Book cover of the week

This weeks book cover of the week is a very special one as I will be looking at the book as an entire package. The book in question is the David Hughes illustrated version of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. David Hughes is a British illustrator and artist who has recently had published his own unusual graphic novel entitled Walking The Dog, as well as illustrated the children's book Strat and Chatto by Jan Mark. Coming across like a less heavy handed Steadman, with lovely thin line work and a keen eye for the grotesque, Hughes uses collage, photographs, and comics in between the text of the novel. Hughes's illustrations are at times deliberately stripped down and naive reminding me almost of the kind of diagrams and maps of mysterious worlds you would create as a child. Hughes's over-sized lettering and the overlapping of the silver, grey, and collaged backgrounds is very interesting (and at times gives the appropriate effect of the kind of brass rubbings you would do in a church). Overall a fantastic package and although I have not read through it yet I have every confidence that the reading of the pictures will not interrupt the flow of the words in the slightest. Unfortunately you'll have to take my word for it and go out and buy it, as it' very difficult to scan any high quality images from inside the book. Check out Hughes's site here.