Terrible Book Covers: The Return
I have no words this week due to Extreme Writing of Book, so here are some pictures: a few of my all time favourite book covers, lovingly curated for you.
It’s very hard to make a good book cover, and very easy to mock a bad one. Sometimes a group of talented people with the best intentions can produce a disastrous cover more or less by committee. And then there’s the other reasons covers go wrong…
Mistakes happen.
This one is deservedly famous. Go on, have a look, see if you can spot what’s wrong with it. I’ll leave a space for scrolling:
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Count her hands.
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This one…I don’t know how this one happened. It looks OK at first glance, but just try to work out how the lion’s leg got there. Then try to find its body:
Sometimes people fail to think through the implications.
Yes, yes, the title probably didn’t mean that to most people back in the day. Although, the impressively phallic lighthouse suggests the cover artist was, at least, channelling Freud.
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This is just obviously wrong:
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And this is just obviously even wronger:
(Yes, I look at a lot of Tarzan pulp covers. Your point?)
Sometimes the whole project is … poorly conceived.
I really want to do a movie updating of this. We could call it Dude, Where’s My Skull?
The tagline really helps this. ‘The Man They Couldn’t Kill’ plus ‘Lady, That’s My Skull’ adds up to an incredible Clive Barker horror of a revenant PI with an unpleasantly floppy head, determined to retrieve his own cranium before his brain falls out. Sadly, this is not actually the plot.
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OK, you need to brace for the next one, this is weird. Assume crash position. Even better, assume foetal position.
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Ready?
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Yeeeeeeeah.
And sometimes it was the 70s.
Enough said.
Got any favourite covers to add? Share them in the comments!
Ahh, number 1 is one of my all time favourites – and it’s prePhotoshop. I am however rather disturbed by your obsession with Tarzan…
the below is also something special…
http://modmythcollect.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/from-comics-bin-chuck-connors-got-wood.html
Oh good, I have seen the first one befor, but I can’t come over the Nazi-dwarfs! But “Lady, thats my scull” is the best trash title I’ve ever seen!
The Nazi dwarfs are the best thing *ever*. I want that cover for me.
OK, old post, but I have to comment … I’ve always wondered about Biggles (and Ginger …).
I was seriously at DefCon 5 until I saw this post.
Well I guess I don’t have to spend the weekend figuring this one out!
hey leute… das was Totenhorcher gesagt hat habe ich auch schon sehr oft gehört und gelesen und lionsgate hatte auch mal in einem interview gesagt das sie remake ähnliche teile drehen wollen… also vllt X.5 oder so =D
Just an observation…the next round of leaks involve a large bank here in the states that is going to fail. Wikileaks comes down not soon after the announcement. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Möchte ich mir auch vornehmen… Neulich war so ein nebeliger Morgen… Anstatt zur Arbeit zu gehen, wäre ich am liebsten (mit meiner Kamera) in den Wald gepilgert. Ich liebe den Herbst einfach total!
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I hate my life but at least this makes it bearable.
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The truth just shines through your post
Such a cool idea! I’ve heard of a few other bloggers using this as well. I think the greatest benefit is definitely being able to try things on at home with other pieces you already own. So many times when I’m shopping I THINK something will look great with a piece I already have, only to discover that it looks reallllyyyyy crappy once I get the item home. I’m going to have to try this out!-Alyssa
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