Thursday, 7 January 2010

Pearson, McCarthy & Fontana

A post of two halves: first of all, James Pardey, the man behind the amazing The Art of Penguin Science Fiction site, has just launched the equally appealing and well-researched The Art of Fontana Modern Masters. If you like funky cover design, go there! (You can also get this print of the set there, too.)



Secondly, the splendid John Self pointed me towards these beautiful new covers for the backlist of Cormac McCarthy.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


They are the work of David Pearson, for Picador UK, and seem to have taken one of his Kierkegaard covers for the Penguin Great Ideas series as the launching pad. (Click for a nice big version with lots of detail you can't see in the shrunken version.)

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5 comments:

  1. Rex Parker8 January 2010 at 04:01

    Love the McCarthy covers, though I'm ambivalent about how big / obtrusive the blurbs are on most of them. The look is cool, but ... blurbs as big as the titles? Yikes. Does McCarthy really need that?

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  2. Mitch8 January 2010 at 12:42

    I'd seen the covers for No Country and The Road, and, considering them as a pair, wasn't convinced. Reminded me too much of http://bit.ly/6Z47YJ.

    But seeing the WHOLE series, the consistency and variation within the theme kinda forces me into being a fan. Such a strong serial statement, you know. I like them very much, actually. Especially that they develop the blurbtastic old-timey playbill-postery look, mashing it up with 'wanted' posters, making it so indulgently design-y that it transcends the context. A much better version of this concept: http://bit.ly/5Y5Y61.

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  3. JRSM8 January 2010 at 16:37

    Nobody wants to be reminded of Blood, Sweat and Tears... but I hadn't seen the Mamet cover, and I really like it.

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  4. jem19 January 2010 at 07:29

    I remember the summer when I read almost all of McCarthy's back catalogue. I tried hard then to explain that I wasn't reading pulp Westerns. I don't think these covers would have helped my cause. But I do like them.

    Thanks as ever for bringing beautiful books to our attention - thanks to your recommendation I got the lovely Four Corners Dracula for Christmas!

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  5. JRSM19 January 2010 at 14:01

    I haven't read much McCarthy yet, so these covers have spurred me into getting the rest. I'm glad you got the 'Dracula'--it's beautifully done, isn't it? And I saw a first-edition of the book from 1897 not that long ago, and the outside looks just the same!

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