Creepy Feminine Fantastical

We all judge books by their covers, so let’s not futz about whether or not we ought to. In the realm of children’s literature, especially where the picture book is concerned, certainly it would be almost foolish not to in so many cases. That said, a horribly stupid, even downright embarrassing cover won’t always keep me away (see my four star reviews of the Hex Hall books *cough cough*), though it may seriously encourage me to download the e-book version of a title. A beautiful cover, however, makes the book an object to covet.

Fortunately for my wallet, practicality (sometimes known as a lack of upper body strength) has had it’s sway with my book buying; I’ve moved too too many times (and will be once again come June) and lugged my books to too too many places to fall prey to my heart’s aching pangs to fill my already-full shelves with every lovely hardcover title I come across. Which is probably why I’m so inclined to share these with you, internet. If they can’t be found stacked in my apartment, they should at least be plastered across my blog for us to all oogle over. Besides, the fact is, I don’t necessarily even want to read all of them, as is the case with The Girl With Glass Feet; the majority of times I’ve picked up fairytale retellings, I’ve been underwhelmed by them (exception to the rule: A Tale Dark & Grimm), but something about the paperback cover makes me keep fighting with myself over that fact…

Creepy, feminine, and fantastical.

Girl With Silver Eyes cover art by Jason Chan, whose art for The Kneebone Bone encouraged me to read the book, and whose art for The Girl Who Could Fly keeps drawing my eye (I had no interest in reading prior editions of the book) | Swamplandia! cover art from an 1899 work by Luther Daniels Bradley titled Illustration Depicting Two People Threatened by an Alligator | Pegasus cover art by Elisabetta Sinopoli | My Mother She Killed Me… cover art by Julie Morstad

I’d love to give credit to all of the talented artists, letterers, and designers that made these BUT YOU CAN’T FIND THEIR COPYRIGHT INFORMATION IN HALF THE BOOKS! Nor on the internet! Unbelievable!

Kat, Incorrigible (or A Most Improper Magick in the UK) by Stephanie Burgis was blessed with a truly adorable jacket (and nice font choices on the inside as well, btw!):

Fifty pages in and the book is a delight, by the way. Like Pride & Prejudice meets A Great & Terrible Beauty meets… err.. I dunno, I’m only 50 pages in, after all.

Oh oh, Little Ramona

Another screen print! This is the most complex print I’ve done so far. It’s wrought with imperfections, but making it taught me a lot about how to (and how not to) prepare my transparencies in the future.

I wanted to make something that felt more like a show poster, but I’m way more of a dork for books than I am music or movies, so I went for a mock book cover. Having recently watched the surprisingly good Ramona & Beezus movie, and then rereading the book for the first time since elementary school, I was feeling like Ramona Quimby was worthy of my fandom. Plus I’m pretty disgusted with their current covers. Bleh. For me, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 has always been the quintessential Beverly Cleary title. If you only read one, make it that one, I say. That book is completely entwined in my experience of the third grade. Ramona was 8, and so was I. We were mastering cursive at the same time.

Curious and looking for inspiration, I found old Ramona covers. While there have been several illustrators (Louis Darling, Alan Tiegreen, and most recently Tracy Dockray), I grew up with the Dell Yearling Norman Rockwell-esque covers by Louis Darling, and those are still the illustrations I favor, though Tiegreen’s stick-figure-like Ramonas, particularly on the Age 8 cover, is nicely designed.

Initially, I drew my image in Photoshop, saved each color/layer as a PDF, and had transparencies printed. I treated my layers like puzzle pieces, with very little overlap. With each color being it’s own very distinct shape, that meant, for the image to come out “right”, everything would need to be perfectly aligned. Which didn’t happen. For one thing, my registration just isn’t that good, and for another, the second layer I pulled had very little detail, which made finding the proper placement for it pretty difficult. So I learned a lot about sequence with this project; what layers and colors to do first. And to overlap. Overlap, Nicole!

Here’s what my transparencies looked like:

And here’s how they came out:

YAAF

I am beyond thrilled to tell you that that Lindsey Markel‘s amazing zine/podcast, You Are Among Friends, is now a book. And I had the absolute pleasure of designing the cover art for it! The drawing doesn’t do the goodness of what’s inside justice, but I’m so pleased to have helped her on her way. YAAF is honest, practical advice for girls of every age, and a huge force of positivity. There are no cheers of “GIRL POWER!” here. This isn’t feminism-lite. What you’ll find is a frank yet comforting discussion of the seemingly taboo that never sounds icky or text book. It cheers you on without ever being cheesy. Please check it out. It’s available through lulu.com right HERE.

That said, you should probably also be adding Lindsey’s blog to your daily internet-browsin’ rituals because she only writes good stuff. Not just this book, but her whole EXISTENCE impresses and inspires me because she takes every opportunity to be excited about life, grateful for it, and writes about it in a way that just… makes you happy. lalalindsey.com. Trust me.