Book Cover Smackdown! The Grave Thief vs. This Crooked Way
By John DeNardo |
Monday, April 13th, 2009 at
11:59 am
There goes Pyr, showing off more cool cover artwork again. Tell us what you like about the following covers.
In this corner:
- Book: The Grave Thief by Tom Lloyd
- Cover Illustration: Todd Lockwood
- Design: Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger
And in this corner:
- Book: This Crooked Way by James Enge
- Cover Illustration: Dominic Harman
- Design: Jacqueline Cooke
Which one appeals to you more?
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I prefer the Grave Thief’s cover, but I think both covers have a typography problem. Step back a bit from them both, and the Grave Thief’s title starts to fade, while This Crooked Way’s title disappears completely. The artwork is gorgeous, but Cooke and Conti-Zilsberger seem not to have known how to make the titles work with it — outlines around the type are not the answer.
Gonna go with The Grave Thief here. The more crisp look gives the impression that there are real characters here with real objectives. Get past this alien/moster/guardian, get through castle gates, plunder ancient relics, etc (sorry, I know nothing of the real story).
This Crooked Way, on the other hand, has a blurred, unclear look with a generic battle scene. The only think that interests me here is that eggish thing in the bg. Also (and it could just be the scan), the type looks like it came from a home printer from 1986.
Both covers look busy but The Grave thief cover looks more appealing.
I should mention: for best visual results, click the respective “this corner” links to get the much bigger pictures, allowing you see more detail, Don’t rely on the image resizing done for the benefit of posting here.
This one’s a tough call – Judging a book purely by it’s cover, I don’t care for either of them overlymuch, but This Crooked Way, while better in the full view, is still too red (and the giant marshmellow in the back doesn’t work for me). If handed the two, I’d be more likely to read the back cover blurb on The Grave Thief first. Being “book three” suggests right off that if I’m happy with it, there are two more behind it waiting for me.
It’s close – both have a similar style. I would prefer The Crooked Way if it weren’t for the glowing sword-that-looks-like-but-isn’t-a-lightsaber. So I’ll go with The Grave Thief.
This reminds me that I really need to read both of these authors – I’ve heard mixed things, but enough to make me curious.
No contest! The Crooked Way. To see why I liked it, go to the Pyr blog. The Grave Thief is just too bland.
Grave Thief. What is that messed up, Starship Troopers alien-looking thing he’s about to fight? Awesome!