Comments on: ‘Woefully Underconceptualised’: Rick McGrath on J.G. Ballard’s Cover Art

By: James Pardey

James Pardey — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:57:19 +0000

Thank you for a fascinating critique of Ballard’s cover art, and I’m delighted to read that David Pelham’s covers are Rick’s all-time favourites because David’s original paintings are being released, actual size, as limited edition framed prints by new fine art publisher wire-frame. As art director, I’ve spent much of this year working with David on these prints, which David individually checks, signs and numbers.

‘The Drought’ and ‘The Drowned World’ are already released (along with David’s iconic artwork for Anthony Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’) and ‘The Terminal Beach’ will be released next Monday 24th October. ‘The Four-Dimensional Nightmare’ and ‘Flying to Wake Island’ will follow in the next few months and we’ll be exhibiting the prints at various venues in 2012. You can see four of David’s Ballard prints here:

http://www.wire-frame.net/fineart.html

I hope you like them, and thanks again.

By: Lisa Hanawalt, J.G. Ballard, McSweeney’s in multi-car pile-up | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:14:46 +0000

[...] unless you’re at work, in which case it’s a very bad time to do so. There’s also this examination of Ballard’s book covers by Simon Sellers and Rick McGrath, featuring striking from artists such as Salvador Dali, Chip Kidd, Max Ernst, David Pelham, Bill [...]

By: Links for 12-03-2007 | Velcro City Tourist Board

Links for 12-03-2007 | Velcro City Tourist Board — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:50:07 +0000

[...] 1 – Woefully Underconceptualised: Rick McGrath on J.G. Ballard’s Cover Art [...]

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:32:58 +0000

Cheeky, Rick. You may not have done the cutlines, but you did give me the (false) spelling of Bill’s name when you sent the scans.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:02:16 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ballardian: @bigstanno Yes, it’s good stuff. We’ve run a couple of pieces on Ballard book covers before: http://bit.ly/azURCf | http://bit.ly/bdU0HG...

By: Jamie Sherry

Jamie Sherry — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:19:10 +0000

In keeping with my views on film adaptations of Ballard’s stories, I do not think there is any ‘right’ way to visually represent his books in one image, or on one cover. Indeed, it seems to me that the appropriateness of a cover design is rather slippery, subjective, and changes over time; even though the content of the novel remains the same. However, on a personal level I really dislike the recent Re/Search covers for ‘Quotes’ and ‘Conversations’, particularly in light of the fact that the covers and illustrations for the Re/Search published ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’ and ‘Interviews’ are so magnficent. Overall, I find it most interesting when an illustrator quite radically reimagines the story; or become so constrained by publisher/market demands and trends, or indeed appear to not have read the book at all, that they produce something genuinely bizarre. Regardless of this, my personal favourite covers are the short-lived designs for Panther by James Marsh in 1985, which I believe only had one print run. They are evocative, dramatic, and have a Deco/Futurist quality mixed with a Pop Art sensibility that appeals to me. Marsh’s cover for both ‘Crash’ and ‘High-Rise’ are my personal favourites. As for covers that I feel somehow visually evoke the content of the prose they hide, well, that’s a different matter.
Marsh is still illustrating: http://www.jamesmarsh.com/

By: Rick McGrath

Rick McGrath — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:14:36 +0000

Sorry about that, Bill… but I didn’t do the cutlines! (I note they’ve now been fixed)

By: Bill Botten

Bill Botten — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:01:06 +0000

At least spell my name correctly.

By: Phil Huntley

Phil Huntley — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:06:32 +0000

Further to my previous comment(and more to the point)I have always been fond of the dust-jacket to the UK hardback edition of ‘The Kindness of Women’ by Peter Maynard, while Stuart Haygarth’s excellent collage that makes up the DJ for the UKHB of ‘User’s Guide To The Millenium’ gets my vote for the best Ballard cover of them all!
It does seem however that music and film have this marketing/identity thing sussed out a lot better than most publishers and authors.I suppose most novelists leave things like cover design to their publishers with the usual very mixed results.Rock people and film-makers however seem less distanced from such concerns-think of the lengths Kubrick went to in order to wrest promotion of his films from the Warner Bros.marketing people…
I suppose it’s particularly frustrating that Ballard is so poorly served by his publishers as he is an author who is so oriented toward both visual and popular culture.
Finally I agree with Rick McGrath that the best Ballard paperback covers were the superb (and classy) David Pelham series in the seventies…

By: Phil Huntley

Phil Huntley — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:46:29 +0000

There is a CD cover for an album called ‘Sci-Fi Lullabies’ by the English rock band Suede-a great photo of a crashed jet rotting in a field-which I have always wished had adorned the cover of J G’s complete collected stories (would have been a better title for the collection too..)
I assume singer/songwriter Brett Anderson is a big JG fan…

By: johnny

johnny — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:48:37 +0000

Another cover I quite like is for the hardback HIGH-RISE, published by Holt, Rinehart and Wilson 1977. Jacket illustration by Carlos Ochagavia.

By: Supervert

Supervert — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:19:30 +0000

If there were an award for Writer Most Abused by His Publisher’s Designers, Ballard would have to receive the lifetime achievement award. Seriously, the packaging on 90% of his work is fucking hideous. It’s a real testament to his prose that you stomach some of those cover illustrations to read it.

Whenever I’ve stumbled across an advance proof or reader’s copy of a Ballard work — which isn’t often — I’ve snapped it up. It’s better to have a plain-jane copy of the book than to have one of those abortions of publication design. For that reason, I’m inclined to say that the “bilious yellow” Gollancz edition of Drowned World isn’t that bad. At least it doesn’t leave some goofy, impertinent image floating around in your head as you read the book.

By: johnny

johnny — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 00:24:13 +0000

A highly enjoyable and facinating piece. It prompted me to get my Ballard books out and look them over. One of my favorite covers is by Grizelda Holdermess for the J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd 1985 VERMILION SANDS

By: r.m. morrow

r.m. morrow — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:19:18 +0000

Highly enjoyable! Thank you!

These words, these images…bound up in high quality leather and acid-free paper would make for an…unusual…compelling…coffee-table book.

By: Kuja

Kuja — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:45:55 +0000

Superb work! Thanks!

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:11:24 +0000

SF covers tend to be awful, something I remember broaching with Kathryn Cramer. There seems to be a publisher default setting that “if it’s sci-fi it must be space opera, or else fantasy, so masses of airbrush purple wank it is.”

Hence hordes of titles that look embarrassing to be seen with in public. This also happens to anything concerning war – Adam Roberts’ The Wonga Coup, his excellent account of the Simon Mann/Mark Thatcher coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, was given a dire black-and-flame theme appropriate to sub-Andy McNab SAS porn, and General Sir Rupert Smith’s The Utility of Force got a similar treatment in hardback.

Rushing to Paradise was good, and looks like a high-end tour brochure, which is very Ballardian indeed.

By: FJ Torres

FJ Torres — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 02:06:33 +0000

Amazing. Very specific and exhaustive analysis. A joy to read.
Thanks.