Discworld discussion
Josh Kirby
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I agree that Josh Kirby's DW covers are iconic - I certainly can't help but think of his crazy covers whenever I think of the older DW books. But I personally don't find them very attractive in the purely aesthetic sense. I find them interesting more in the 'What the heck is that?!' sense. As book covers go, I think that Paul Kidby's covers are a great improvement.
Although I appreciate the work done and talent involved, I rarely pick up a book based on cover art. Even the description is "iffy", because these are marketing tools and VERY unreliable.
I enjoy trying to work out who is who in the Josh Kirby covers, but they never tally with my imagining of the characters and events in the books. Esp the way Angua is shown, which seems totally opposite to her character. They remind me a little of the 'Ogri' cartoons that remember from old motor bike magazines. I prefer the more recent covers, but the trouble with artwork is that the people rarely look as I imagine them. It's like that old saying that the pictures on the radio are better than television!
I love most of them, especially of the Disc in space! But the women are made to look silly in most of them and for some people they may seen a little childish!
I've always felt Kirby was drawing for a testosteroney teenage boy audience. But his later covers get better
Yes, I'd agree there Lisa, on both counts.
I think Kirby's style was meant as a tongue in cheek nod to the old pulp fiction swords and sorcery/Sci fi of the early 20th century, damsel in distress bursting out of what little clothing she wore, covers. The covers of some of Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars Collection being a good example.I find his work funnier than Kidby's covers from the newer books. It was the cover that got me to pick up TCOM, but it was the writing that kept me coming back, I love the Kirby covers, but as the style of the Discworld stories has evolved I think the artwork has evolved to keep pace. That said I do like the new releases of the older novels in hardback
I can see how the 'tongue in cheek nod' thing makes sense, good point! It's just personal taste of course - I found the early covers off-putting at first for the reasons given above, but the Discworld books are some of my all-time favourites. I've read A.S. Byatt's comment that she felt just the same way initially about the Kirby covers. She says ''Later I came to appreciate Josh Kirby's art too. His creatures have a gleeful wild energy and intricacy - both brash and sophisticated - which is exactly right for these tales'.
Have you seen the new covers for the older books, the books have been split into subgroups and rereleased in hardback with really stylised artsy covers?
You mean the 'collector's library' or whatever it's called? Yes, some of them are beautiful. Though some of them are a bit odd. And personally I wish they'd stuck to the colour scheme of the original books - I'm not exactly synaesthetic, but I do find myself sort of associating books with the colour of their covers (when, as with Kirby, the covers have such strong colour schemes, and I've been looking at the covers all my life...), and it feels weird seeing them in totally new colours.I love the G!G! design, though.
[Big shame it's only for half the series!]
I like Kidby's work very much, but I completely adore Kirby's. It communicates the Disc all at once.
I personally love them and think they definitely help attract people to pick up and try the books.