This week’s cover artist is Geoff Hunt, the master painter behind Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin nautical series. Take a look at the following two covers for a good example of how much impact a cover can make. The image on the left is from the first edition of Master and Commander, and the second image is Geoff Hunt’s painting for the same book:
Yesterday I wrote about how important book covers are to me, and this week’s featured artist is Michael Whelan. If you’ve read with any depth in the science fiction/fantasy genre then you probably already know his work. From Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series to Michael Moorcock’s Elric series, Michael Whelan has been illustrating fantasy novels for over twenty-four years. He has won the Hugo award an amazing fourteen times.
The biography on his official website includes Whelan’s artistic statement which, interestingly enough, is a quote by renowned Catholic author G.K. Chesterton: Continue reading
While you can’t judge a book by its cover, a beautiful cover makes a book all the more enjoyable. During the next few weeks I am going to be featuring some great book cover artists.
I don’t know about you, but when I try to picture what I’m reading, I find that the cover of a book often provides the color palette that my imagination uses to form the pictures. For instance, I have a very hard time reading science fiction paperbacks from the 1960s with those washed-out, almost abstract cover images. It’s like watching a grainy, dirty film. I almost always try to find a reprint with more bold colors.
When I first tried reading Foundation by Isaac Asimov, I just couldn’t get into it–it seemed so dingy. But when I came across a newer edition of the book with a brighter cover I gave it another try and I ended up loving it.