History Main / IdiosyncraticCoverArt

* IsaacAsimov's ''FoundationTrilogy'' was published in Britain in the 1970s with a 3-part joiner cover by Chris Foss.

* Roger Elwood's 4-volume original science fiction anthology series ''Continuum'', which featured several coontinuing story series, was published in Britain with four covers by the same artist, two of which consisted of a single painting split in two.

* {{Judas Priest}} and {{Iron Maiden}} have both released CD remasters which, when placed side by side, form a picture. In addition, the Priest set spells out the band's name.

* The spines of the Finnish volumes of ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma 1/2]]'' form pictures, each taken from the cover art of some of the volumes. The last one cuts a bit short. When they accidentally misprinted one of the spines with wrong picture, they provided the correct picture on their website, so people could print it and glue it on top of the wrong one.

** As have Megadeth and Japan
** It should be pointed out this is a rather crafty marketing trick to sell live albums. Live After Death, A Real Live Dead One and Live At Donington are required to complete Iron Maiden's spine image, regardless of whether listen to them or not.

* The swedish ''Kalle Ankas Pocket'' (anthologies of DisneyComics, mainly DonaldDuck and Mickey Mouse titles) in the 1990s had pieces of a portrait of a character on the spine, if you collected about 10 or so issues and put them together on a shelf, it formed the picture of a particular character. The earlier and the current ones seemed to have abandoned this motif, though. Maybe they ran out of characters.

* Some older SonicTheHedgehog comics published by Archie featured 3-part mini-arc comics fairly often; each mini-arc's cover could be placed side-by-side, forming a large piece of artwork relevant to the story within.

* There are several box sets of the ''StarTrek'' movies out, that when placed end to end, form a picture of the Enterprise (Constitution Refit). Later editions that include the Next Gen movies show both ships.
* The spines of one set of the James Bond films on DVD forms the 007 logo when the films are put in order.

* One edition of the four [[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Hitchhikers]] books (back when the trilogy only had four books) had each book showing one quarter of four different pictures: a towel with the words "Don't Panic", the Heart of Gold, a face and a fish. You could put the books together in four different ways to reassemble the four pictures.

* Old British editions of [[RobinHobb Robin Hobb]]'s novels all had fantasy art within an ornate borderwork, with the style of the border changing with each trilogy. Newer editions all have a single animal on a plain background (although one had a ship), similiar to...

* The StarTrekDeepSpaceNine novel trilogy ''Millenium'' has a long shot of the station and wormholes (yes, plural) spanning across the three front covers.

* ''{{Twilight}}'' and its sequels all had the same recognizable cover theme. A dark background with some image symbolic to the book's plot coming out of the darkness. ''Breaking Dawn'' was slightly different, but still within the same theme.

* Wow ... this far down and no mention of Barbara Remington's wonderful painting that became the cover of Ballantine Book's paperback edition of "Lord of the Rings". What started as the cover for "The Hobbit" became a 38" x 73" long oil on masonite painting transitioning from the Shire to Mordor. The cover for each volume was 1/3 of the painting, and when you set the books next to each other you got the whole thing. The full poster was on this troper's bedroom wall for years ...

* {{Starflyer 59}}'s ''Ghosts of the Future'' box set consists of 10 vinyl singles. When their sleeves are laid out in a row, they form an abstract isometric picture.

* Everything by Demon Hunter has a TextlessAlbumCover with some variation on the band's logo (a silhouette of a demon's head with bullet hole): a seal on the cover of a leatherbound book, an appropriately-shaped dead tree stump, rust on a metal gate, a cow's skull on a bed of roses, etc.

* The spines of the Finnish volumes of ''Ranma1/2'' form pictures, each taken from the cover art of some of the volumes. The last one cuts a bit short. When they accidentally misprinted one of the spines with wrong picture, they provided the correct picture on their website, so people could print it and glue it on top of the wrong one.

This is where cover art is basically the same motif repeated over and over with slight variations within a franchise. Collectors probably love this stuff.

* The Contender DVD box sets of ''TheAvengers'' join up to form portraits of Steed and Mrs. Gale, Steed and Mrs. Peel in black and white, Steed and Mrs. Peel in colour, Steed and Tara King, and Steed, Purdy and Gambit.

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* The spines of the trade books making up the House of M and Decimation events for the X-Men create the logos for each arc when shelved correctly. Most book stores ignore this...

* One DVD set of the ''{{Rocky}}'' series. When the DVDs are put in order, the spines form the famous image of Rocky wearing the American flag.

* There's a PinkFloyd box set with repackaged [=CDs=], whose spines when put together form the Dark Side of the Moon prism logo.

*Putting together a full year of {{Maxim}} shows yet another scantily-clad model on the spines.

* The swedish ''Kalle Ankas Pocket'' (anthologies of DisneyComics, mainly Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse titles) in the 1990s had pieces of a portrait of a character on the spine, if you collected about 10 or so issues and put them together on a shelf, it formed the picture of a particular character. The earlier and the current ones seemed to have abandoned this motif, though. Maybe they ran out of characters.