New Bond Cover ArtThe fabulous Young Bond Dossier has scored exclusive first glimpses of the new American paperback cover art for Charlie Higson's soon to be re-jacketed Young Bond novels. Head on over there and check them out! (YBD also provides Amazon links.) The new covers for SilverFin and Blood Fever sport illustrations by Kev Walker, who also drew the graphic novel adaptation of SilverFin (recently released in the U.K.), as well as numerous Young Bond promotional images. The style matches the existing cover for book three, Double Or Die, released in hardcover in the U.S. earlier this year. I actually loved Walker's original cover painting for Blood Fever, but there's no question that the new artwork is more eyecatching than the first American SilverFin cover! It's always nice to see James Bond get illustrated book covers.
Meanwhile, CommanderBond.net unveiled the U.S. mass-market paperback cover art for Sebastian Faulks' adult James Bond novel Devil May Care last week. I held off on posting a link, because I felt I already had too much Bondian negativity going on with my disappointed review of Quantum of Solace. But now the cool new Young Bond art balances things out enough that I feel like I can comment on the Devil May Care paperback: as you may have guessed, I kind of hate it. Boy, that's one busy cover! Lots and lots of heavy blocks of text partially obscuring a heavily Photoshopped image of a girl and some flames. I don't require simplicity, but if things are going to be garish, it needs to be in the right way, like Richie Fahey's beautiful retro-style Ian Fleming covers. It's too bad things turned out like this, after the art on the American hardcover actually outshone its British counterpart. CBn also posted the artwork for the American trade paperback edition, which is slightly better because it's generally cleaner.
But, to stay positive, the good news is that Higson's Bond novels (far superior to Faulks' anyway) get snazzy new illustrated covers in North America!
Click here to view the new cover for SilverFin.
Click here to view the new cover for Blood Fever.
Click here to view the mass market paperback cover for Devil May Care.
Click here to view the trade paperback cover for Devil May Care.
Click here to read my review of Devil May Care.
1 comment:
I do like the trade Devil May Care cover.
Thanks for the kind words about my site. FYI, Disney tells me final Hurricane Gold art should be ready by mid December.
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