Book cover of the week

When I think about what makes a great book cover, I often like to think of the package as a whole: how it feels in your hand, the quality of the paper, how convenient it is to carry around(*1), the smell, all the kind of things that make me wonder why I still haven't won Most Eligible Bachelor award five years in a row.

Therefore manga therefore has always caused a bit of a knee jerk prejudice to surface in me. The manga section of bookstores like Waterstones are often packed full of multiple volumes of a pulpy throwaway quality with huge Japanese text on the front and characters that resemble something off Drag

onball Z or Streetfighter that tend to make my bad taste monitor go off the chart.

It is always a relief then to see this kind of material handled well. My feeling about formats means I have always had a preference for the hard or paperback graphic novel over the comic book. There are exceptions to the rule of course, if something good is done with the design, and the paper is of good quality. But generally I like comics

to be treated as books, as something worthwhile, not to be thrown away, an object of value and quality.

Certain publishers have taken this approach both to graphic novels and to manga. Drawn and quarterly did this with Yoshihiro Tatsumi's autobiogra

phical tome A Drifting life and some of the reprints of Tezuka's more adult/alternative looking work is pretty nice. In fact most 'gekiga'(*2) reprints are treated with respect to match their content.

Penguin aren't a publisher that are first and forthright known for publishing graphic novels but the ones that they have published (amongst them Ma

us, a collection of comics from Raw magazine, some great work from Indian comic artist Sarnath Namerjee) are of high quality. I suppose it helps that as a company Penguin have a history of fantastic design behind them and they known how to best to treat a book.

The 14th Dalai Lama, a manga biography by Tetsu Saiwai is certainly no exception. The design is simple yet effective, from the slightly raised and elegant text to the limited palette of colours and the sparing details on the back and the spine. This book, despite the very typical manga visual style contained within(*3), demands to be taken seriously. The way in which the acknowledgements, author bio, and bibliography are laid out within the book give the story a scholarly and authentic grounding. It also reminds me in its thinness and design of another line of books that Penguin recently designed of slightly obscure eastern European modern fiction and essays such as War of the newts by Karel Capek and The Elephant by Slawomir Mrozek, although the designers were slightly more inventive and witty with these covers.

And sadly I note, it's one of those books that feels great to hold (yes I do need to get out more)

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(*1)Although this isn't a given, some of the nicest looking graphic novels (i.e Craig Thompson's Habibi) could be used to kill a man

(*2) Meaning 'dramatic pictures' a termed used to distinguish itself from regular manga)

(*3) It makes effective use of the unusual juxtaposition of slightly slapstick and hyperbole emotions and Manga iconography with a serious underlying plot such as in the classic true story of Hiroshima, Barefoot Gen by

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.

Book cover of the week

To make up for the abscence of this entry last week here's two fantastic covers from Penguin/Pelican. I've always had a bit of a thing for the old Pelican blue series, that tended to cover a wide range of educational topics such as mathematics, sociology, psychology, and architecture. There's something about the way this series is designed that makes the name of the author almost irrelevant in relation to the overriding theme of the book. There is never too much going on on these covers, they use a lot of nice black and white photography and capture the spirit of the time pretty well. Lovely bold and simple font, and a great juxtaposition on the over on the Mythology anthology between ancient myths and modern day ones.

Book cover of the week

Found this in Scarthin Books in Derbyshire (well worth a look if you're round that way). Haven't read the book but Steadman seems to have got the cover right judging by the blurb:

'Here amongst thirty tons of confiscated white paper lives a squat, monstrously endowed customs officer of sixty, Roman Wachholder. Up on the hill in a hygienic, sound-proof house lives his friend and mortal enemy, Ossias Wurz. While the valetudinarian Wurz spends his days systematically cleaning, disinfecting and redecorating his house, the earthly, guilt-ridden Wachholder spends his crazily concocting poison-pen letters to drive him out of it'.

Darkly humorous, surreal, existentialist nonsense meets it's match in Steadman's erratic and instantly recognisable linework.

Happy 75th Birthday Penguin!

75 years ago the publisher Allen Lane disappointed at the lack of options for reading material for his train journey decided to set up Penguin a company that have enjoyed a rich history of cutting edge publishing and design from the likes of Alan Aldridge and Peter Blake, as well as illustrations by Quentin Blake, Nicholas Bentley, and Paul Hogarth to name but a few. To celebrate this fact Penguin, in association with their archives at the University of Bristol have just ran a series of illustrated lectures about Penguins rich history of design, which sadly I only heard about on the day and sadly I was working in the evening. However, the university have also just released a load of old penguin books to be sold at the Oxfam Bookshop at the top of Park Street, including a rare original copy of Quartermass and The Pit which I couldn't quite part with £15 quid with in order for own. So as my way of celebrating their birthday I have scanned some my favourite covers from my meager collection(*1). Enjoy! (Click on the images to enlarge)

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(*1) The only book out of these I don't own is the Miles Van der Rohe book which I bought as a present for a friend.

Book cover(s) of the week

Decided to post a double whammy today as I haven't done one of these posts for a while. Here's two classic orange sci-fi books by John Wyndham. The Kraken Wakes is illustrated with a more bold heavy black, decidedly b-movie feel, while The Day Of The Triffids is slightly more playful and cartoonesque with overlapping colours and the triffids appear less menacing on this cover, like giant friendly thistles.

Book cover of the week

I came across this little beauty in Oxfam although it has been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time. Penguin always being at the forefront of good design decided to recruit a host of fantastic comic book artists to design the covers for their deluxe classics range. So we get Charles Burn's cover for Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Chris Ware tackling Candide, Tony Millionaire taking on his big white whale etc. And then there's this.

Anders Nilsen is an alternative comic artist known for a lot of abstract work, including book lenght abstract monologues, and experiments in shapes, such as The End, Dogs and water, and Monologues of the coming plague.

His cover for Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales is so textured, so economic and elegant with its use of line and shading, that I decided to scan in the details of the back page and the book ends just to give you an idea of how perfect the whole package is.

Book cover of the week

The book which the Roman Polanski film was based on, this creepy Magritte style cover (you know the one with the man in the bowler hat and suit with an apple floating in front of his face) was done by the author himself Roland Topor. Topor was a French illustrator, writer, painter and filmmaker known for his surreal imagery who also made the brilliant animation Fantastic Planet alongside Rene Laloux.

This new edition of the book features a hefty introduction, some short stories and original artwork by Topor, and an essay on the Polanski film.

Book cover of the week

A classic piece of Penguin Design, simple yet bold, the photograph reminds me very slightly of that famous photo from the Vietnam war of the execution of the Vietcong officer by Eddie Adams.

Blog of the week: Covered

Click here to visit Robert Goodin's blog 'Covered' where he posts well known and lesser known artists tributes/reinterpretations of comic book covers, from classic to slightly obscure. A great way to discover hidden talents.

Book cover of the week

Gorgeous hardcover edition which is apparently soft to touch (perfect for those long lonely nights), and with gold embroidery. The design wraps from front to back, and there are printed colour endpapers inside. The design is by Stanley Donwood and is very reminiscent of the London flood prints he did for the Thom Yorke album The Eraser.