Terrible covers for great works.

This is a great 1984 cover.◊

Also, content:

Ray Bradbury's I Sing The Body Electric◊ — Just what the fuck?

But it doesn't have the title anywhere except the spine!

Yeah, I found that strange, but I still like the design.

I do, too. Very nice, and infinitely more relevant than most of the others.

That Bradbury cover has made it on to every list of terrible book covers that i've seen. It truly sets a new standard for awful.

Searching for another favorite of mine, Till We Have Faces, reveals some bad ones, but they're all boring◊ bad◊ rather than hilarious bad.

As for good, the first edition was pretty cool◊, and here is the cover of the version I own◊.

Which version of Crime and Punishment would you prefer:

• Looks like a cheap horror film.◊
• just HOW high do you even have to BE just to MAKE something like that........
• I take back my previous comment; THIS is the stoned edition.◊
• I can't tell, is this a generic literature class edition?◊ Because I can feel the boring radiating off this one.
• I can't tell, is this a legit cover of some Russian edition?◊ Because it's friggin badass.
• Flat colors and medieval-inspired text makes any cover look better.◊
• Meh.◊ This is the edition I own. Don't care much for the cover, but I love that translation.

searched for covers for the Poetic Edda and found this one◊.

'Kay, it's not a bad cover, I'm just not a fan. Lettering Latin in a style reminiscent of runic rarely works well in my opinion, and here the hollow outlining makes it difficult to read.

The border picture is nice-looking I guess, but it's not really my taste.

I improved the first Crime & Punishment.◊

I too like that Russian one down there, that's pretty BA.

edited 3rd Sep '11 6:30:09 PM by annebeeche

I've always considered the US covers◊ for the Wheel Of Time particularly bad. Whilst they aren't as awful as I remember them being, they're not great. Also, the rest of the covers in this thread almost make them look good.

edited 4th Sep '11 7:18:19 AM by Wagrid

Darryl K.Sweet did those covers and, for my money, he pretty much universally sucks. His proportions are shaky, his brush strokes often broad and sloppy, and the characters frequently look nothing like they're described (Lan, on the cover of The Eye of the World, is armored like a samurai, which is not anything at all like he's described in the book). I've enjoyed Sweet's pen and ink work, but his painting is just...ecchh.

The Brothers Karamazov:

• Again, good translation, boring cover.◊
• This makes me want to punch each and every one of them.
• Looks like Saul Bass did the cover, except I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have used that font.

I'm terribly confused as to how this Tales of H.P. Lovecraft◊ book went awry. It's drawn by Mike Mignola! I love Mike Mignola's work! But Cthulhu just looks so...cutesy.

It definitely needs more black. Mignola's at his best when he's doing chiaroscuro.

Wise Blood:

• So it's a novel about hypnotism?◊
• Yes, and this is the guy doing the hypnotizing.◊
• No, wait, it's about strawberries... in prison?◊
• Major mixed signals.◊ The blocky title text says "Cold War spy novel", while the italics Cooper Black says "a fun book for kids!"
• Now this is just trashy.
• Someone had a lot less respect for the characters than Ms. O'Connor did.
• Yeah, I'd say this is worth $2.50.◊

All that makes me think maybe the edition I own◊ isn't that bad.

Speaking of ''A Clockwork Orange, this◊ was the cover of the edition I read. It confused me for quite a while until I worked out what moloko-plus was.

Knowing a little Polish made understanding A Clockwork Orange's vernacular a lot easier.

(The slang is based on Russian, which is related to Polish).

I quite like that glass of milk cover, actually. It's the minimalist in me.

@Meta Four: Holy shit, that Russian Crime and Punishment cover. I love the hell out of that!

Catch22:

Movie cash-in. Makes it look way lighter than it really is.◊
Someone did this on DeviantArt. I like it, but at the same time it kind of makes it look like it's steampunk or something.◊
Someone did this on DeviantArt. Complete rubbish.◊
Oh, lord, I keep finding all these unofficial covers! This one is a failure as well. Makes it look like a straightforward heroic war novel; I wonder if the person who made this read one page of the book.◊
This is just boring as hell.◊
Don't know if this is a real cover. I like it. Makes me think of DNA, and Homestuck.◊
The one I have. I suppose I like the minimalist quality but it doesn't really advertise anything about the book.◊

edited 5th Sep '11 2:35:39 AM by Sporkaganza

@Wheel of Time cover: Ack! Why does Rand have enormous shoulders and teeny hips? I can do better proportions than that.

I don't think the cover for A Clockwork Orange is bad so much as inexplicable to anyone who hasn't read the book. A glass of milk doesn't really say "dystopia and delinquent teens".

I was compelled to buy a new copy of The Three Musketeers, having read it many years before, by the sheer adorableness of this cover. D'aww, d'Artagnan. The cover captures the quirky atmosphere of the book better than any serious action-oriented adaptation ever could.

The Scarlet Letter:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA◊ - While the scarlet letter itself is a good motif for a book cover, tiling it does not look nearly as good.
The Scarlet Letter◊ - A young adult's tale of teen pregnancy. Yeah, it's the clothes that kill it for me. How the hell is this Puritan England?
The red on red just doesn't look very good. The color scheme is canonically red on black.◊
Oh god, this one's just awful.◊ I can see an "oh no you di'in!" wafting out of that old lady's to the right, and a "mmmhmm, that's what I'm talkin about" from the lady on the left.

As for my favorite Scarlet Letter covers?:

This one◊ — The typology is generic, but this is probably one of the best illustrations I've seen of Hester.
this one◊ — it's not an official cover, but it appeals to the minimalist in me. Too bad I can't find a bigger size of it.

edited 5th Sep '11 8:58:08 AM by annebeeche

I like Salvador Dali as much as the next guy but...he has no business designing the cover to Moby Dick◊.

Gah, I dislike Salvador Dali.

I actually kinda like that picture though as an independent work and not a cover of Moby Dick.

edited 6th Sep '11 12:41:33 PM by annebeeche

Sporkaganza: So wait, being art deco automatically makes something steampunk? Since when is that?