The wannabe:
This is so shameless that it shows a certain kind of chutzpah. The same font (in the same colour), a nearly identical name, a riduclously similar image, and even the original author's name snuck on there. I'd be interested to know the philosophy behind this copycat cover: is it just to create a Pavlovian 'I-liked-that-so-I'll-like-this' response, or are the actually hoping that people will end up buying the wrong book, like the confused parents who rent or buy Asylum Video rip-off DVDs for their kids under the impression that they're getting them something else entirely. Depressing as it is, I'd hope for the former (especially since both have the same publisher, Harper Voyager), but stories about customers like these make me suspect they're hoping for at least some moron dollars.
And while we're in this vague neighbourhood, here's another duplicate cover.
They're both novels set in small Southern US towns. I have no idea what the Carolyn Wall is like, but The Member of the Wedding is an ace book, maybe McCullers' best (she reins in the Southern Gothic madness a bit).
Carolyn Wall has bad luck with the covers for Playing with Matches. See this post of mine for another copycat example for the same book!
ReplyDeleteOh dear! Well, fortunately I can't see any other books with the same image as the new US version... yet.
ReplyDeleteActually, while there is a great deal of similarities between the Game of Thrones/Throne of Thorns covers, the typeface isn't quite one of them.
ReplyDeleteThe Game of Thrones cover is set in Trajan which has then been detailed to make it look a little less like it was lifted from the base of a roman column: the o's being the most notable part of that. As Trajan isn't quite marketing-led design enough, they've also distorted the author's name by pulling it outward.
King of Thorns is set in Jan Van Krimpen's Spectrum, which was originally commissioned for setting a bible. The W is quite distinct.
As for the similarity between the two covers, that, regrettably, is the state of a lot of the covers put out by the larger houses for the Fantasy Genre.
Thanks for that info, Seg'. I thought they were both Trajan, but that the Thrones type had just been stretched and otherwise distorted.
ReplyDeleteI think the cover of King of Thorns is more of an Akira hommage than a Game of Thrones ripoff.
ReplyDeleteA picture
http://static.minitokyo.net/downloads/45/00/95045.jpg
If you search for akira throne, you'll se pictures from the anime version where the red velvet (?) is as dominant as in this cover.