are hit and miss.

Elantris was his first cover that I saw. It didn't strike me as particularly fantastic at the time, but has grown on me, as has his writing style. The art for Elantris and Mistborn look more run of the mill, while Warbreaker's is elegant and striking without losing any descriptiveness. I wouldn't be surprised to see SF/F covers drifting more toward this style and away from the traditional fantasy art. (SF has been going this way for a while, but Fantasy seems to just be starting the drift.) If I never saw a "scene from the novel" cover again, life could be fantastic. More fantastic than it is now, which is pretty da(r)n fantastic. ;P

Girls are more refined and intelligent than guys. What's so surprising about that? Also, girls seem to be more willing to make time for "non-productive" hobbies like reading. I'll be the first to admit that dudes are uncivilized (in this thread): Dudes are uncivilized. I'll say it twice!

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Bookstore Guy

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #16 on: September 09, 2009, 07:49:29 PM »
When Elantris was released, there were very few covers by that particular artist, and so the cover stood out easily from the rest. Over the past 5 years we have seen a very radical departure in terms of cover art. Artists who previously only did concept art for movies and games began to push themselves into the cover-art world and did us all a huge favor.
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Chaos

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2009, 08:15:43 PM »
The Elantris paperback's cover, along with the description on the back, got me to read the book. I've been hooked ever since.
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sortitus

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2009, 09:22:48 PM »
Well, it doesn't have people on horses, but IMO it's less original than the art for Brandon's later books.

Perhaps a parody cover series with people doing everything on horses is in order. Warriors on horseback mounted around a table sipping tea. A magician on horseback raising his staff to the heavens... to knock a book he needs off the annoyingly high shelf of his bookcase. A military rank of horses rearing as one, riders dumped off the back optional.

Wide-angle shots on covers do very little to sell me on a book. Yes, most fantasy worlds have buildings, cities, trees, and people who do things that are interesting to one degree or another. You don't need to show me what's the same. Show what's different about the novel on the cover. If you have magical zombies, show the magical zombies, not a shot of a lady looking at a (admittedly very fancy) city and a dude looking at her.

I love the original Mistborn covers when it comes to originality, but the mass market covers are just so much more accurate to the story that I prefer them overall (despite the pose-y nature of the shots).
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Patriotic Kaz

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #19 on: September 09, 2009, 09:37:21 PM »
I like the original covers for the Mistborn series and don't really care for the mass paperback ones... art is to depict ideas and emotions... what people want is not cover art but cover illustration... like a key scene right out of the book
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Plasman

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #20 on: September 10, 2009, 06:34:14 AM »
i also don't care much for the massmarket mistborn covers. it is my personal opinion that photorealistic covers don't work for books unless they have already been made into movies and the cover is an actual photo.  when a cover is photorealistic it seems like most of the time it clashes too much with what i have in my imagination. when covers are clearly pictures i don't have that problem. does that make any sense?
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GreenMonsta

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #21 on: September 10, 2009, 06:25:54 PM »
Makes perfect sense. I don't understand why mass-market paperbacks don't use the same covers as hardcovers. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult and the hardcovers are always better.
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Bookstore Guy

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #22 on: September 10, 2009, 07:09:11 PM »
In the case of Mistborn, it was because they weren't sure that the hardcover pictures would translate well onto a small mass market paperback.  It isn't out of the ordinary for paperback to be a totally different cover than hardback. Happens quite a bit.

Sortitus - once again you have to take into consideration *when* the Elantris cover was made. That particular artist, Stephan Martiniere, was know for his SF concept art. He was one of the first of that group to come over and do a fantasy cover. Most of his covers feature city-scapes on epic scale. He has since done TONS of covers, and is now big-time in the industry. Remember, at the time Elantris was one of the most original covers out there. Do you have any idea how many authors would kill for a Martiniere cover? I actually felt that the Elantris cover was a fantastic representation of the tone of the book. It is still my fav out of all his covers because of how different it was at the time. I can't wait to see Way of Kings...
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GreenMonsta

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #23 on: September 10, 2009, 07:14:14 PM »
That makes sense, thanks.

I agree that Elantris had an amazing cover. One of my favorites. I am patial to the hardcover of HoA but thats just me.
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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #24 on: September 10, 2009, 09:10:32 PM »
Agreeing on the Elantris positivity. I don't like it as much as I like the Mistborn hardcovers, but compared to "generic fantasy" art that permeates so many books, Elantris still certainly stands out. I still like it a lot!

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2009, 07:02:16 AM »
I bought both Elantris and FE because of the covers.  Amazing.  Also because of a little sticker that B&N put on them that said AUTOGRAPHED COPY.  I am a sucker for autographed first edition hardbacks.
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ryos

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #26 on: September 12, 2009, 05:25:12 AM »
The cover of my Final Empire paperback is pretty atrocious. Matthew Sweet could have done a better job. Alcatraz 2 gets runner-up status for worst cover on one of Brandon's books.

Mistborn 3 (hardcover) was pretty darn good, but Warbreaker blows them all out of the water. More like that, please.

Quote
Perhaps a parody cover series with people doing everything on horses is in order. Warriors on horseback mounted around a table sipping tea. A magician on horseback raising his staff to the heavens... to knock a book he needs off the annoyingly high shelf of his bookcase. A military rank of horses rearing as one, riders dumped off the back optional.

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Patriotic Kaz

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #27 on: September 12, 2009, 05:32:37 AM »
I somehow missed the comment about women being more intellegent than men earlier but now that i read it here's the truth. More men (percentage wise) are genius, more men are mentally retarded (as in the disorder not the saying) and our IQ's are generally more sporadic where women's tend to be centralized... the overall average is higher in men because our smart people drag us slightly above the centralized point. However, the smartest person on earth is female.

Elantris, i only know of the paperback cover, is better than any of the others asthetically...or so i think
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sortitus

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #28 on: September 12, 2009, 07:06:52 PM »
IQ tests are not a reliable means of measuring intelligence. Like any other test, they can be studied for to improve scores. They're a good way to measure how good someone is at taking an IQ test. Some are better than others, naturally, but for the most part, tests that attempt to measure intelligence are not useful.

Elantris' paperback cover is the same as the hardcover. :) It may be cropped a bit, but it's the same art.

TFE's hardcover is the one I really have a problem with. The others are actually quite good, frilly blouses and purple mistskirts aside. While TFE's cover is very striking, I don't feel that it fits in with the other hardcovers as well as the mass market paperbacks do together. I don't own any of the mass market editions, but I'll probably grab the boxed set when it comes out later this year and put my hardcovers in a safe place.

I'll admit that I like the mass market paperbacks partially because Vin looks close to how I imagined her. Elend, OTOH... yuck. And the mistcloaks look rockin'.
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ryos

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Re: COVER ART
« Reply #29 on: September 12, 2009, 07:36:03 PM »
I just realized that there are two Final Empire paperback covers. One of them is quite beautiful. Somehow, I got stuck with this one. Yuck.
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