Lolling About in Bed

Since the last two posts have featured cases of one image, many covers, let's do a trilogy. Here's a photo by Barnaby Hall (to whom this has happened before, several times) that keeps turning up on covers. This nudely reading woman is very multilingual.

Watery Triplets

This cover image has already been used multiply before, and here it is again: it's a picture by Barnaby Hall.

The previous occurrences...

Much-Used Voyeur

Remember this image by Barnaby Hall?

Here it is again.

And again.

I mentioned before that I was amazed at how feeble a book The Graduate is. However, it's about to become a Penguin Modern Classic (with an introduction by the increasingly boring Hanif Kureishi), though at this moment there seems to be some confusion as to what the cover will be. Choose your favourite from these two.

To be honest, I prefer this old Essential Penguin cover from 1999 (artist unknown, as I don't have my copy to hand--yes, I've kept a book I don't like because of the cover, though this is foolishness).

While being a  good image, that cover picture also elegantly captures something of the vibe of affectless tedium experienced by the book's reader.

Finally, sorry for the non-posting over the last few days--I've been sick and unproductve. Read a lot of Wodehouse, as it seemed what the virus-addled brain needed. More, of more substance, soon.

Another Barnaby Duplication

It keeps on happening! This gun-toting lady, as seen on this Raymond Chandler cover from Black Lizard/Vintage US...



..has now appeared on this Penguin US edition of Philip Kerr's latest. Her plunging cleavage is a little less plunging this time round.



(I also messed with it back here.)

Barnaby Under Water

The duplicates are coming thick and fast now. This time it's another photo by Barnaby Hall, who has been featured here before, and who was even good enough to fill me in on the background to some of his work.

This time it's a photo on both a forthcoming Alma Books novel about Emily Dickinson by Paola Kaufmann, and an Oxford University Press guide to the known science of dreaming by J. Allan Hobson.




PLUS, see this post for new photos of a groovy fold-out dustjacket, supplied by John Self.

Barnaby Hall follow-up

After the two recent posts looking at book covers by Barnaby Hall, in one of which I had the temerity to rejig some of the book designs, the man himself stopped by to explain some of the background.

Says Mr Hall, "The 'Graduate' [cover] has been used SO many times that it's a joke--however, it was originally shot (very quickly I might add) for a rather crappy VIDEO cover.

"It is interesting to see how much out dated design affects judgement of pictures which although admittedly "from the early 90s" (sorry about that!) still retain a little merit - at least the books were read and an attempt was made to shoot something that had a little thought and some relevance to the book. Hey ho. I'm currently making a series of prints of some of the covers - WITHOUT the design."

The exhibition is online here, and as well as including Mr Hall's own thoughts on design and his background, it also features his photographs in situ as covers, but also in their original forms. It's a very interesting insight into just how books are designed.

It's also rather funky that he managed to get himself onto a book cover. This...



..is from this, an old passport photo of Mr Hall's.



UPDATE: For a hilarious glimpse behind the scenes at attempt to get a publisher to use an interesting rather than a boring and obvious photo, you have to go to this post and read Barnaby Hall's first comment.

Some Follow-Ups

Just a couple of follow-ups. The first is to my post about Tamara de Lempicka's paintings being used on the front of certain fascist screeds: well, here's another, forthcoming in Penguin Modern Classics.



Secondly, the more I think about the Barnaby Hall covers showcased in the last post, the more I think that the majority of his Vintage US covers are served badly by the way the Hall photo is made such a relatively small part of the cover. Compare the originals with these variations I quickly knocked up.

Originals:




Quickie alternatives:






What do you think?

UPDATE: Barnaby Hall himself has commented on this post with some very interesting information, and a link to a fascinating online exhibition of book cover design--for more details, see here.

Sex, Death & Sequels (and Barnaby Hall)

Another duplication of stock images on book covers, this time of a photo by Barnaby Hall. It first cropped up five years ago on Patricia Duncker's Highsmithian Seven Tales of Sex and Death, and now it's on the non-awaited sequel to Charles Webb's disappointing The Graduate, Home School.



You'll notice, if you look at the figure coming through the door, that the Webb book has had the gloved hand airbrushed out, removing the hint of imminent sexual violence.

Barnaby Hall has, by the way, done a fair few covers in his time, including those for the Vintage US editions of Nabokov, Chandler and Jim Thompson. Some are shown below--more are at his site here. Click for bigger versions.