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So what's this? There are lots of memorable pieces of cover art for various media; books, music albums, movies, video games and so on. Some are memorable because they're stunning and represent the topic & themes of their respective works elegantly. Others are memorable for quite the opposite reasons. There's a movie poster thread in Cinema Discusso and a book cover thread in GBS, but I thought it'd be neat to have a general cover art thread here in PYF. The idea would be to post examples of cover art from various types of media that you've found funny/terrible/amazing/nonsensical/whatever, essentially art that you feel is in some way memorable or exceptional in its badness/goodness. I think best content for the thread will be stuff that's especially terrible, but as indicated, also examples of the opposite are welcome. For clarity, it's probably best to say when you post exactly which category your example belongs to. Especially cool is if you know something about the origins of the given example and can give some backstory for why it came to be, why you personally like/dislike it, and so on. A couple important points - There's a lot of stuff that comes under the topic that's skeevy, creepy, offensive or otherwise unpleasant. Before posting, consider if what you're posting might ruin someone's day or otherwise be too terrible to post. Also remember to use those  and  tags where appropriate and follow the forum/sub-forum rules for spoilertagging & image linking.- When it comes to terrible art, I'm sure the world of self-published works holds an endless supply. If you know examples of self-published works that fit the topic that are somehow especially fitting, feel free to post those, but I feel that it's for the best to mostly only discuss more "official" works to avoid clogging the thread. In general it can be good to consider "is this content interesting in some way or just more of the same" when posting multiple examples. Let's get started! Books  I sing the body electric Ray Bradbury This is just a quintessential example of odd cover art for me. What is this creature? Does it actually appear in the book?  The sword of fate Dennis Wheatley Is this symbolism? Does the book actually contain a person with a miniature tank for a head? I feel like either option could be true.   The Hobbit (German cover, US cover(?), French cover J. R. R. Tolkien The one on the left is just delightful. Look how happy that Bilbo is! The one on the right feels like a low-budget sitcom version of the book.   The Hobbit, two French covers People had some wild interpretations of the characters back in the day. Movies  The Shaggy Dog Otherwise nothing special but why does the dog have human eyes???  The Ghostbusters (Polish poster art) Really liking the tiny humanoid ghost running away there!  Planet of the Apes (Polish poster art) More recognizable, still quite wild.  Star Wars (Soviet poster art) It's odd, but honestly really cool as well!
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Jan 11, 2022 20:55
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These are incredible. I particularly love the adorable mini Bilbo just bippin' along all happy.
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Jan 19, 2022 17:52
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https://twitter.com/metaltxt/status/1347343747894308867
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Jan 19, 2022 19:33
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There's some good poo poo in this thread and replies.    
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Jan 19, 2022 22:43
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I see that Black Sabbath Vol 4 reference, it's a fantastic album and so is Sabotage but the cover art for Sabotage is famously awful. Poor Bill Ward is still embarrassed. How humiliating. Anyway I found a picture of it, but then I ran it through a bunch of AI resizing and restoring programs so you get that instead: its an improvement
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Jan 20, 2022 03:43
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From the PYF Anti-food porn thread:
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Feb 2, 2022 16:07
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Hempuli posted:
The version of Hobbit I own, one of my favorite illustrated books, inner cover:  Outer cover:  Example of ibnterior illustrations:  
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Feb 3, 2022 21:15
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Oh wow, that's amazing! This Gandalf knows what's up
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Feb 4, 2022 01:37
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Feb 4, 2022 01:58
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What's wrong with the smt cover???
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Feb 4, 2022 07:33
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 (1984)  (I own both these copies. To my horror I've become a person who buys one copy of a book for show and another copy for reading)  (War With the Newts)  From my mother's Narnia collection:  
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Feb 4, 2022 17:01
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https://twitter.com/70sscifi/status/1489559910333435907 https://twitter.com/PulpLibrarian/status/1489340278972600324 Those accounts are both pro-follow if you're interested in this sort of thing.
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Feb 4, 2022 17:26
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DicktheCat posted:What's wrong with the smt cover??? It looks kinda like Zybourne Clock fanart. 
Vincent Van Goatse has a new favorite as of 10:08 on Feb 5, 2022 |
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Feb 5, 2022 10:04
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To me the goofy bit of the cover is the maybe-Rasputin with a vampire Matryoshka doll. But yeah, otherwise the cover is ok, I guess?Alhazred posted:
quote:From my mother's Narnia collection:  Also which Narnia book is the second one? The name's "Dreams of Narnia", I assume, but that doesn't ring a bell.
Hempuli has a new favorite as of 13:40 on Feb 5, 2022 |
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Feb 5, 2022 13:38
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I've had this "book" since the early 1980s, but only now did I notice the "Mean Pike" has a gillring.
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Feb 8, 2022 07:50
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Hempuli posted:These are quite creepy, wow They Magician's Nephew.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:56
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Hempuli posted:
Growing up we had an old Atari 800 copy of Pac-Man with this cover that always seemed particularly bizarre to me.  I'm going to cheat and post this picture from inside the manual that was similarly amazing. 
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Feb 8, 2022 21:21
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One that stands out for me is Tribes: Vengeance. Not only was it incredibly bland, but when I bought it all those years ago I was always compelled to turn it upsidedown.
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Feb 8, 2022 22:25
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We can't talk about Black Sabbath without mentioning Born Again: The artist's defense is that he was hired to make it was also hired to make Ozzy album art and didn't want to burn that bridge so he made the worst thing he could think of and was appalled when Black Sabbath went for it.
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Feb 15, 2022 01:59
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There are some stellar ones in there. And to my delight I discovered there is a 2022 version as well. https://twitter.com/metaltxt/status/1477784518031331329 Edit: Which sadly turned out to be a bit of a disappointment in content. Cooked Auto has a new favorite as of 12:48 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 12:45
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Cooked Auto posted:There are some stellar ones in there. Someone in the replies posted this baby: 
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Feb 15, 2022 15:00
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Cooked Auto posted:Which sadly turned out to be a bit of a disappointment in content. It's only February. Give it time.
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Feb 15, 2022 15:02
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I have that version, and it actually has the title and Orwell's name embossed on the black parts. You can see the text if you tilt the cover towards light. Here's a few covers that I quite like:  (Faulkner's The Wild Palms)      
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Feb 15, 2022 15:25
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https://twitter.com/CoolBoxArt/status/1048115231786979328 "Cave Fighter / Commodore 64 / Bubble Bus Software / 1984"
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Feb 16, 2022 02:35
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Cooked Auto posted:There are some stellar ones in there. lol this one looks like one of those benadryl-user memes 
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Feb 16, 2022 10:51
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I'm not VISIBLY SHAKING but I loving hate it when graphic designers gently caress with things that don't need to be hosed with only to display their complete lack of skill. Actual vintage design:  Modern fake poo poo vintage (I guess retro) design:  (the first impression(s) of the Finnish edition used the original cover image) e: bonus "knock-off of the original but worse":  ee: Found a new publisher:  I'm about 100% certain this should be Tarzan, apinoiden kuningas ("Tarzan, King of Monkeys/Apes") not Tarzan on apinoiden kuningas ("Tarzan is king of Monkeys/Apes"). My old copy of the Finnish translation of Tarzan of the Apes from another publisher is titled Tarzan, apinain kuningas (just an archaic form of apinoiden).   3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 11:50 on Mar 29, 2022 |
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Mar 28, 2022 17:30
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Wow, those are some terrible covers alright. I bet there are book covers with human model 3D renders that don't look terrible, but the most memorable ones aren't those.
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Mar 31, 2022 23:19
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Reviving this thread for a bit (sorry) to post something I just recalled: book covers where one publisher might give it extremely pretty cover art, while another... doesn't: Thud! by Terry Pratchett  Jingo by Terry Pratchett
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May 26, 2022 17:14
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Hempuli posted:Reviving this thread for a bit (sorry) to post something I just recalled: book covers where one publisher might give it extremely pretty cover art, while another... doesn't: Oh man, Discworld books are just so consistent in that. I avoided them for years because the US covers are so dumb that I figured the books themselves were probably not worth it.
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May 26, 2022 17:18
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Hempuli posted:Reviving this thread for a bit (sorry) to post something I just recalled: book covers where one publisher might give it extremely pretty cover art, while another... doesn't: I like both Thuds, except the typography is bad on the first one, and horrible on the second one.
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May 26, 2022 17:19
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Hempuli posted:
I know some people like Josh Kirby's covers but they are loving awful.
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May 26, 2022 17:24
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Tiggum posted:Which is supposed to be the good one? Yeah, looking at the image I kinda started second-guessing if it was a good example of what I was trying to say, but something about the rightmost cover just annoyes me, what with the font, the slightly-edited water texture background and clipart-like image in the middle. EDIT: Luckily even the Paul Kidby covers have good examples of this:  Also:  The typography and single-colour background, combined with the 4 books in the margin at random rotations don't really create a nice aesthetic!! Hempuli has a new favorite as of 17:48 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 17:43
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Kidby's work reminds me of the Harry Potter covers. (I hate them both.) e: 
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May 26, 2022 17:52
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Kidby's work reminds me of the Harry Potter covers. I assume you mean Kirby? Josh Kirby is the melty-characters artist, Paul Kidby is the other Pratchett artist.
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May 26, 2022 17:56
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Hempuli posted:I assume you mean Kirby? Why, are you stupid?
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May 26, 2022 18:02
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Tiggum posted:Which is supposed to be the good one? Fuuuuuuuuuuuck you
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May 26, 2022 18:06
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A personal favorite of mine - the a poster for <i>The Muppet Movie</i> from Poland: 
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May 26, 2022 19:53
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This is the one my dad read to me when I was little and he covered up the art with masking tape because he didn't want it to poison my imagination of the characters. A few months ago I was at some antiques store and they had original oil pastels of romance novel covers, I'll see if I can dig those up and post them.
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May 26, 2022 20:13
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Went down a rabbit hole, and found some Soviet movie posters for Star Wars:     Old eastern European posters have this very distinct batshit insanity to them that I just adore. IBroughttheFunk has a new favorite as of 20:43 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 20:40
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:This is the one my dad read to me when I was little and he covered up the art with masking tape because he didn't want it to poison my imagination of the characters. Haha they had that one at the library, I saw it after reading the book and thought "who on earth would see this and want to read it?!" Fortunately I had this simple, classy version:  I also had this version of the trilogy:    I like their simplicity, they're not as flashy as the Alan Lee art or anything, but they're so much better than photos of the movie characters or whatever the hell's going on with the ones following that ugly Hobbit cover.
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May 26, 2022 20:46
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