How would you readers like to help out by giving your opinion on the enclosed cover? It’s for A Twist of Grimm, a collection of gay erotic fairy tales.
In return for your assistance the publisher will pick one commentor and send him/her a free copy of the book when it releases in the summer.
Please leave your comments on the post as to whether you like the cover (or not) and why. We try not to bore you on this site and even make you work on occasion. 🙂
Thanks guys.
Sadly to say I do not like this cover at all! First I generally do not like painted, drawn or PC drawn covers on books, although I am a big comic book fan but to me the subject of the books on this site ic hot M/M together with a drawn cover as shown do not go well for me to entice me in buying the book! Secondly I do not find the concept on the cover stimulating for me to buy it, even if the story is very well written. I know do not judge a book by its cover, but at the moment there is sooooo much product available straining my book budget so why choose a book with a cover I do not like?
Not a fan….the shades of blue are eye catching but the unattractive and overly childish and cartoonish depictions of the men would not entice me to even read the blurb.
I probably wouldn’t pick this book up to even find out more about it… the characters are TOO cartoonish, and that beanstalk looks odd… more like the lovechild of a cornstalk and an unpeeled avocado.
Damn,Chris,do you think my keypad is coffeeproof? 🙂
The cover is simply too much – looks like a cheap fairy tale book for kids (with two unattractive gay men thrown in)
“Lovechild”…*lol*
s.
It’s too dark–dark as in color, not in imagery. The crow on the left practically blends into the background. It’s also very busy. I don’t know what it would look like when they add the book title and author name. Last, the standing up guy has the “Discreet Young Gentlemen” crotch-thing going on and I was never particularly fond of that look. LOL.
L
Well, I did a double-take to figure out what the guy on the ground is doing down there.
But I also agree with the overly cartoon look not being attractive to me. I think the concept for the book is cool, but that cover needs to speak to adults way better than it is right now.
I can see how this drawing fits with the fairytale topic of the book but I think it does not work really well. It is a bit dark and the beanstalk takes up too much space in the middle of the drawing.
I do like the references to the tales inside, the swan and the mirror ie but I don’t see how the men fit in. Certainly not when drinking beer.
Personally I would like to see a more clean, lighter style of drawing with space left for a title and author.
Okay, I don’t mind it as much as others. With fairy tales I don’t mind a drawn cover, but I don’t quite get the guy on the floor grabbing his … leg. Is he supposed to be a swoony girl? I see the spinning wheel, magic mirror, swan/goose, basket, bean stalk (which I don’t mind and doesn’t think it looks at all like an avacado -looks at Chris in confusion) (I blew this up on Paint so I could see it better). I do agree though it seems a bit dark though. Maybe it needs to have a lighter background so all of the elements stand out more. You do nearly miss the raven/crow because he blends in so much.
But for light hearted retelling of fairy tales I don’t expect it to have the usual nekkid man boobies on the cover.
It’s not too bad although it’s a bit dark. The only thing I really don’t like is the man who is sitting down. His face looks weird to me.
Is it just me, or does the guy on the ground look like his head’s too big and feet too small? I agree with the others who’ve said it’s too cartoonish, and there’s a bit much going on. I ran across the Zenoscope Grimm Fairy Tale comic book covers recently, and even tho’ they’re horror-ish some of them are pretty eye-catchingly sexy. I’d prefer that sort of cartoon cover than this.
I agree with most of the previous commenters who dislike it, especially: too cartoony, too dark (color-wise), guy on the ground??? (what IS he doing there, and why?).
Also, the ground looks like it’s going to swallow them up, or like they’re in the deep sea. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for fairy tales, but doesn’t come across quite right; it looks more like it’s all being sucked into a whirlpool. And something about all the overly-swirly lines makes it seem like a Dali or a bad acid trip (but I repeat myself ;)).
I think we’re all experiencing group-mind today. 🙂 I don’t like this cover either for many of the same reasons. My first impression is that there are WAY too many images crammed into this cover. Pick the guys and add the mirror and maybe leave it at that. Also, the blue is too dark. The two guys don’t look quite right together. The standing one is okay, but I’m with Lily on how weird the sitting guy’s head looks. There is also something about him in proportion with the standing guy that doesn’t look right. Hope this helps.
Ditto. Too dark, unattractive men, too busy. And I tend to equate the quality of the cover art with the probable quality of the contents.
Looks too much like a children books cover for me.
I agree with Celeste “unattractive men”.
I really like the concept of the cover – all the different fairy tale elements woven in and intertwined. The one thing I could say against it is that the style of illustration would get my hopes up about there being more illustrations inside the book (like a traditional fairy tale book, although I’m more than happy to find black & white / greyscale line drawings, I don’t expect full colour all the time!). Are there more illustrations? If it were a print book in a shop, I would flick through it a bit to find out and if not I’d feel a bit disappointed and take that into account when deciding what to spend my hard-earned cash on…
Don’t get me wrong – I do like the style and think it’s far more appropriate for traditional kinds of fairy tales than photo-realistic illustration would be… I guess I’m just greedy!
Edit: Reading back up through the comments, it seems I disagree with most folks! I just assumed the guy on the floor had drunk a bit too much, lol.
Hmmm… I’m all for the concept of gay fairy tales, but this cover wouldn’t make me want to part with my cash. I know I shouldn’t judge books by their covers, especially ebooks when you hardly ever see the thing, but I just can’t help it.
To me, this looks like the cover of a graphic novel, treating the fairy tale theme irreverently. It’s not my favourite style of illustration, but it’s a fairly average example of it’s type – neither awful nor great. I don’t like the guy on the floor’s head shape, or the rendering of the basket hanging on the mirror, but the rest of it is okay, I suppose. I quite like the gathering of traditional fairy tale objects, although I’m not entirely sure what fairy tale the two men are referencing… It doesn’t look like a particularly romantic or erotic moment to me.
I’m not a fan of this cover. There’s no room for text on it and it’s a little too “cartoonish” for my taste.
Fairy tales are meant to be dark and creepy and Brothers Grimmish, handing out morals and so on, or else all sparkly like Disney. This is somewhere in between– kind of dark and creepy, yet cartoonish.
Being an artist myself, I really can appreciate what this artist was going for. It does give the fairy tale feeling and the symbolism is very nice. There is some great detail if you enlarge it and look closely, and I think the colors that they used are appropriate for a fairy tale book.
That said, I would have to say this is probably not the best cover for the target audience – that being M/M romance readers. After all marketing is a major part of what the cover’s purpose is.
If I were doing this myself, I would have maybe done a combination of this artwork and a real life photo, leaving out the 2 drawn characters which don’t seem to work too well. I could see the fairy tale symbolism as a border for the photo, or having the photo as a reflection in the mirror. I do feel that this does have some nice detail that I think is worth saving.
i love the melange of fariry tales – each of them are recognizable to me. not sure where the men fit in, however. could they be characters from the stories who fall for each other? just not sure where the men fit into the stories… and whaaaaaat is up with the standing guy’s weird crotch?
-kkm
I’m aware that this cover represents a compilation of stories, but I’m going to judge all the stories based on what I see on the cover. One man seems desperate and weak, which would not be off-putting for me if I could see the reason why he appeared that way. The other man is gazing away from the man at his feet, leaning back a bit from him and drinking – he’s not prepared to defend anyone so I imagine that he’s not the hero (maybe the anti-hero?). That type of character image seems a bit heartless and arrogant to me – not a character I’d choose to spend money and time getting to know.
Then there’s the focal point on the image – there seem to be two of them. The use of red at the top and middle of the mirror (when it isn’t used anywhere else in the cover) makes me pay attention first to the face in the mirror. That seems to be the main focal point on the cover. But then there are four faces represented front and center (the two birds and the two men). As I look from one face to the next, my eyes finally come to rest on the center of the circle of faces (which happens to be the beer drinker’s belt buckle). I understand that artists arrange for focal points to lead the eyes to an important part of an image, but I can’t figure out why the belt buckle is of any value. Likewise, I don’t know why I should be concerned about the face in the mirror – the swan is the only character who seems to be reacting to the image in the mirror.
I believe that the artist has very good drawing skills. I think the artist needs to have a clear vision of what they want to say with their cover art, and needs to choose characters to draw that they have an emotional connection to so that those feelings are communicated in the art.
Since fairy tales are my favourite genre, warming the image up (both in colour tone and in the behaviour of the male characters) and creating one main focal point would probably be enough for me to shell out eight dollars for the book.
Typically, I just glance at a book cover for an impression. What I like about this cover is that it says fantasy, suitable for a book of fairy tales.
Having read the other comments on the cover, I took a more careful look at it. I had only picked up the beanstalk and the swan the first go round. I liked the face in the mirror and the raven, once I went back and looked more closely.
What I most like about a cover is when it conveys useful truths about the contents of the book. This one conveys fantasy and not all light-hearted fantasy, nor ultra-erotic fantasy. If that’s an accurate preview of the contents, I like the cover.
Too blue. Central characters too small and too far away. Lack of specific focus. Too much going on and yet no loci of compelling action.
Skin isn’t bad either, ya know!