Thursday, April 23, 2009

Darren Haggar: Irvine Welsh


New Welsh books being released starting May 26. These are both fantastic. I love the gigantic retro type and giant images, which are both obnoxious and funny. Crime is a novel about a British detective on vacation in Miami, a vacation that turns into a nightmare when he tries to save a friend's 10-year-old daughter, who's been targeted by an organized ring of pedophiles. I've heard that Welsh's books can be disgusting and difficult to swallow. And these covers somehow hint at that but also make them look delicious.

5 comments:

Ian Koviak said...

The details and realism of the photos make you feel like you're there. These covers will definitely pop off the shelf. Not to mention, they look entirely different for the genre.

Haggar's cover for Bedlam also had this very bold use of an image that made you feel disjointed from the book.

You really want to read it to find out what the deal with the giant lolly is.

It makes you wonder how important it is to hint at the story in any strong, apparent way as apposed to just creating a tension that draws the reader in to pick up the book.

To quote Rick McGrath: "Bottom line: the “job” of a book cover is not to represent the contents, but to get you to pick the book off the shelf. How well it does that, alas, is its real raison d’ĂȘtre. Everything else is subjective."

Tal said...

I do agree wit dat. I think the lolly is connected to the ten year old girl. The fact that she's the target of pedophiles contrasted with the sexy sweet lolly makes it really disturbing.

Ian Koviak said...

It does. Really a powerful tie-in.

The original cover for this is quite on the weak side.

the_young_dude said...

I'm also a big fan of bold types.. this is beautiful!

Anonymous said...

From what I've read of Irvine Welsh, these look like ideal covers for his books.