Gemma has compiled the ultimate list of reappearances of cover art from Harlequin and Mills & Boon. I would seriously love to get a look at their art book, because some of the covers that would seem dated at first glance can be reused some years later with little problem.
Gemma says,
One of my favourite sets is:
* Marshall, Paula – Hester Waring’s Marriage
* Rowell, Patricia Frances – A Scandalous Situation
* Ames, Laurel – BesiegedThe hero has a freekin’ eyepatch on the cover of Besieged (as per the plot) which is not present on the other covers. Was the eyepatch in the original artwork and removed for the other books, or vice versa?!
I’m partial to the title of Pianka, Phyllis Taylor’s book The Tart Shoppe, 
Two words: “Thundercats. Ho.”
I keep running up against the fact that half of the women look like refugees from 1950s “historic” style musicals – The Music Man, and such.
I guess that’s what you mean by dated. 🙂
I know I shouldn’t care, but the full makeup and very ‘80s hairdos on some of the “Regency” women throw me every time.
able73 – I was able to look at 73 sets before my eyes started to cross. 🙂
Okay, I absolutely have to read any book titled The Cockermouth Mail, because it totally sounds like a gay-porn title. *g*
I don’t so much mind the reuse of art (a rare case of my frugality trumping my asthetics—the art is generic to begin with, so why not), but I’m horrified by the reuse of total cover designs!
The Wedding Gamble/The Rake’s Redemption is pretty bad, but at least the type is radically different on each.
Yet compare An Infamous Proposal and The Unexpected Bride! Identical design, similar typefaces. Is that not the most blatant statement of “all these books are alike”?
Geez, if they’re going to be that obvious, why bother with different covers at all? I have to wonder how they choose which art to go with which book. The overall designs are clearly templated (I guess they switch up the template every few years), but that leaves only the cover image as a means to tell at a glance that you do or don’t already have a particular book. If I had An Infamous Proposal and saw The Unexpected Bride a while later, I would never buy TUB, assuming I already had read it.
(Hee—TUB! Authors, check your title acronyms!)
One of the promos Harl sent around a few years back was the “book” of bound postcards, the fronts covered with cover art through the years. The Art Of Romance it’s called, but none of the artwork there is anything to write home about. Modern romance covers look slicker and more polished.
In a related note, there’s a small cadre of folks in the comic book community that try to pick out comic book art that’s been used as source material for other comic book art, traced line for line sometimes. Aside from stealing from other artists, I remember one comic book artist known for his remarkable “cheesecake” pages, who was eventually disclosed as copying the art from Brazillian model photo shoots.
In other words, in the realm of art… it’s not stealing if you’re never caught.
The wolf’s promise and The Highwayman made me giggle..that horse is NOT liking what is being done to him LOL
Walt—Greg Land?
SB Sarah—Snarf snarf!
Yeah, it’s nap time. I got nothing else.
It’s difficult for me to surf surreptitiously at work when I come to Smart Bitches and stumble across “Thundercats. Ho.” There’s a “widow”—aka “missing panel”—in the wall between my cube and my neighbor’s, and everytime I start laughing she keeps asking “What??”
Y’all are gonna get me in trouble!
There are actually two books titled Wolf’s Promise but the authors are listed as Claire Thornton for one and Alice Thornton for the other. What’s going on there?
What the heck is the pastel “Kids Go Free” thing on the front of The Viking’s Captive? I guess he’s a good viking, only capturing adults…
cost75, as in “It costs $75 for a ticket to Six Flags – it’s a good thing I got that ‘Kids Go Free’ deal when I bought that paperback.”
Wow… as if I needed any more proof to explain why I often hear ‘but all the covers look the same’ about romance novels. What makes it worse is that there were a few rows where I had to stop and compare to one up a few because they looked so darn similar – but no, this one’s got a blond woman instead of one with dark hair falling over her dress, or that row had a green gown instead of a pink one.
blinks in bemusement… With evidence like that, the best you can do would be ‘but not all covers look the same’.
That’s just unimaginative.
giggle – my spam-filter’s choice87 – there may have been 8 or 7 choices for cover art, but not 87.
There’s a book in there titled “The Cockermouth Mail.” I don’t know what that means, but it makes me LOL…
This is pretty exciting, being on SmartBitches. *waves*
Steph, Claire Thornton and Alice Thornton are one and the same. I assume one is her real name and one (an unimaginative) pen-name.
And for all those laughing at Cockermouth…. shame on you! 😉
Cockermouth is a town in Cumbria. And yes, I’d never heard of it before I read this book, so it caused me to do a double take as well. However, it is written by the Divine Dinah Dean (RIP), and as far as I’m concerned, what she says goes!
Dude, the guy from The Masked Marquis and Carnival of Love? Totally Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon.