Mick Wiggins

I was introduced to Mick Wiggins' art via the cover to My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. The Caustic Cover Critic has an interview with him--he does this great retro-looking art in Photoshop using a mouse. Sort of a high-tech luddite, in a good way. Check it out!

Half hour cover: The Metamorphosis

Stupid Blogger compression makes this look chock-full-o'-artifacts, so clicky for better view.

Half hour cover: The Human Factor

A novel of espionage by Graham Greene, The Human Factor is one of his typical later (1970's) spy books that (sort of like John le Carré) shows a weariness with the Cold War. It concerns double-agents and secret government-sanctioned murder, among other things. Codes sent by the number of times a telephone rings figure into the plot, and so into my design.

Half hour cover: The Golden Age

The Golden Age is the first book in a trilogy by John C. Wright. The paperback that I read had a cover that (I thought) inadequately portrayed what the book was about, which is a semi-humorous sci-fi novel set in the far future in which people are normally surrounded by computer-generated imagery instead of reality. The sun and Neptune figure into the plot, as do masquerades, so I put these on the cover.

Half hour covers

The other day, I was inspired by this post on the Book Covers Blog. From now on, when I finish reading a book, I will do a quick cover, no more than 30 minutes spent on it. It's a fun exercise so far, and helps keep the design skills working when in between projects.

This first one is Hadrian VII, by Baron Corvo, a flamboyant English eccentric. It's basically an ode to his own awesomeness and how great he would be as Pope. In the novel, a thinly disguised version of himself is elected pontiff and wreaks havoc in the Church (usually while chain-smoking).

The Red Book of Chinese Martyrs

This book, an account of recent martyrs in China, was first published in Italian. Here's the Italian cover:

The art director asked me to create an English language version of the cover, which I did.

After some discussion, it was decided that the English language version didn't flow well. So I make several comps. The shoe-shaped notes written in Chinese that feature on all covers are a testimony of what happened to a Catholic girl who was imprisoned. The notes were slipped into a priest's shoe and smuggled out. The girl is pictured on this next cover. After being released from prison, she was forced into marriage with a Communist Party member, and nothing more is known about her life.

After a few more drafts, we settled on this:

I was a little leery of it at first, wondering about the violence depicted. But after deciding to crop the faces of the Red Guards, which I felt made the cover more powerful (showing a faceless, oppressive government in action), I finished it up. The final has spot gloss on the lettering, and the back cover shows some of the victims of Communist persecution profiled in the book.

Manalive, the audio book

A while back I designed the poster for an upcoming film adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's novel, Manalive. One of the stars of the movie, Kevin O'Brien, did a dramatic reading of the text which will be coming out soon. Here's the mockup (note that I had the name wrong--Dale Ahlquist.) A pivotal scene in the book involves a revolver, and it opens with a large man scrambling after his white panama hat through London.

The London houses here were inspired by a book on early 20th century London that I picked up at a used bookstore a few years ago.

Pen and ink, colored in Photoshop.