Having just received my copy of the Dark Carnival re-issue, with the wonderful painting by Ray on the cover, I was looking at the many cover designs of RB books that I have. These range from the plate aluminum (ie. symbolically fireproof) cover for a special edition of 'F.451', to a hideous little child-alien on the cover of the 'Small Assassin' paperback. The 'Driving Blind' cover is great, and another favourite is a paperback of 'The October Country', featuring a weary man cutting some rather human-looking wheat ("The Scythe"). I also have a couple of different 'Dandelion Wine' paperbacks with wonderful dreamy, summery cover illustrations. And, of course, there is the fantastic Charles Addams illustration on the jacket of 'From the Dust Returned'.
Does anyone else have favourite RB cover designs? Or examples of cover artists getting it horribly wrong?

[This message has been edited by crumley (edited 03-05-2002).]

The worst "Dandelion Wine" has got to be that skull-and-crossbones bottle making the whole thing look poisonous, when really the story contains just a few traumatic episodes. My favorite "October Country" is the combination landscape woman. I felt terrible after I gave away my copy and great when I found one in better shape at a used bookstore.

And here is the second worst! I have read this book four times, and remember absolutely nothing about some dude knocking out a fence rail while hanging himself from a tree, nor any hanging whatsoever. Did I miss an episode somewhere?

That Dandelion Wine cover is great ... for another book.

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
That Dandelion Wine cover is great ... for another book.

Yeah, like Murder on the Golf Course on the Fourth of July.

Maybe he's really just floating (hovering) in the air, magic-like.