Thursday 12 November 2009

Ink on the Skin

[Note: I have been asked by Penguin US to remove two of these covers, which I have done, as the images I was displaying were far from the finished work. Sorry for jumping the gun! I hope to be able to show them closer to the books' publication dates.]

In August I posted the first two covers for the forthcoming Penguin Ink series, which Penguin US is putting out in June next year as part of their 75th anniversary celebrations (Penguin is milking these Big Number anniversaries a lot recently--it's the 60th or 70th or 75th anniversary of one arm of the company somewhere in the world all the time these days, it seems).

Now I've managed to get the other four covers from the series (though one is incomplete). As well as Coetzee and Foster Wallace (see that first post), we have...


[Removed because not final image]
..Ian Fleming, cover by Chris Garver ...





..Martin Amis, cover by Bert Krak (click for bigger)...





..Helen Fielding, cover by poster artist Tara McPherson...

 [Removed because not final image]
..and Keri Hulme, with an appropriately Maori-inspired cover by NZ-based Pepa Heller.

These covers were commissioned by the great Paul Buckley, a VP Executive Creative Director at Penguin US. The Money cover was stolen from his flickr page. Buckley has also been busy producing another of those beautiful volumes which commemorate Penguin's design history. This one, Penguin 75, looks at 75 covers, with commentary from those involved in their creation. Due out at the same time as the Penguin Ink books, it has no cover yet, but here's one of the internal page spreads (click for a bigger look).





Finally, here are the covers of the two collections of work by Tara McPherson, most of which is distinctly more disquieting than her Bridget Jones cover.



 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those last two covers look really "Patrick Nagel" which I'm sure would piss the artist off.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Maori-style cover.

Rex Parker said...

Penguin cvrs = hot. I have a crossword coming out (eventually) in Penguin's 75th Anniversary crossword book (all puzzles had to have a certain amt of Penguin content!)

rp

Peter L. Winkler said...

The OO7 cover is gawd awful. The others aren't much better.

JRSM said...

Sorry about the delay in response--more net connection problems. And now I've had to remove two of the covers, so Christy and Peter will seem quite mysterious.

Rex, I'm intrigued. Is this a cryptic crossword? It wasn't until I read the wonderful 'Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8): A Memoir of Love, Exile and Crosswords' by Sandy Balfour that I even began to get to grips with those.

Bob Fingerman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John Self said...

Meh, nuts to Penguin US. What's wrong with letting us see the works in progress, provided you make it clear that that's what they are? Penguin UK didn't cry when you posted the English Journeys unfinished.

Actually I don't like the Ink covers anyway.

JRSM said...

Normally I'd agree, but these seemed to be far from the finished work--just place-holder images which the artists weren't happy with.