Imminent Fancy Classics

Have a sneaky look at some of the Penguin Deluxe Classics coming from the US later this year.

First, Roald Dahl. Comics artist Ivan Brunetti tackles Willy Wonka...

..while Jordan Crane has a go at the Giant Peach. (I talked about Crane's work here and here, too.)

Then we have this unexpectedly upstanding-Edwardian-gentleman take on the denizens of H. P. Lovecraft's world, by Travis Louie.

And finally, three covers by Jillian Tamaki, illustrations turned into needle-and-thread pictures for three of what are being called 'Penguin Threads' (which are presumably this year's version of the Penguin Ink books).

Speaking of which, I never posted all of the final Penguin Ink covers, so here the ones I missed:

Cover by Lina Stigsson

Cover by Jen Munford

Cover by Grez

Cover by Daniel Albrigo

Cover by M. M. Gonzalo

Cover by Rob Admiraal

Cover by Robert Ryan

Bits & Bobs

Just a couple of semi-random things to look at while I work on some more substantial posts (or at least that's my story).

First, I've recently discovered the comics work of writer/artist Jordan Crane. As well as producing various one-off graphic novels and comics, he has an occasional ongoing series called Uptight, which features his graphic short stories. I especially like his sense for eye-catching cover design. Click for bigger versions.








Secondly, some more cover image duplicates, just because I keep finding them.

Crane & Chabon

Another gem just arrived in the post: Michael Chabon's first collection of non-fiction, Maps and Legends. It's published by McSweeney's, and they've done their usual beautiful design job on it.

The book has three part-dustjackets or "belly-bands" layered one over the other, each cut to odd shapes and with a hole in the middle to reveal the title. Here's the book with and without its jackets...



..and here are the jackets/bands together and seperately. These four photos were pinched from the excellent design:related website.



The art is by mini-comics artist and writer Jordan Crane, more of whose work can be found at his Red Ink Like Blood site.

Here are the front and back covers in close-up: click for bigger versions.




UPDATE: Having now read this, I can say that this book is just right for readers like myself. It talks intelligently about the process of writing and reading, about late-Victorian and early 20th-Century adventure and pulp fiction, about the "literary" writer/critic prejudice against science-fiction that conveniently relabels literary science-fiction as "fables" or some other apparently non-embarrassing word, about the creation of cities and the recreation of childhood, about the power of maps and myths, and about golems.