Thanks, Jerrod, for the clarification. I'd read in Fango about it a few months ago...sounds awesome!

It's called The Scarlet Gospels, he's been working on it for awhile. For the first time he will actually name Pinhead in a novel, hopefully 'Pinhead' will still be a chick, like in The Hellbound Heart. He had to take a break from it because it was taking too much out of him. It's supposed to be one of his darkest works. I hope he finishes soon since he's on his 5th draft of the book. But it doesn't help he's been all out Abarat since he started. I wouldn't expect it until after Abarat 3 comes out sometime in 2009. The Scarlet Gospels is Barkers way of finishing and putting to rest the Hellraiser mythos, in writing, washing his hands of the movies and franchise for good and ending it his way.

Harry D'Amour has appeared in a few Barker novels and this would be the first time that he is a main character in a novel (not short story). If Barker ever gets around to finishing the last Book of the Art [Art III:], we'll see Harry yet again!

I hear ya. Personally, I wish he would get back to his roots, horror. Apparently he is working on a novel involving his supernatural detective Harry D'Mour and Pinhead from Hellraiser. Can't wait for that one!

Chris wrote: "Interesting choice, LinBee. Barker is an incredible artist. "

I think so too. Clive Barker Visions of Heaven and Hell is amazing. Even if I didn't like his writing (and I don't like some of it), I do love his artwork.

I find allot of limited ed. books have some really killer covers too. British covers seem to have more character than US ones too.

Two of my Favorites are Kim Newmans Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron British Covers they are amazing. Cemetery Dance does great covers on alot of their books also. Some of the old Steve Resnick covers
are alot of fun too.

Interesting choice, LinBee. Barker is an incredible artist.

Oh...The 2 Abarat books by Clive Barker are probably my favorites for Cover art, as well as the art within the book.
and


A non-horror cover I've always loved was , don't know why. I've never read the book myself, but I used to shelve Juvenile fiction, and the cover always caught my eye.

Easy one for me...should be NO surprise (and yes, Tressa, just for you! lol):

http://www.edwardleeonline.com/biblio/pu...

@scott,

The Hellbound Heart art is Clives own and was made for the 20th anniversary ed, first time in hardback.

I've always liked these: Don't Tell Mommy by Harold Lee Friedman. I'd link it but there's no cover art for it on the site. It is of a baby/toddler tearing the face off of a woman. I have no idea if the content is similar because it is lingering on my TBR shelf.

Another is: Victoria by Ruby Jean Jensen. Something about dolls has always creeped me out.

Bethany's Sin by Robert R. McCammon

I don't know why but I'm really drawn to this one. For YA it's very simple and lovely. Not overcluttered looking like so many of them: The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

The Collection by Bentley Little

I'm quite fond of Michael Whelan's covers for Del Rey's Lovecraft paperbacks:

The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Tomb and Other Tales
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Lurking Fear and Other Stories
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

These are probably the only instances where Whelan's covers don't represent the contents--that's because Del Rey simply commissioned him to do a horror-themed mural, which they then broke down onto the different covers. Still, they are wonderful images, and I think they set the tone well, with their mostly grey tones and occasional red highlights.

Looks like it.

Last night I was watching one of the featurettes on the Midnight Meat Train DVD; it showed many examples of his art. Can you believe he didn't start painting until he was 46? What an unusual, talented man.

I'd guess, from seeing his art in Abarat, that the Hellbound Heart cover is one of Barker's own paintings?

my personal favorites, off the top of my head anyway.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/2246...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/1106...

Ya know, my last serious band was named after that book.

I would have to vote for Fear and Loathing!

I'm partial to Lee's ...the cover is one of the reasons I bought it haha. And again, maybe I'm just partial since it's my favorite book ever, but for some reason I really love the cover...and the cover of is pretty awesome...

And lastly, along with Tressa, I think cover is awesome.

Scott, I've always loved those two Ellison covers. Love the red-haired woman on the cover of Strange Wine.

Lindsey, that thing on The Dead Parade looks like that little murderous statue in that Trilogy of Terror movie from the '70s.

when i was looking for brian keene's new urban gothic i came across this: Urban Gothic Lacuna and Other Trips. pretty nifty cover. one of the books i'm reading now has a neat cover also: The Dead Parade

This isn't strictly horror, but I love Leo & Diane Dillon's cover for Deathbird Stories. The one for Strange Wine Fifteen New Stories from the Nightside of the World is also really nice. They've done a lot of fine work over the years.

One of my faves is the cover to Ramsay Campbell's collection Dark feasts. It shows a scarily enthusiastic woman eating pickled onions from a jar, and there are eyeballs alongside the onions and a great carnivalesque 'Eel Pie House' sign behind her:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/%2525...

Oh - you can add a cover to your post by clicking 'add book/author' and then finding the book and selecting add cover from the bottom of the pop-up box (instead of adding the link).

I agree, those King covers are terrible!

The new Brian Keene Novel. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/...

Why does the other Covenant cover even exist? The second is marvelous.

Tressa wrote: "I like that cover, too, Jason. But the Covenant cover wasn't very inspired. "

This one was. http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/2598...

I like that cover, too, Jason. But the Covenant cover wasn't very inspired.

I love the cover for Sacrifice by John Everson. http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/6177...

Scott wrote: "Haha, the Pet Sematary one is even worse!"

Pet Sematary Um yeah...I have no idea what the story is about from this cover...and I've read the book.

Oh, hell, I get it now. Supposed to be the "lord fly" over the boys. I guess that's Piggy in the picture.

I guess it's supposed to be symbolic. I just really like the illustration.

Scott, those King covers are terrible. The covers make light of the stories, which are dark and gruesome. Weird.

Scott, I don't remember that Lord of the Flies cover. It's been so long since I read it. What's up with the insect?

I love this cover of A Clockwork Orange.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/clock...

Haha, the Pet Sematary one is even worse!

haha yeah they are pretty bad... I read both those editions of 'Salem's Lot and Pet Semetary

Here's one:

'Salem's Lot

Scott wrote: "You know which King covers I really hate--those trade paperbacks with the Lichtenstein-style pop art covers. They aren't appropriate at all.

Here is my favorite Lord of the Flies c..."

Scott can you provide an example of what you mean?

Because they are lethal and will resort to torture to find out what is the meaning of life.

Hey, you must have watched the recent foreign movie Them, too!

You know which King covers I really hate--those trade paperbacks with the Lichtenstein-style pop art covers. They aren't appropriate at all.

Here is my favorite Lord of the Flies cover.

While I love the hardcover of Lisey's Story I really hate the paperback. Lisey's Story A Novel

Because they are lethal and will resort to torture to find out what is the meaning of life.

Why are kids so damn scary? Parents, ever feel a presence at 3 a.m. and wake up to find your kid standing by your bed, sucking his thumb and staring at you? Sheesh.

I always hated the paperback reprints of King's books. Some of them just had the title across the front.

I love the cover for Sigler's Infected. It's an eye in the middle of a bright blue triangle. It's what caught my eye and made me read this author for the first time.

Snuff has an interesting cover. The title tells you all you need to know, but the cover gives a terrifying visual.

I always felt Leisure books tell too much by their covers. I wish they would let a bit of of a mystery to their covers to get me to pick up the book because when I look at their books, I usually look at the authors' names. ("Ooo look, another Edward Lee's novel! Hey, Jack Ketchum's latest over here!")

I really like the primitive cover of Tin Drum, in which a childish drawing of a boy playing the drum is shown in the cover of Gunter Grass's book. Also I would vote for the cover of a child huddling in terror, a simple sketch drawing in the cover for William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

I tend to be drawn to mysterious covers with childish drawings or sketches because I like the creepy factor that something that looks harmless could scare the pants off of me. Stephen King's earliest works have these kind of covers like Night Shift, and Skeleton Crew and Salemn's Lot. I love the crystal outline of a girl's face with a crisomn drop at the corner of her lips.

These kinds of covers are enough for me to peruse the book's beginning. Also, the cartoony cover of a main street in Jonathan Carroll's, The Land of Laughs, with the grinning white pit terrier got my attention.

These kinds of covers inspired my own cover that I drew with crayons.

A lot of the Leisure covers seem so generic--a car on a barren road, a dark house--that they could go on practically any book. The scene depicted on Thomas Tessier's Rapture, while a nice cover, does not occur anywhere in the story. And the one for Finishing Touches is an obvious "sex sells" cover.

Michael Whelan has always been a popular cover artist for authors because he read every book he worked on, and took pains to get the details right. I remember reading that Anne McCaffrey was thrilled that someone had finally gotten her dragons right (they don't look at all like traditional fantasy dragons.)

Oh yeah, Leisure is a top notch company for sure! Keene's covers just confuse me a bit.

I think Leisure books have some interesting covers. I loved Lee's The Golem book cover.

I would also bet popularity of an author counts to the cover also. I would guess that King, Grisham, Rowling, Meyers and their kind have more say than a new author does, or even a minor seller.
I do wonder what kind of say some authors have though. Leisure books seems like a cool company and I could see them giving authors final say. And if the do...then what exactly is Brian Keene's infatuation with grabbing hands and forearms???

Oops! S'okay, Tressa. I was wondering what happened!

I think that back then, and still today to some extent, there was little or no communication (or control) between the author and the artist doing the cover. Most likely the publishing house commissioned someone, gave them an extremely vague idea of what was in the book, and told them to do a cover. Covers nowadays tend to be more relevant but every so often you still see one that makes you go "huh?"

Nope, no smiles here either. I grimaced a few times and felt my blood pressure go up, but the book elicited no chuckles from me.

Nope, no cheerleaders in the book anywhere! It's also a very silly cover, and I don't remember smiling at any single point while reading that book.

Carl, that cover makes no sense because the abused girl wasn't a cheerleader, was she? Or am I getting her confused with the real victim, Sylvia, who was slightly handicapped, neglected,and shy and definitely not cheerleader material?