Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 08:15:13 PM

Login with username, password and session length

More terrible book covers

Started by Captain Crunch, October 09, 2017, 06:52:56 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Truly shocking. I accidentally bought a Wordsworth Classic edition once and it's one of the few books that I can recall throwing away, so perturbed was I to have it blight my bookshelf. The anachronistic ones that get the historical period wrong are the worst.

I'm willing to sort through public domain art and do the covers for them for free. What sack of lumps is getting paid to produce these?

Though the budget-rate publishers are one thing, it's much worse when it's a legitimate imprint like Modern Library.

Quote from: Pearly-Dewdrops Drops on October 21, 2018, 11:25:05 PM
How is this possible from a major publisher like Modern Library, for one of the classics of early-nineteenth-century Russian literature?



Raskolnikov

I bought a few Wordsworth Editions when I was into classic horror and they were one of the only publishers who were putting out some of the authors. My copy of Ambrose Bierce's stories had a photograph of some corpse on the front. I hid it away on the bookshelf out of sight from the more sensitive.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Raskolnikov on July 01, 2019, 01:27:05 PM
This is my favourite Wordsworth Classics cover, an alternative version where the painting transforms into a hipster.




Panbaams

Some 70s/80s editions of PD James. Not terrible covers, exactly, but unsettling, and in a couple of cases a bit too close to actual crime scene photos:


Mobbd

Quote from: gilbertharding on April 11, 2019, 03:00:13 PM
A google image search for 'John Wyndham Books' and I'm wondering if he's ever been published with a cover which wasn't terrible.

There are some breathtakingly beautiful Wyndham covers (see some of the mid-century ones at https://www.librarything.com/work/11738/covers) but the shabby recent treatment of JW is literally what came to mind when I first saw the title of this thread.

His publishers, presumably concerned with reaching a younger or intellectually subnormal audience, typically go for ironical pulp or kid-friendly toons. All of which sucks a big dog's cock.


purlieu

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 01, 2019, 01:52:46 AM
Blimey, those illustrated platinum editions are really something. And there's loads of them. A sample:




Fucking hell.

Cursus


imitationleather

Quote from: Cursus on August 03, 2019, 10:54:24 AM
Terrible cover. Terrible idea.







Does it have a section about how we invented concentration camps?

Got to respect a guy for going for the "zany humour" angle on that one.

marquis_de_sad

Will probably sell even more copies than Richard Herring's Emergency Questions book.

Johnny Yesno


Mister Six

I have no idea what that Chrysalids cover is trying to convey about the story.

Spoon of Ploff

Quote from: Mobbd on August 01, 2019, 11:25:08 AM


its almost as if the cover designer was challenging the company to fire him by doing such a bad job

BritishHobo

Quote from: Cursus on August 03, 2019, 10:54:24 AM
Terrible cover. Terrible idea.







Oh, no. I'm all about the open discussion of atrocities throughout British history, but everything about this is just so... flippant.

purlieu

It's awful, but I do have a grudging "this will probably make more people aware of it than a straight up factual tome" respect for it.
But yes, still awful.

Dannyhood91

The Crime & Punishment one is hilarious and I have a number of Wordsworth classics and the covers are all appalling apart from the selected Chekhov stories

gilbertharding

Quote from: BritishHobo on August 04, 2019, 02:17:29 AM
Oh, no. I'm all about the open discussion of atrocities throughout British history, but everything about this is just so... flippant.

Goodness me - David Scheider, Robert Webb, Dermot O'Leary... it's like a who's who of smug wankers, queuing up to provide testimonials. Robert Webb, especially - what a 'bellend'!!!11

Cuellar

Quote from: buttgammon on July 01, 2019, 09:38:17 AM
Truly awful; they're even worse than the horrendous Wordsworth Classics editions.



That's Richard Gere!

Phil_A

Quote from: Cuellar on August 07, 2019, 04:47:53 PM
That's Richard Gere!

Accompanied by his faithful squire, Leadbelly.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Dannyhood91 on August 06, 2019, 10:24:44 AM
The Crime & Punishment one is hilarious and I have a number of Wordsworth classics and the covers are all appalling apart from the selected Chekhov stories

I thought the C&P was the least bad one by a large margin, the rest are horrific and cheap looking.


flotemysost

Quote from: Raskolnikov on June 30, 2019, 11:11:45 PM
This is, apparently, real



Hahaha, fucking hell (at this and the others). Dostoyevsky via Dr Chuck Tingle.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Cursus on August 03, 2019, 10:54:24 AM
Terrible cover. Terrible idea.




Apparently he's been getting a LOT of heat over it (the whole idea, not the cover) on twitter from people who have decided he's mocking and so in some way defending atrocities. I think he's even given up defending himself (gone on a twitter break) for a while, which must be worrying for his publisher.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Raskolnikov on June 30, 2019, 11:11:45 PM
This is, apparently, real



Presumably there's an edition of The Jedward Story where the jacket illustration depicts an Orthodox monk, a sullen atheist and a drunk (I haven't read The Brothers Karamazov or The Jedward Story...).

Captain Crunch


marquis_de_sad

Is that supposed to look like a blanded out No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency type thing?

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Captain Crunch on August 24, 2019, 11:23:30 PM


I actually fucking love how brutally grim and utterly mental this crock of shit is. Don't need to read it, just the idea of the title is Partridge levels of insanity.

olliebean

This fucking thing:



has been optioned for a TV series. And somehow I never noticed the author's photo when the book was posted here before, but fucking look at it. Have you ever seen a face that screams "bellend" more than that one?



Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Raskolnikov on July 01, 2019, 01:27:05 PM
This is my favourite Wordsworth Classics cover, an alternative version where the painting transforms into a hipster.



I've never read The Picture Of Dorian Gray but can't imagine this version that I saw in a charity shop today is in any way appropriate.