New artwork for Bukowski paperbacks (1 Viewer)

I'm sure it won't matter one bit to someone who is newly introduced to his work what the covers of the new editions look like. And imagine how much fun it will be for them to start digging back and discovering the original versions.





They they'll have to come to us, of course, and our eBay auctions with exorbitant, ridiculous opening bids for (previously) common Black Sparrow copies... ;)
 
In another generation, sure. Black Sparrow is gone, so the supply is finite. At some point in the future the number of Ecco editions out there will surpass the number of Black Sparrow editions.

Really, the original versions of something are only desirable to a small minority of readers (I know two people who recently started reading Bukowski; one buys the Ecco versions from Amazon and is perfectly happy with them, the other hunts down Black Sparrow editions on eBay, and refuses to buy the Ecco versions). But that minority will find it more difficult to find a good Black Sparrow version of something than we do now.

The numbers of Ecco editions already outnumber Black Sparrow on eBay...
 
i guess when you think about it, youre really just paying for the words. but i could never see myself getting all hyped up about an ecco version of a bukowski work coming in the mail. after spoiling myself on black sparrow, ecco just seems like a cheap farce or rip off.
 
There Never has been any American Bukowski-cover as misplaced as the German ones!
(examples here: http://www.dtv.de/_images/cover192/20963.jpg / http://www.dtv.de/_images/cover192/12392.jpg / http://www.dtv.de/_images/cover192/11462.jpg / http://www.fischerverlage.de/sixcms/media.php/15/3-596-15844-3.261144.jpg / http://www.fischerverlage.de/sixcms/media.php/15/3-596-10679-6.240200.jpg / http://www.fischerverlage.de/sixcms/media.php/15/3-596-15843-5.231336.jpg )

Sure, the content should be the most important. But still, I very much appreciate a well done cover. I think this adds to the 'Gesamtkunstwerk'. It certainly is a question of selling, but not only.
Yes, you cannot judge a book by it's cover, but you can judge it's cover by it's cover.
And I prefer having books in my shelf, that are aestetically pleasing or interesting in some way.
Same goes for music: I have refused a long time to buy Tom Waits' Black Rider simply because of it's crabby cover, while Nighthawks at the diner was my first.

So, yes, definitely: The cover of a book IS important. (as well as it's paper, it's typo, etc.) And think of so many people who just look through bookstores with no perticular aim - what are the books they have a second look at? The ones with an interesting first look! So in order to 'gain' people to discover and recognize Bukowski, we should take care of the covers.

btw. in my own oppinion, the first edition of 'Erections' was a phantastic cover! As were the very simple ones by Barbara, like 'Burning in Water'. This suits Bukowski best - either portraits of himself as he, as a person, is very important and stronger related to his work than, say, Dan Brown. Or very simple and plain layout, like some of the classics in literature have.

 
Yes, most of the german covers are not too good. I could live with one or two of them though. Has Carl Weissner translated all the books? And how are the translations when compared with the original texts?
Btw, How many members are you in the Buk society?
 
Not quite sure, if this is the right thread for it, but:

There were other translaters also. 'Post Office' was done by one Hans Hermann. 'Shakespeare' was done by Rainer Wehlen, who did some stories and poems for anthologies too, as well as the German edition of Locklins 'Bukowski. A sure bet'. The excerpts of 'Erections' that built the German book 'Fuck Machine' was translated by one Wulf Teichmann.
(trivia: The 'Erections' book was split into four seperate volumes for the German market. 'South of No North' split into two parts.) 'Horsemeat' was translated by one Hans Christian Meiser.


All translations use to be very fair, especially the Weissners, of course.
I would even state, concerning the prose there's no Need for a German reader to head for the originals.
In matters of poetry it's different: Though the translations are also very good, the athmosphere of the originals adds up to them very much. I wouldn't want to miss the German versions in many cases, but the originals have a certain quality, you can't catch in translation. Esp. when you have Buk's own voice in your inner ear while reading.


The Buk-society has approximately 50 members at the moment.
 
You have been lucky with all the translators. I wish I could say the same for our translators. They are ok, I guess, but not real good. You're also lucky to have that many books translated. And you're right, the original texts are the best. A translation will always be inferior, that's why I prefer to buy Buk books in english. It's cheaper too. Books are very expensive here.
50 members? I would have thought you had more members in such a big country. On the other hand, I've never heard of a Buk society anywhere else, so that's an achievement in it self!...
 
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50 members? I would have thought you had more members in such a big country.
Right. We'd be much happier with more members. The Goethe-Society has 3500!

On the other hand: even the Alfred Doeblin-Society has only 100, the Brothers Grimm-Society only 380! - and these guys have NAMES! The Sartre-Society in Germany has, sit down first: also only 50! Frank Wedekind-Society: 50. Walter Benjamin-Society: 120. etcetc.
It's not always easy to gain members, when you're not into Schiller, Goethe or Wilhelm Busch.

(Paying members that is. We once had around 80 but half of them never payed the regular fee; we couldn't afford to give them the Yearbooks for free any longer - the few really active persons in the Society pay in much more than the regular fee, due to their additional costs when working on things anyway. We're not able to even pay the cost for printing and shipping to so-called members who don't give a fuck. And organizing the symposiums in Andernach isn't cheap either. Think of travelling- and residental-cost for invited addressing-guests alone!)

I've heared from the manager of the 'Arbeitsgemeinschaft Literarische Gesellschaften' (www.alg.de), which is the association of literary societies in Germany (nearly all lit-societies here are members of them. I know only of one, the Nietzsche-society, that isn't), that We are much more ACTIVE than a lot of the bigger ones. So, concerning our small resources, we can be proud of our work so far, I think.



 
Wow! I did'nt know you had all these lit. societies. Impressing! And you even have a society for all the lit. societies!
Oh yes, you have every right to be proud of what you have achieved. That's actually quite a lot, I think.
Maybe one day there will be an international Buk society...
 
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Well, that remains to be seen...Maybe international symposiums, Publishing different kinds of Buk related material, creating databases etc. If you use your imagination I'm sure lots of possibilities will pop up. And you can always look into what other lit. societies do. Actually it was just an idea that popped up...
 
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Sorry Bukfan, I didn't mean to be snippy. It's just that I imagine it would be embarrassing being a buk fan in a room full of Buk fans - I mean what's there to talk about?
Of course getting material published might be good... as long as it's not Buk wannabes ripping off their hero. An updated, online biblio would be something a body like this could handle.


Oh and it's symposia... one of my favorite odd words! :)
 
Sorry Bukfan, I didn't mean to be snippy. It's just that I imagine it would be embarrassing being a buk fan in a room full of Buk fans - I mean what's there to talk about?

Embarrassing? I don't think the german society would agree to that...:)

If you are a member of fan club or a stamp collectors club, then you talk about your common interest of course, that's the whole point (or one of the points). There's nothing better than meeting people who share your interest. It's the same thing that's happening in this forum. Here you are in a "room" full of Buk fans...

End of sermon - Amen...:D
 
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Here you are in a "room" full of Buk fans...

Baby, you ARE in a room full of Buk fans and obviously there's plenty to talk about.
:-))

Not really. The important difference online is that one can ignore 95% of what is discussed and only address those topics that interest you. If I had to wait for these things to be discussed in real time in a real room full of people, I would go insane.
The other factor that would really bother me is the power-play and politics that come about when you have a room full of people.

Online I get to preserve my privacy, my solitude and my sanity.

Just this little black ducks opinion.
 
The new covers are cheesy-looking; as another poster noted, they look like clip art. I just bought Women with the original cover, which, as you all know, features an original drawing by Buk--it can't get any better than that.
 
You're so right! How in the world could they even think of replaceing the original cover (with the Buk drawing). The novel and the drawing goes together. At least they should go together. And not only that, they even changed the size of the book..:(
 
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For luck they chanced only three books and the rest from Ecco have still an original covers. Women, The Post Office and Ham On Rye are still available with original covers (thanks god).
 
But will they reprint those three with original covers when the stock is gone, that's the big question!
 
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Let's be Real - it isn't a question, that Ecco will slowly take over. This includes the covers, sure.
Let's not fuck with COVERS anymore. Doesn't make sense in the long run. (for a German, used to disapointing covers, this is an easy claim, sure!)

what we REALLY should be concerned about is:
Will they keep publishing ALL the books?
Or may some of them appear to not bring the profit they expected - and VANISH from the market ... ?!?
What'll happen then?
 
well, I do worry about those covers because I don't wanna see this trend continuing and the look of the covers relates directly to the question of keeping the books in print! A book with a good cover sells better than a book with a bad cover! And the BSP covers have prooved to be popular!
Aside from that, I think it's too early to tell if some titles will vanish from the market. I guess some will - eventually. Unless Buk's popularity stays the same or maybe even increases some titles will vanish. But what to do about it? Can we do anything? And what could that be? I really don't know...
 
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what we REALLY should be concerned about is:
Will they keep publishing ALL the books?
Or may some of them appear to not bring the profit they expected - and VANISH from the market ... ?!?
Actually, the Ecco brand exists at HarperCollins strictly to market a large catalog of older, smaller, or slow selling titles, so that will probably not happen. Their expectations for the Ecco titles are not great.

In the world of mass market publishing, Bukowski is small potatoes. So don't expect Ecco to ever give his work the same attention that Black Sparrow did, as far as the physical and aesthetic quality of the books is concerned.
 
plus, how do we know that the BSP covers were popular, except among us die-hards that post here? i know it's crass to think of marketing focus groups debating which cover "grabs" you more, but i don't think it's a stretch to imagine that putting info about bukowski, as well as a summary of the book on the back, may increase sales, especially in the high-volume channels like borders. i'll eat my words in a decade if i'm wrong, but there are so many BSP paperbacks floating around in the marketplace, i can't imagine that the original covers won't always be available for the people that want them.
 
You're probably right, Jordan! A summary and some info about the dirty old man on the back and a picture of two girls kissing on the front, done with nice colors and on glossy paper, will sell more copies of Women I'm sure. Maybe it's just us die-hards who prefer the old covers and wants future readers to enjoy them too. If new covers can help keeping most of the titles in print, then it's a good thing, I guess.
 
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Brace yourselves...

New UK edition of Come On In!:

51SIo4%2BgzjL._SS500_.jpg


From Canongate, who also put out Hollywood last year:

41MjpYTHXuL._SS500_.jpg
 
dude, those covers are fuckin awesome. what are you guys talkin about?
i like that hollywood cover better than the black sparrow one.
 
It's kind of trendy.

Well, I'm talkin about how things change.

I like the three dimensional effects on Come On In!
Notice the shadow of Bukowski and his smoke.

I wonder how I will feel about it in 14 years.

I Like the Hollywood design.

Both have those paisley things I mentioned.

They are both rather indicative of the times,
and I wonder what they will look like to my eye in 14 years.
 
They aren't as horrifying as those harsh photograph covers of the camel toe and the false uppers in a glass. But yeah, the repeating swirl decoration is odd. Maybe they intend to do that on every cover and that is how they unify them.

As long as they don't change the words. ;)
 
Well, this didn't come from anyone here on this forum, mind you, I got it from someone at Ecco, ya dig? You know, remaining nameless and all that. Good.


hamonryenewcover.jpg
 
I always thought Ham on Rye would make a good book for high school english classes. The camel toe edition would take some heat. Of course someone would want equal billing and request a male version. What kind of toe?
 

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