Monday, September 22, 2008

Pete Garceau & Chris Sergio: Obscene in the Extreme


During May of 1939, as the Nazis were burning books throughout Germany, the people of Bakersfield Calif., did exactly the same thing with John Steinbeck's new bestseller, The Grapes of Wrath. The ban was orchestrated by rich local growers: men who were busy exploiting scores of Joad families, the very men Steinbeck exposed in his novel. As a pretext, the growers cited, among other things, Steinbeck's use of foul language (bastard, bitch) and vivid scenes such as Rose of Sharon, having lost her baby, offering her milk-filled breast to a starving man. While all this was happening, Steinbeck was suffering the strains of his collapsing first marriage. (excerpts from PW)

I think this cover is very well executed and eye-catching. It was a nice idea to turn the page slightly. And I wonder how the hole was made - did Pete and Chris burn a hole into some paper in their office?

5 comments:

Ian Koviak said...

I did some covers so similar to this a few months ago, that it's hard for me to say much about this. I guess I like it. Luckily they did not choose that particular design...

Ian Koviak said...

I wonder if this was really burned and shot?

Anonymous said...

It was. I tore a blank page out of an old book and then burned a hole through it in a very windy park. (I had to huddle to keep the lighter from going out, so I probably looked like I was huffing a crack pipe.)

I then set the type from the first page of the novel, printed it out and distressed it, and rescanned it and superimposed it over the blank page in photoshop.

Tal said...

Your shi* is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!!
Great job, Sergio.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot, Tal. I'm a big fan of your work as well!