Tuesday 11 October 2016

Bothered by Brexit? Terrified of Trump? Horrified by Hillary? Banish the blues with a chucklesome selection of parody book covers

A series of parody book covers of Pelican Original and Penguin Guide paperbacks from the 60s and 70s on the Scarfolk Council blog made me laugh out loud this morning:
I followed a link to the site after seeing the next one on Pinterest (I thought I'd better check that it wasn't real - the '60s and '70s were very strange):
As I'm partial to parodies, those ones had me trawling the web for similar examples. When Faber & Faber, or ff - or wtf they're called these days - chose this chick-lit cover for their 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar in 2013...
...parodists were quick to respond:
Which seemed to start a trend...
Then there are the parodies of specific authors' personas:
And parodies of traditional cover art for specific genres:
And you can, of course, apply the cover style from one genre to the subject-matter of another:
Or dream up new titles and art-work for well-known fictional series:
Sticking an unsuitable title on an old cover (at least, I assume they're old covers) is particularly popular:
Penguin Books must have made a fortune out of their bestselling parodies of Ladybird titles (they own the brand). They presumably got the idea from the London artist/comic, Miriam Elia, who produced We go to the gallery, the funniest parody book I have ever read. I wrote about it last year. Penguin went legal, and Ms Elia produced this piece of self-explanatory artwork:
I'm ignoring Penguin's series of Miriam Elia rip-offs, and will wait instead for her two genuine follow-ups - We Learn at Home: Dung Beetle Book 1b, and We Go Out: Dung Beetle Book 1c - to become available on Amazon. They were apparently published at the end of last month, but are described as "temporarily out of stock" - let's hope those bullies at Penguin haven't unleashed their legal Rottweilers once more, and that they're paying Ms Elia a portion of the enormous profits they're no doubt making from their numerous Ladybirds for Grown-ups titles. Meanwhile, We Go to the Gallery: A Dung Beetle Learning Guide (Dung Beetle Reading Scheme 1a) is still available - and it's a perfect Christmas gift. 

2 comments:

  1. The Marmite supply has been saved and Nicola Sturgeon is back in action. Mervyn King thinks the Sterling sell-off is "largely welcome" and there's a song in my heart.

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    1. You don't understand. We're doomed, I tell you - DOOMED!!!

      I must say the video was one hell of a lot more enjoyable than the debates themselves, which confirmed that Hillary is possibly the most uncharismatic politician on the planet - Nurse Ratched indeed - and that Donald Trump is truly a political simpleton. I've always suspected that very stupid people can become very rich - he is living proof of it. I was about to say that those two make ours look like Disraeli and Gladstone - then I remembered Corbyn.

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