Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Arrival of Cover Art

The envelope arrived by FedEx yesterday morning. With great trepidation I pulled the tag and slowly reached in to pull out the two paste ups on black board. One was immediately discarded. I won't bother explaining why. Trust me.

The colors and background are great. An obvious New York street scene with period cars, etc. It’s all in red the way Dame was in turquoise…see below….and the font is the same with the same colors. That might sound awful but it’s not.

Obviously they’ve decided to keep the silhouette of the woman with the gun on every jacket. Every…will there be more than this one?

So guess what? The art director didn’t remember. The skirt length. Way down below the knee. And a flowing skirt that no self-respecting PI would wear to work.

What is wrong with this art department? Even though they don’t draw they must have stock photos from the Forties they can use. And once again they’ve put the gun in her left hand. She ain’t left-handed!

I wrote my editor this morning and gave my complaint about the skirt and the gun in the left hand. I also included a photo of a woman in the Forties wearing an everyday dress…hem just below her knees. He wrote back and said he’d pass my note about the skirt length and the photo on to the art deptartment, but said nothing about the gun in the left hand. I might have to let that go. It’s less important than the hem of the skirt.

Maybe if I’m lucky they’ll get the skirt right in one take, so to speak. Cross your fingers.

3 comments:

Maryelizabeth said...

Keeping our fingers crossed for a successful adjustment... and looking forward to the contents!

Suzanne said...

There will be another cover with art to irritate you. Probably two.

The gypsy told me so.
Gyspies never lie.

Di said...

I think the gun placement looks OK ... looks like she's holding up the gun (just to show that she has it, maybe) rather than actually shooting it or anything.