A couple of sharp-eyed Bitchery members have pointed out the current kerfuffle on covers going on at Karen Scott’s blog.
It’s a good old-fashioned smackdown, folks, with dudgeons flying high and blows taken low. Go check it out.
And now, for my opinion. Oh yes, you knows I had have an opinion on this, right? I’m one opinionated chippy, after all.
Before we begin on to my opinion proper, I’d like to briefly venture into the tangled thicket of copyright issues: Karen had to remove the Changeling covers because apparently, they didn’t give her permission. I can think of a couple of workarounds to that: you can link to the covers in question instead of using images, or you can provide reviews of the covers, and claim fair use. Or, hey, sign up for an Amazon.com Associates account, and link to the covers via thumbnails, so that readers can have a preview of the awfulness in store.
Right, then. First of all, all this talk about “subjective standards” in art? That only carries so far. A lot of cover art is just plain bad. I’ve seen covers of featuring broken necks, misplaced arms, improbable hairdos, and bad makeup. How bad? I’m talking aqua eyeshadow—AQUA EYESHADOW, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY—on medieval romances.
Second of all, not all covers for small presses or e-books suck. Maili, for example, did a great job for A Murder of Crows and the reissue of All Night Long. (I could look up a few more; I remember seeing some nice ones on Ellora’s Cave and LooseID, but I’m at work and feeling lazy.)
My take on this, much like my take on books and other forms of art, is that yes, there is a way to assess whether something’s good or crap, and it’s also possible to separate this from whether you like it or not. I can’t stand Hemingway’s work even though I think he’s brilliant at what he does; I love Dara Joy’s books even though they’re gawdawfully written. Technical proficiency, passion, vision, originality and effort all combine to create good art—unless you’re a Dadaist, of course, in which case, never mind then.
To revisit the food metaphor: it’s possible to admit that a cake is well-made even though it may not be to your tastes, because it’s a cheesecake and the texture of cheesecakes kinda squicks you out, and that even though you love Twinkies more, the cake is, well, BETTER. Discernment and preference are two separate, if inter-related components.
Cover art can be any of these combinations:
It can be well-made and not at all to your tastes.
It can be well-made and suited to your tastes (the holy grail of cover art).
It can be a piece of crap and not at all to your tastes (something like 99.5% of all romance novel covers fall under this umbrella for me).
It can be a piece of crap and suited to your tastes (come on, all you DeSalvo and Fabio fans out in the audience—I know you’re out there! Stand up and stand proud in your love of the cheesy goodness!).
What gets to me, though, is when people start tooting the “But it’s art! It’s all subjective! Therefore to some degree, it’s all good!” horn. No, no, no. Do not even start comparing yourself by implication to Picasso, Chagall and other masters. Gah. Picasso and Chagall knew what they were doing. They were GOOD at what they did, and I can respect them for that, even though I don’t care for their work, either. I can certainly concede that most covers feature a certain Cubist sensibility in the way limbs and torsoes are arranged, but I’m pretty sure the mullets, body grease, contorted expressions and bizarre bodices are like nothing Picasso could’ve ever imagined, even in his worst nightmares.
Another common argument goes something like, “Aww, c’mon, it’s so DIFFICULT to make cover art. It’s got to be good,” often followed by the “Well, if you think it’s so easy, YOU do it.” Effort alone isn’t enough. Something’s not good just because you work hard at it. Somebody could put a LOT of effort into drawing a horse that ends up looking like a lopsided airplane. Hours of drawing and coloring and more drawing and coloring. At the end of it, is it good? Hell, is it even ART? If it is, then high school art teachers everywhere should give up their day jobs and become curators instead.
Look, it’s quite obvious that some cover artists wouldn’t know a proper human proportion if it came up and drew a shamrock on their forehead, mmmkay? I’d like to see somebody with the ovaries to stand up and say “Yes, I made that, and yes, it was utterly shitty. Sorry. I didn’t have the time or resources. Hell, I don’t even have the talent.” A lot of romance novel covers suck. And by suck, I don’t even mean the gentle, ticklish suckles you give to a lover you want to tease—I mean rough-n-ready glommings with teeth and everything given by an inexperienced, enthusiastic person with enough headgear to set off metal detectors from miles away. So many CG romance covers fall squarely in the uncanny valley, it’s not even funny. The rest of the covers, featuring live models, are just plain uncanny, especially in their steadfast insistence on body wax usage for their male models.
I have to say, however, that what bothered me the most out of the whole thing at Karen S’s, is not so much that people got kinda pissy at what she said. Karen S delights in making people pissy, and she’s fun to read because of that. She certainly welcomes people becoming pissy right back at her. But c’mon, now: all this posturing about “No no no you don’t have permission” and “It’s never OK to insult people!” adds a whole new layer of annoying, pointless bitchery.
Screw dat. Some of those covers not only deserve to be roundly mocked, they NEED to be, because my God, if nobody made fun of them, the artists might persist in the delusion that they’re actually GOOD.
Regardless if it is considered art or not, I hate the CG covers. No matter how anatomically correct they are, I find them as appealing as a store manequin. And, I would not be caught dead reading one of the those on a bus or public area without a book cover. If I really want to read the book I do it in the privacy of my house. (I even hide them from my kids). To me they are freaky looking.
I am a graphic artist and I am amazed at the responses. I deal with varied opinions all the time and you cannot take it personally. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but in the eye of the paying client. The customer is always right. Customers do not pay you because they appreciate the time and effort you put in, they pay you to produce something they like—PERIOD.
I have been turned off by covers and publishers have not gotten my money. Maybe they should not be attacking their customers opinions and considering doing more market research. If someones blog calls their work “donkey balls” and it is an isolated opinion, why get all huffed up. If it is not an isolated opinion, time to find out what makes us happy. Getting pissy is not good in most retail markets.
The cost of the art should not be the reason for using it. That was an excuse I was given in my “old” house way too many times. “We can’t afford it, so we’ll put this cover on instead I made myself.” Even after it was proven sales doubled with different art.
If they truly like their art, it’s a reason to stand behind it, and I salute that. But I don’t agree with using the excuse of using that art just because it’s what you can afford.
This is the cover for my writing mate Denise Rosetti’s soon to be released work from Ellora’s Cave. I think it’s great. Don’t see why other epubs can’t do something like that. (It’s a good read too).
You’re right, Keziah, the Rossetti cover is pretty hot. I wonder if part of the reason, besides the artistic talent, is because we don’t see his face. It lets us use our imagination, doesn’t force an image on us, and most of all, doesn’t result in Deadeye.
Even though they’re becoming a cliche in paranormal romances, I like the woman-from-the-back covers. Why they’re always wearing a tie-back bustier and a mysterious tattoo in a place that they themselves can’t look at without a mirror and a pulled neck muscle, I have no idea.
I’ll stick my neck out here to say that for as bad as some of the CG cover art may get, the quality of their stories is excellent.
I’ve read about 10 of them and each one was top notch. I loved the Wolf Tales by Kate Douglas, which are not on the CG site anymore and I assume that’s because Kate’s now pumping these out in longer versions for an NY pub. Dakota Cassidy’s stuff is very enjoyable and will leave you ROTFLYAO. There’s also some really good stuff by Ann Jacobs, too, and I especially loved the Luna 10 Chronicles.
Changling does have a strong fan base and I have heard from several authors there that the company is doing well and they are getting good sales.
With that said, I’d love to see them revamp their take on cover art so the outside of their books matches the high quality of the inside.
Here’s an ebook cover (with faces) I was really impressed with:
http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=1-4199-0249-0
(I have no idea how to make that a link) Nathalie Gray’s “Femme Metal”. Don’t be fooled by the eyes. They’re not dead. They’re silver. But look at the sense of proportion and beauty and movement. And I’ve never seen such a kick ass heroine on an ebook cover. Look! She has an expression! (And the story was fun as all hell.)
So, I hope someone will learn me a little sumpin. Is THIS cover done with the same kind of program as the Changeling Press covers? Doesn’t seem possible.
I keep thinking of the Uncanny Valley, which isn’t some CG babe’s nether parts, but the divide between the realistic rendering of a human and the empathetic response of the viewer. The idea of the Uncanny Valley was first theorized by Masahiro Mori in 1970, wherein the emotional response to a humanized robot veers from empathy to repulsion by the very humanoid properties which initially generated the sense of empathy. As a robot approaches a perfect, exact likeness of a human but is not fully human, the gap of repulsion between representation and reality is called the Uncanny Valley. The very qualities which comprise its humanness serve to highlight that which does not replicate human characteristics, and the robot becomes that much more strange to the human viewer.
In film, the most successful use of CG comes when attempting to represent figures which do not duplicate human bodies or forms, but instead focus on stylized or animalistic creatures. For example, Toy Story, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo all serve to create a sense of empathy with the viewer precisely because they are not attempting to animate exact human duplicates. However, a film like The Polar Express generates the Uncanny Valley because the figures in the film are very close, but not exact, human representations, and the human viewer is repulsed by this approximation.
I see a similar dynamic at work on the CG romance and romantica covers. There is no denying that many of the covers are poorly rendered, creating an even larger Uncanny Valley. The figures represented on the covers have just enough modelling and proportion to render them similar to humans, but not human at all. This becomes doubly disturbing when one of the main goals of romance and romantica is to create an empathetic response in the reader. How can we visualize something sensual, romantic or emotionally resonant when the illustrations of the hero and heroine remind us of corpses or molten wax mannequins? It seems to be a disservice to readers when publishers are more anxious to produce covers in volume utilizing inferior representational art. I think, in these cases, it would serve the publishers better to create abstract, non-representational covers of objects, landscapes or fragments rather than create something which engenders, at best, amusement and, at worse, repugnance.
The carelessness of craft at Changeling Press may begin with a sci-fi/fantasy publisher who thinks fairy tale is spelled fairy tail. (I’ll let it slide that it should even be fairytale, one word, not two, because in the context of her rant it’s an adjective.)
To me that signifies a culture of meh where it’s okay not to proofread all that carefully or not to worry about it if the proportion and perspective and lighting are a little off and the skin tones are oddly colored and waxy.
On the Poser software website, even their examples in the photorealistic gallery do not look real.
The best ones have incorporated actual pores, skin creases, wrinkles and skin texture. Still, the eyes are lifeless.
It takes effort and practiced skill to create art, and I think good artists should be compensated well for their work. Giving them a small percentage of sales is a great idea. I think a motivated publishing house could recruit a skilled team from a liberal arts college. The publisher gets better covers, the students get payment, experience and something to put in their portfolio.
Oh, now I wish I had never found the Poser galleries. Then maybe I wouldn’t have seen the creepiest image ever.
Also, speaking of mantitty (which I know we weren’t), check out the rack on Batman.
I love this site. It’s nut. These two had me laughing my ass off…
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/3082/?sbss=499
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/4213/?sbss=499
But this last was just plain creepy…
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/363/1/455/
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, poser art on the move…
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/697/1/456/
OH MY GOD that animation is just…GYAH!
She’s hiding under my bed. She’s just waiting for the right time.
Oh yes she is.
Her fingers are so cold. So clammy. And she’s so hungry, always hungry.
*runs away, shrieking with fear*
Eeeg! What the hell is that dance and why is she flashing Poser Tit at me? Gah.
And that bottom dog being whipped in the first example? Why does he have more facial expression than I’ve ever seen on a human Poser? So strange.