"The unpleasant, acrid smell of burnt poetry."

Will Schofield of the ever- and increasingly amazing 50 Watts pointed me towards this new work by the marvellous Tomer Hanuka, who I interviewed here.

Click for much bigger versions of this and all other Wodehouse covers below

It's part of a set of six new Wodehouse covers imminent from Norton in the US, each designed by a different artist.

Cover by Alessandro Gottardo

Cover by Antony Hare

Cover by John Hendrix

Cover by Jonathan Bartlett

Cover by Lilli Carré, about whom much more here

For a convoluted look back at the history of P. G. Wodehouse covers, see this post, and for the least appropriate Wodehouse cover ever (which also gets his name wrong), see the end of this post.

Speaking of Tomer Hanuka, he has also done two more John O'Hara covers for Vintage Classics UK (his frst two are shown here).

 

And finally, speaking of 50 Watts, you HAVE to look at the winners of the design-a-book-cover-in-a-Polish-style competition. This was inspired by the book 1000 Polish Book Covers, an amazing thing I will be posting about as soon as I get my copy.

Back to the Good Stuff

Turning back to the good stuff, this is just a brief post to direct you towards this flickr set by book designer Paul Buckley. He has put up all of the covers (both front and full, including French flaps) for the complete set (so far) of Penguin's Graphic Classics books, where great works of literature get covers designed by some of the best comics artists currently working. Here's a taste--click for bigger, legible versions.

Edith Wharton covered by Jeffrey Brown.

Mark Twain covered by Lilli Carré (previously discussed here).

Shirley Jackson covered by Thomas Ott.

Herman Melville covered by Tony Millionaire.

Ken Kesey covered by Joe Sacco.

Franz Kafka covered by Sammy Harkham (previously discussed here).

Really, go and look at them in all their glory. They are a fantastic, beautiful set of books.

Lilli, Hans and Anders

Lilli Carré is a Chicagoan comics writer and artist who has produced the cover for another of those beautiful Penguin Classics editions which, well, are designed by comics artists. (For others, see here, here, here, here and here.) She has tackled Mark Twain's most famous book.



This edition comes out in October. Carré has a few other books of her own work available, showcasing a drawing style that has elements of the cartoonish and of children's book illustrations, as well as darker, eerier overtones. It doesn't hurt that she shows hints of Tove Jansson's influence, either. Compare Carré's work shown below with this representative Jansson illustration:



Carré's most recent is The Lagoon, shown here with some of the interior pages. (Click for bigger versions of these and those below.)





Before that she produced Tales of Woodsman Pete, a series of somewhat absurdist stories about a gentleman of that name...





..as well as the short-story collection Nine Ways to Disappear.





In addition, she has provided covers for a couple of comic anthologies.




Carré's next project is an illustrated version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Fir Tree, which should be out in time for Christmas. Here are three pages stolen from her blog:





This leads me neatly to another of the Penguin Deluxe Classics that I should have discussed a couple of years ago (which is when I got my copy), because it's a beautiful little book. As well as featuring all of Andersen's fairy tales, translated by Tiina Nunnally (one of those translators, like Anthea Bell and Michael Hofmann, from whom I will read anything they bring into the English language), it includes a number of Andersen's paper-cut illustrations, and this gorgeous cover artwork (with flaps) by Anders Nilsen.




Here, pilfered from the amazing archives of A Journey Round My Skull, is one of Andersen's cut-outs illustrations.



Next, a single post about a single artist that cunningly combines Penguins, black American activists and pornography.