Sunday, February 11, 2007

Where have all the heads gone?

I was catching up on all of my book blogs the other day, and I happened to come across this interesting post on Bookburger:
An URGENT PLEA to Harper Collins: I love your list of upcoming releases from Harper Teen…but please, please, you MUST restrain the MAD CROPPER who's treating your cover models so brutally!…Revoke his Photoshop license NOW, before he crops again! Seriously, I totally agree with the smart reader quoted in a previous B-burger post who complained about the trend toward perfect and perfectly anonymous headless bods, which have been proliferating on covers across the YA world since the huge success of the Gossip Girls series…So lissenup, publishing people. Decapitation is so 2006...Let's make '07 the year we stop the crop.
I must say, I have to agree with them! Just look at these samples I happened to dig up after only 10 minutes of searching:

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Cupcake by Rachel Cohn
I Was a Teenage Popsicle by Bev Katz Rosembaum
The Storyteller's Daughter: A Retelling of "The Arabian Nights" by Cameron Dokey
The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles

Wuthering High: A Bard Academy Novel by Cara Lockwood

Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce

Loving Will Shakespeare by Carolyn Meyer

So here’s all I have to say: Where are all the heads? What do you think Glade Readers? Send me YOUR examples of cropped book covers, and we’ll add them to the post. It’s time to stop the crop!

You can read the original Bookburger post here.

8 comments:

Erin said...

I've seen tons of these, but this is the only one I can think of off the top of my head:
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10630000/10638649.jpg

Oh wait here's another:
http://robynschneider.com/sitebuilder/images/cover1-168x258.jpg

Alyssa F said...

Thanks! I'll get these posted soon!

Erin said...

http://www.amazon.com/Catch-Pirate-Jade-Parker/dp/0439026946/ref=cm_lmf_tit_29_rlrsrs1/002-7302265-0155256
I have seen about a million headless covers since you posted this!

Erin said...

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr is guilty of this too, although I love this particular cover.

Alyssa F said...

I love the Wicked Lovely cover too, Erin! Even if it does have headless models on the cover... I'm dying to read the book though!

Kristopher said...

I think the theory behind this is, if the main character doesn’t have a face, then the reader can imagine themselves in the MCs place.

Does it work? Who knows.

Jennifer Echols said...

I got here via your Amazon list. LOL!

I think kristopher is probably right about the reasoning behind this.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Society-Girl-League-Novel/dp/0440243890/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1922370-5153558?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173740770&sr=8-1

Ms. Yingling said...

Girl at Sea. 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Confessions of a Not-It Girl. You're right! And here I thought we were just supposed to focus on the bare midriffs. There is a far more sinister plot at work!