Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Now, I know you shouldn't judge a book (or anything else) by it's cover, but that hasn't stopped me from noticing that many of them nowadays are simply put, boring.

To be precise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was my favorite cartoon growing up, and I used to collect the VHS tapes, which tended to have some exciting covers--the cover to the "Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop" tape, for example, showed the turtles looking on in shock at the powered-up Rocksteady and Bebop. An even better example would be the He-Man tapes produced earlier, with high-quality original artwork depicting the characters in several adventurous situations.

Cut to the DVD releases of these shows. He-Man comes out first, and what are its covers? Just stills of various characters posing. Ninja Turtles is even worse--the first DVD cover was fine, since it at least showed something happening on the back, but afterwards the covers became more generic, with the turtles standing around and looking dangerous. The fifth volume, which I just got, has a cover of Raphael's face making a snarl as he holds his sai threateningly. What's more is that a lot of these covers look like they're the same cover, just with the masks re-colored to make it look like a different turtle!

And as much as I love anime, many of you have rightly observed that most anime and manga covers are VERY prone to the "characters standing and posing" style. Me, I'd rather have something along the lines of Warriors of the Wind--sure, anime fans will tell you how that film was a complete butchery of a Japanese classic, and they'll also tell you that the cover art absolutely DID NOT represent the actual show, and ya know what? It didn't! What it DID do was open the imagination and make you wonder what this movie was about. By contrast, I've recently been seeing discs of this show called "Gunslinger Girl," the covers of which just show girls standing there and looking grim. Uhh, right. If that's supposed to convey a sense of anything besides the utter uncreativity of the cover artist, it sure failed miserably.

I can think of very few time I've seen excellent covers on DVD. In fact only two come to mind so far: the first line of Robotech DVDs (before the absolutely pointless "Robotech Remastered"), and ADV's new line of Macross DVDs. For both product lines I think the art was lifted from some other source--certainly ADV would never come up with things that good on their own.

And that's my beef.

Frank Frazetta couldn't do them forever!

Oh wait, those are book covers. I don't watch that newfangled stuff, what do you call them 'talkies', or whatever.

It does make one wonder why marketers choose some covers and not others. It's not like the talent isn't there, commercial artists produce what they're asked to produce. If their client wants boring, or cheesy thats what they get. I suspect they choose the covers very carefully, and do so to encourage the greatest number of sales possible (short and long term, and often pulled in with brand identity).

Hell, go to some of these fine art websites and see what sells, and what doesn't. The stuff that looks like it was made by a 6 year old in craft class commands collector status, while very good art (not just realistic, but expressionistic even good abstract etc.) doesn't move. I suppose understanding your audiance (exactly what they want,ane how you'll deliver that perception) is more important then anthing else (talent, quality, does it work well vs. does it seem to work etc. etc.). Thats why marketers in a company make 10xs what the artist makes.

Its sick, but thats just the way of it. If only 10 out of a 100 would buy a "cool cover" and the other 90 want one with a poor or boring one (for whatever reason) than thats what happens.

Want to see a boring cover, Look at this one

I think any movie (whether DVD or the old fasioned VHS) should use the it's most successful poster art as it's cover. If it has no poster art it should use a painting or still representing the epitome of the film.

Speaking of movie posters, which was the best. Oddly, my favorite was Alien (you just had to see what it was all about). Posters and book covers can give away too much.

AxeMental wrote:Hell, go to some of these fine art websites and see what sells, and what doesn't. The stuff that looks like it was made by a 6 year old in craft class commands collector status, while very good art (not just realistic, but expressionistic even good abstract etc.) doesn't move.

Funny you should mention this example. My wife and I were both exhibiting at a judged show some years ago. She does the most amazing charcoal figure studies. I do abstractions. We were placed right next to each other in the show.

Her piece, a huge rendering of female breasts and satin drapery received such comments as, "if you want photo-realism, then why not just take a picture?" She received no recognition from the judges, and we still have the drawing in our home studio.

My piece, quite litterally thrown together a few days before the show in order to fill out the number of pieces I paid for months ahead of time, was a bunch of rusty bolts covered in laquer paints. Not only did I win first place in my exhibit category, but the damned thing sold opening night.

Book cover art is often selected by someone with no artistic sence at all, or else, is designed by committee (I have personal experience, being a book designer myself).