Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Man in Fog

Before getting to the man in the fog, a bit of self-promotion. I have a piece coming up in the next issue of McSweeney's The Believer magazine (the one with the great Charles Burns covers). Due out in under a week, buy your copy for a pittance here! I also co-wrote a piece for The Huffington Post, which will theoretically turn up at some point.

Anyway, back to the man in the fog. In the first proper post here, I talked about an image that turned up on a number (five at the time) of book covers. The photo is 'Man in Fog' from 1935, by Arthur Tanner.



I now know of it appearing on nine books (more, in fact, since the Simenon below stands in for a whole series of Maigret books, all of which used the image).









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5 comments:

  1. Ian Koviak26 October 2010 at 20:46

    i love that—shameless self promotion. I look forward to reading the articles.

    Hoe one image gets used so many damn times on covers is beyond me. The sad part is that the photo is truly great, but none of the covers do any justice to it's drama and effect.

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  2. JRSM26 October 2010 at 22:39

    Ha! Thank you.

    None of the covers give the picture enough room. It needs absolutely minimal text, I think, handled very carefully.

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  3. TNBBC Super Mod27 October 2010 at 04:39

    As an author I would be embarrassed to have someone create my cover by applying a photo that has been used even ONE time, let alone NINE! God, is everyone out there too lazy to create their own covers?

    Stock photos are no one's friend.

    By hey, is that man in the fog being paid each time they apply his photo to a book cover? If so, he is raking it in :)

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  4. JScott27 October 2010 at 13:35

    That's awful! What happened to making beautiful original covers? I find the teen book covers to be more fun and original then the adult book covers these days!

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  5. Craig D.27 October 2010 at 15:39

    Funny how none of these covers let the photo breathe by putting the author and title in smaller letters in the empty space above the man's head.

    Sorry, did I just suggest using subtlety? Silly me.

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