Wow, it’s been a really long time since I spread some serious cover love here. This is about to be remedied.
Because not only do I have some cover love for you, but I’m happy to announce that the aforementioned cover love revolves around some brotherly love, too!
And that’s a lot of love.
Ahh. I remember like it was yesterday. (Actually, more like a few days ago because that’s when it actually happened.) I was trying to catch up on two months of blog-reading, and I happened upon Lenore Appelhans’ Cover Story for T. Michael Martin’s The End Games. My first thought about its artwork was: “Whoa.” And then: “Hmmm…reminds me a little of Big Fish, sprinkled in with some illustration from A Monster Calls, and maybe with a healthy serving of that scary nervousness that the Chaos Walking series evokes.” And then my third thought, selfishly: “Oh please be a YA cover so I can rave about it on my own blog, too.”
I have several other thoughts about it as well.
You see, it’s covers like these that just make me want to high five everyone who was involved in its process — from the author’s story behind that image to the editor’s input to the publisher for believing it doesn’t have to fit within a certain mold, and certainly to its designer (Jon Smith). Yes, I’d like to high five this team that brought it to life and proclaimed that its artwork deserved to tell its own unique story, the one that welcomes a reader to discover the words underneath its jacket and at its heart.
I’ve missed waxing poetic about great YA cover art.
I’ll throw more words out there about how I love the balance between each distinct level of space that’s on display — from Martin’s name at the top, to the spindly title that stretches across, front and center. I love the fact that the artwork utilizes every bit of space to amplify the scope of our young protagonists’ environment, their shadows stretching before the daunting red hell that awaits them.
Here’s the jacket copy, pulled from Mike Martin’s blog:
It happened on Halloween.
The world ended.
And a dangerous Game brought it back to life.
Seventeen-year-old Michael and his five-year-old brother, Patrick, have been battling monsters in The Game for weeks.
In the rural mountains of West Virginia, armed with only their rifle and their love for each other, the brothers follow Instructions from the mysterious Game Master. They spend their days searching for survivors, their nights fighting endless hordes of “Bellows”—creatures that roam the dark, roaring for flesh. And at this Game, Michael and Patrick are very good.
But The Game is changing.
The Bellows are evolving.
The Game Master is leading Michael and Patrick to other survivors—survivors who don’t play by the rules.
And the brothers will never be the same.
I’m not sure about you, but I’m a big fan of “brothers” stories. In fact, last Friday night I watched over two hours of one of the best brothers stories I’ve ever seen in my life, Warrior. I’d include a GIF of a scene from the movie but everything seemed pretty spoilery, so I guess the next best thing is to show you Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton shirtless the poster:
If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I mean when I say this is a brothers story. It’s about the mess of life you go through to survive, the circumstances you can and cannot control, and I felt like every single relationship in this movie was genuinely real and raw. It even made me cry ugly tears (twice), which doesn’t happen very often.
After reading Martin’s inspiration for writing his novel, I have a feeling it’s going to be the same with The End Games. Hurry up, May 2013. And bring on the ugly tears.
YES!! When I saw this cover for the first time, I wanted to tweet it to you and say LOOK LOOK LOOK LOOK but I didn’t get the chance. I love it when we’re on the same page.
My favorite thing about this cover (obvious aside: use of red) is the way it pulls your eye from the top to the bottom. You can’t help it – the cover does it on its own. THAT is the pull of the design with both the words and the incredible artwork. I could list all of the detailing I love about this cover, but it would get long.
FANTASTIC PICK, Capillya. I clapped when I saw this!
Thanks, Asheley! Can’t wait ’til its release!
Crossing my fingers all my tweet-badgering will convince you to watch Warrior, too!
I love love love that cover! Beautiful design. And so much YES to brother stories (and shirtless Tom Hardy). –Noelle
Hahaha! I mean what’s a girl to do when all the GIFs are spoilery, right?
That’s a beautiful cover. I like how there’s a lot going on but it isn’t too overwhelming, does that makes sense? The color is the first thing that pulled me in and then I started noticing all the other details that you pointed out.
Yep, that makes sense. I hate it when a cover just seems to squeeze in a ton of story elements (and gaudy design) to make it relevant to the novel — I think that something can definitely be said for a cover that takes just a simple slice of story and makes it enticing.
Awesome cover. Kudos to the folks at Balzer & Bray for giving this one the all-star treatment. From the description, it sounds like it’s worth it!
Absolutely! Glad you like it too, Antony!
That’s a great cover. And since you like stories about brothers, you might like Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak.
Thank you for the suggestion, L! I’ll definitely add this one to my TBR list tonight. =)
Hi, Capillya! My name is Mike Martin, and I wrote The End Games.
I just wanted to stop in and say how much I appreciate your (very) kind words about the cover and the book. I was truly honored by the post, and I can’t tell you how delighted I was to read everyone’s comments here. Thank you all so much!
I feel *incredibly* blessed to have such a wonderful jacket; the team at B + B absolutely blew me away with their work. As you can imagine, I, too, love brother stories — films like Warrior inspired me enormously during the writing of TEG — and the cover captures so perfectly the feelings of warmth and tenderness I tried to put into TEG. (In fairness, I also tried to put in a lot of, y’know, crazy-slash-scary action scenes.)
Again, thank y’all so much for your excitement about the cover and the book; I can’t wait to share the book with everyone next May. If there’s ever anything I can do for you or your terrific site, Capillya, please let me know!
Best,
Mike Martin
Thank you so much for stopping by, Mike! I hope you’ve enjoyed our cheering for TEG’s cover art, and I (and hopefully others!) can’t *wait* to read more about Michael & Patrick’s story. =)