Cover Art

[vjmerri]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C7566
From: vjmerri
Subject: Re: Cover Art
Reply To: [Yahoo! #7564] Cover Art
Date: 8/22/00 7:22 pm  (ET)

By: jmhohman_2000

I just checked out Jim Flanagan's (Jamesf991)photos of cover art
from around the world. I thought, for the most part, the works were
rather mundane. However, the real exception is the Swedish Cover for
CoS. Wow! I'm an artist and I was really impressed by that one. I
do rather like the American covers too. Are they and the UK ones the
same? Jim
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I was probably looking at them at the same time as you, since I'm taking
advantage of a system thats, ahem, better than the one at home.

The German ones were interesting artistically, if you like modern styles,
but seem odd for the books. I also liked the Swedish artwork very much,
as you did.

The English editions have very different artwork from the US
editions. They are all clearly designed for children's books covers,
aimed at, IMO, roughly 9-10 year olds. Book four is an exception to that,
actually. I should have said the covers to books 1-3 were clearly aimed
for children. The UK also came out with an "adult" trade paperback of
book one, which has a black and white photo of a steam engine coming
towards the viewer, along with the Title of the book. I'm told this was
deliberately published so that adults would feel comfortable carrying
the book around. I picked up a copy of 1-4 plus the adult paperback in
England and my friends who have seen the adult book think it looks dull
and boring. I tend to agree but then, that was its specific purpose,
to camoflage itself.

Now HP is so well known and so popular that an adult could probably carry
any sort of copy, but I suspect when the train cover came out, it wasn't
so, and the british editions have some of the most childish (i.e. child
oriented) covers of the lot (with France and Germany in the running.)

One thing I've noticed is that the covers of most of the countries
are changing right along with the books. ie., that books 1 and 2 are
definitely child oriented covers, book 3 less so, and based only on the
UK and US editions, book 4 even less so.

vicki