Pinging Recognition: Faces on Covers

Apologies for not blogging yesterday–I had a horrible, horrible migraine and went home early to sleep for 14 hours. Sleep, best cure for a migraine!

Anyway, this is the last day of JJ-Blog-About-Race Week! Previous posts include:

Race in Fiction Week

• I’m Korean and I’m Okay: A little background information on me.
• Representing Race in Fiction: I’m not very good at titling things.
• Coffee, Chocolate, and Cream: Describing race.
• What’s The Story?: Please no more “problem novels”.

I’ve left covers for last because 1) I’ve already blogged somewhat about it, 2) it’s something the editorial department has less control over, and 3) because it takes the discussion away from words into pictures and that’s something else again.

Covers are a Marketing Tool

The original cover of LIAR

The heart of the matter is that covers are a marketing tool. While covers certainly ought to reflect the contents of a book, a cover’s job is to grab your attention so you pick up the book (or click on a preview online) in the first place.

Composition, color, type treatment. I’ve been a visual artist my entire life, so I know the elements of good design. And there’s a difference between what makes good art and what makes good design. Ideally, a cover ought to be both, but if it has to choose, it ought to be good design.

That’s just the cover FUNCTION. As for what goes on a cover, well…

Should Covers Reflect Content?

Australian cover of LIAR

In YA in particular, the US has a tendency to showcase faces on the covers. I dislike this trend, mostly because the characters on the covers (regardless of ethnicity) don’t match up with how they look in my mind’s eye. I especially dislike it when cover artists use photographs, but I get that it’s easier these days to photograph a model and then digitally add him/her to a cover than to paint one entire. Yet, I miss the days when YA covers were either 1) illustrated or 2) less literal and more figurative. I love the artwork of Mary Grand Pré, for instance, the woman who did the US covers for HARRY POTTER. And while I’m not a fan of the TWILIGHT series, there’s something viscerally powerful about their iconic covers, particularly the one for TWILIGHT, with the loss of innocence/dangerous temptation imagery and stark colors.

Nowhere in TWILIGHT is there a young woman offering an apple to you. (I’m assuming the arms belong to a girl.)

Adult literary fiction covers are more figurative and less literal, so you’ll often see a pair of shoes, or a still life of books, or they’ll rehash a famous painting, etc. etc. Yet, I’m drawn more to YA covers, which are often bolder, fresher, and less cluttered in design, and therefore more attractive. Unfortunately, they also tend to feature their characters on their covers more often than not.

Why? Is there any good reason for this? I posted two different covers for Justine Larbalestier‘s LIAR to illustrate my point. The first is the cover for the ARC, the one that drew a lot of fire because it had a white girl representing a biracial one. (The other thing that bothers me about the original cover is that this girl doesn’t look like she’s in high school–she could easily be a 35-year-old woman.) The second is LIAR’s Australian cover, which I like much better. Stark, simplistic, metaphoric and literal at once–it’s a pretty damn good cover, if you ask me.

Reprint of Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep. I hate this cover (although I loved the book).

As far as “whitewashing” covers go–sure it angers me, but I tend to view covers as something a little separate from the content of a book. Whereas the content of a book (and how characters of a different race are portrayed) is the writer’s purview, the cover is not. Still, there are a few things that enrage me when I see them on books with Asian protagonists.

The shorthand.

You know, if there’s a dragon or a fan on the cover, then it’s about an Asian person! Nevermind that while the dragon has huge significance in Chinese culture, it’s less prominent in other East Asian countries. For instance, Koreans revere the tiger, which was the mascot of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the mascot of its national football/soccer team. The dragon also has Western significance, in case people forgot–it’s on the flag of Wales and is tied with the myth of England’s patron saint St. George.

The cover of my version of CHILD OF THE OWL. I like this one much better.

I hate books that visually cue “this is about an Asian protagonist!” with vaguely Oriental-ish fonts and motifs. Please. Not only do I find that offensive, but in many cases, I will subconsciously view it as a “problem novel” (and you all know my thoughts on that). I would like to compare the two covers for Laurence Yep’s excellent YA novel CHILD OF THE OWL.

Twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big — ’cause when that horse comes in, he tells her, it’s the penthouse suite. But then he ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever.

Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She’s not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family’s owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this — Paw-Paw’s Chinatown home, her parents’ home — is her home,too.

I really liked Casey in this book, who saw herself as just a regular ol’ American girl–like many of the Chinese in San Francisco, she is several general removed from China. Don’t get me wrong, this is an “issues book” and one I wouldn’t pick up today, but it’s definitely relevant to the cultural circumstances of many Chinese in San Francisco in the 1970s. Thirty years ago, that is.

Anyway, back to the cover. What I liked about the original cover was that it depicted Casey as she’s described in the book: in hoodies and sweats, not particularly feminine, and very, very American. Sure she’s standing in front of a store in Chinatown, but otherwise, nothing about this had the offensive shorthand found in its reprint. Paw-Paw, her very hilarious grandmother, is fluent in English and just as Americanized as her grandchild, even if she has closer ties to the “homeland”. (I hate that term too.) I hate that the reprint cover of this book exoticizes both Casey and Paw-Paw–I think the inclusion of Oriental typeface and motifs alienates more readers than not. It sure as hell alienates me. And I don’t consider it “PC” at all.

This is a great example of a cover an Asian character that isn't offensive.

I think covers are getting better, although they’re still a long way from perfect. I think the cover for Ben Esch’s SOPHOMORE UNDERCOVER is pretty awesome (I am ashamed to say I haven’t read it yet). One, I love the old-school 1940s private investigator feel to it. Second, the type treatment reinforces that mood. Third, the eyes peering through the blinds at the prospective reader are that of a Vietnamese boy and I highly doubt the average teen would think twice about that. And if I were a teen today, I would pick up this cover because of ping of recognition that occurs.

I’ll admit to being drawn to Asian actors and actresses on TV because there’s that weird thrill of recognition that goes through me. Hey, that could be me. I even find myself drawn to actors and actresses who have little or no Asian blood but sort of look like a hapa (e.g. Summer Glau) because there’s something visceral about seeing someone like me represented in the media. When Grace Park was cast as Sharon Valerii on Battlestar Galactica, I just about died. Incidentally Asian! Her race had nothing to do with her character! Possibly because she’s not human but a Cylon! Still!

This visceral ping of recognition exists when I see an Asian face on book covers. And I would love to see more of them. Just without the shorthand, if you please.

Those are my very long thoughts! What are yours? What do you think about “visual shorthand”? Do you find it as offensive as I do?

Like? Share!

• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•