WRESTLING

ECW Press publishes a lot of wrestling titles. I had half-jokingly told editor Michael Homes to send some my way and here we go - three recent rasslin' covers. The Benoit book was a tough one due to the timing and sensitivity of the subject matter but it was also the quickest turnaround of any cover I've worked on to date. It was a matter of a couple of hours from initial briefing to front cover approval. Seeing it used as a backdrop on Entertainment Tonight was a surreal thrill. Larryland, well, I'll have to work on that one some more - it was a case of "Quick, we need something for the catalogue!" but really, how can you lose with a picture like that? I love it.

Dave Thompson has written about ten million books. I worked on his Bowie biography "Hallo Spaceboy" a few years back, and when the opportunity arose to work on this book, a history of adult cinema, I took it. The book is, as the subtitle says, a history of adult cinema and explains how the VCR basically helped wipe out the x-rated movie house industry. The purple cover was rejected by the buyers as being too much like a "Coffee Table Novelty Book." I did manage to sneak the cheeky girl onto the spine of the finished cover - for shelf appeal.

This book was recently reviewed and pictured in Playboy magazine thereby knocking one more item off my lifelong 'to do' list.

Further reading here: www.avclub.com/content/words/black_and_white_and_blue

rob mclennans's latest is a long rumination about Canadian poetry written as he travels by rail across this fair land. As such, he requested I use an image that he supplied of a model train. I thought that the book required something more abstract and something that balanced the title with the content. The final result (above) was achieved by crumpling up sheets of photocopy paper and leaving the lid open on the scanner. Instant viewer-produced light source. A little bit of computer magic was involved, but only in the layout phase. The earlier cover concept, with the giant Pink Pearl eraser, was wisely (?) rejected.

Okay. So this was a tough one. It's a book about books, sort of. It's actually much more than that and much more than this: a cross between Fight Club and Fahrenheit 541. There was some skepticism when I presented this cover concept. But there really is no point in having a first time authour's name emblazoned across the cover of a book, is there? "Oh my god, Corey Redekop has written a novel called Shelf Monkey?!" He later tattooed this cover on his arm. I kid you not.

The title-obscuring blurbs that wrapped all the way around the cover went over well, as did the generic "BOOK" execution (with the title, author name, ISBN etc., on the spine), but in the end, the Flammable Warning image was the way to go.






p.s. I had, at one point, thought about placing a monkey behind the bars of a UPC code, but rejected it as bit of a one-note samba. Luckily, someone else had the same idea.

Stephen Brockwell's most recent work is a collection of poems written in many different styles and many different voices that collectively question the notion of authorship. So, I mocked up a fake slipcover, wrapped it around my copy of "The Elements of Style" and photographed the results on my kitchen counter. My most meta work to date. 

You can read about mimesis here (csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/mimesis.htm) or you can buy the book. Your call. 

Here's the one that started my side-gig as a book cover designer, Jason Anderson's "Showbiz." It's a gonzo-esque tale of presidential assassinations and stand-up comedy. Looking back at it there are a million little things I would change, but it still makes me laugh. This cover landed me in Quill & Quire Magazine, Italian GQ (mere pages away from Monica Bellucci) and an Applied Arts Annual – although they chose to edit out all references to alcohol being part of the 'creative process'.

Further reading here: covers.fwis.com/showbiz