75 replies to this topic

[Jim]

Pfft. They're better photos without the "man alone" thing. Look like pretty much anything (and everything) else with it (which I acknlowledge they suggest is the idea, but that doesn't make it a good idea). Without the titles, could be mistaken for the latest Reacher cess - but again, that seems to be the point.

Paperback versions of the original hardbacks might have been worth a go; this is just banal.

[Dustin]

Sorry, no love lost there. These look really rather bland, like the stuff people grab at the airport or train station. What thought they invested in the Classic run, was apparently taken right from the contemporary account...

[marktmurphy]

Pretty nasty; showing Bond is pretty much always a no-no I think. All they've done is shown a location the book is set in (if not making it a bit grander: Casino Royale ain't in Monaco)- that doesn't require any thought at all. The typography is bland... nah; not keen on these.

Not to mention some of the rather awkward poses... he looks a bit silly and, worst of all: rather lost in most of these. Like, y'know: a male model.
Bond is the strongest man in the world in these books: showing him dwarfed by his surroundings and wandering the streets looking like he doesn't know where to go makes him look like a loser. He doesn't even realise you're supposed to face a camera. He looks like Mr Bean with a gun.
Moonraker looks like a drunk city worker trying to get home after a big night out who doesn't have the money for a cab. Thunderball looks like he's woken up after his stag do to find he's been dumped on a beach somewhere.

The Gardner reprints still reign supreme in terms of recent covers, I'm afraid.

[Dustin]

I warmed quite a bit to the 'classic' covers, but these look as if the idea was people would pick them up by accident. Like having 'some thriller' for the beach to put over one's face while dozing.

What is absolutely over my head is the reasoning. Do the folks at Vintage really believe they can reach new readers by making their product less distinctive? By hiding it in the masses and making it confusable with any of a thousand other thrillers-of-the-month, all on purpose? It's the first time I hear of an approach that tries to sell with the least memorable product. I find it hard to believe the 'Classic' line of Fleming originals was conceived by the same publisher.

[007 Magazine]

There is something rather 'wet' about these new cover designs, as though there’s an idea in there somewhere trying to escape.

They lack focus and any kind of dynamic.

It’s as though someone has just turned up at a random moment with a camera and pressed the shutter release, then walked off and that’s it!

The corporate psychobabble 'explaining' the covers is about as convincing as David Niven as James Bond.

In recent years, Richie Fahey's Bond cover designs remain the only stand out work.

Raymond Hawkey's cover designs of the 1960s remain the zenith of Bond paperback design, and going by the feeble 21st Century efforts, they are in no danger of being equalled, let alone surpassed.

Graham Rye
Editor/Designer/Publisher
007 MAGAZINE
www.007magazine.com

[glidrose]

Terrible. More photoshop junk. Bond with his back to us... I think not. And is b&w really that good an idea?

The days of great cover design are clearly a thing of the past.

[marktmurphy]

The days of great cover design are clearly a thing of the past.

Nothing wrong with these.


Looking again; have you noticed how badly 'Bond's suit fits on the CR cover? Look like he's wearing his dad's suit. Just rubbish.

[zencat]

Second wave of covers revealed. These have grown on me.

http://www.thebookbo...econd-wave.html

[Jim]

Not feeling it.

[Simon]

Can I ask if there are any other series of books that have devoted to them so many iterations of cover design?

Maybe not If, so much as, Which? Not wishing to display such ignorance.

[Dustin]

Can't say they are my cup of tea. Would be interesting to see the actual sales figures of these, as compared to the 'classic' line.

[zencat]

Can I ask if there are any other series of books that have devoted to them so many iterations of cover design?

Maybe not If, so much as, Which? Not wishing to display such ignorance.

Sherlock Holmes?

[marktmurphy]

Second wave of covers revealed. These have grown on me.

http://www.thebookbo...econd-wave.html

Very bad. All together these have the added pleasure of making it look like a confused Bond is staggering home after a ruinous stag do.

I like the midget Bond on the Spy Who Loved Me cover.

[TaoMike]

Anybody know if and/or when new Kindle editions will be available in the US? Currently, the only Kindle editions of the Fleming books available on US Amazon.com have some REALLY bad "covers"... Would love to get the novels on my Kindle, but if some editions with better covers are in the pipeline, I'd definitely wait.

[zencat]

Here are all the covers for the new U.S. paperbacks and eBooks from Amazon Publishing. Certainly the most avant garde Bond covers ever!

http://www.thebookbo...an-fleming.html

[marktmurphy]

This is not nice design.

Although I find the implication given by its cover that, in Casino Royale, Bond gambles for his life over a game of Darts quite amusing.