It's hard to sell a good book with a bad cover. You might sell a bad book with a good cover. But what were Penguin thinking of when they reissued John Wyndham's wonderful books with covers which, in effect, boast that the artist has no idea what's inside them? Brian Cronin has drawn pictures of rather unappealing people, not of the right era, with random add-ons to show that someone at Penguin (who probably hadn't read the books either) gave him a brief hint. Hence the man on the front of the Day of the Triffids has little burrs stuck on him (plants, see) and the poncey youth with gelled backbrushed hair on The Kraken Wakes is amusingly sitting in a deckchair under water, negating the power and terror inside the book. On The Trouble with Lichen, another irritating youth has green mould round his eyes and The Midwich Cuckoos has a person lying down with a bird (not a cuckoo) sitting on their heads. The picture on The Chrysalids is quite pretty and could I suppose represent someone hiding in the woods, so hurrah, that one will pass muster. Come clean, Penguin and Brian Cronin: is this some in-joke at the expense of the people who actually stock, buy and read the books - or were the covers done in such a rush that any old "ones you did earlier" were slapped on with a few quick additions? Wouldn't the old plain banded covers have been better (and probably cheaper)?
Felicity (Nov. 2009)
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