Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 6

[knives]

The Devil's Backbone reminds me of Batman: The Animated Series.

Mignola designed some characters and was a minor influence on the overall style.

[colinr0380]

All the latest covers are great but I especially like the ethnographic/watercolour/slowly melting cover of Lord of the Flies and the cover for The Devil's Backbone which manages to combine the image of human horror of the ticking timebomb in the centre of the courtyard with the supernatural horror of the image of the ghost's first appearance.

In a way the Devil's Backbone cover is perfectly encapsulating the themes of a ghost story, showing that the supernatural often emerges as a consequence of the way that real horrors of death and destruction 'rupture' normality. Which is of course something which the film (as any ghost film) goes on to thoroughly explore.

[HistoryProf]

Lord of the Flies is magnificent...one of the best covers this year. Ice Storm remains one of their best ever.

Oharu and Babette are bland...not good, not bad. But Devil's Backbone is mind bogglingly bad. Instantly one of the 10 worst covers in the entire collection. I am completely shocked at how awful it is. between this, Gate of Hell, Badlands, and the Chaplins it seems clear Swimminghorses has finally broken through.

[Brian C]

Does anyone have a reference point for bad covers other than swimminghorses? It's like a one-size-fits-all criticism.

Say what you want about Devil's Backbone, Gate of Hell, Badlands, and the Chaplins, but none of them look anything like swimminghorses. Babette's Feast, maybe, because it's just a random still with a boring Euro-art-movie font. But it seems like a meaningless criticism when applied to the others.

[swo17]

just a random still with a boring Euro-art-movie font.

When did he ever do something like that?

[Brian C]

just a random still with a boring Euro-art-movie font.

When did he ever do something like that?

You're right, the Babette's Feast cover doesn't really look like swimminghorses either, since it's not inappropriately saturated in some garish color or another.

[acroyear]

I must be easy to please than most of you, but I find both Oharu and Babette's Feast covers beautiful in their simplicity. The latter cover intrigues me as to "what's cooking".

[vsski]

Interesting for me to hear how many really dislike the Babette's Feast cover. While I don't think it's one of the great ones in the collection, for me when I saw it, it immediately evoked the time period, the location and class the movie describes. It does remind me a lot of my grandma's kitchen (she lived in Northern Europe) as well as of many of the still life paintings I have seen and I always associated something Calvinistic with the color palette and table decorations.
Although I do admit that if I would see the picture without reference to the movie I wouldn't have associated it with it.

I've never been particularly driven by a cover to buy a given disc, as the movie itself has always been the key reason, but I have to admit that for me Lord of the Flies and Devil's Backbone are two covers where, if I didn't know the movies, they would turn me off from buying them - oh well, different strokes!

[Brian C]

If nothing else, the Devil's Backbone cover is a tremendous improvement over Sony's Special Edition DVD:

[Murdoch]

Now that's a swimminghorses cover.

[dwk]

According to this post at the CHFB, Mignola didn't draw that The Devil's Backbone cover. He was offered the job, but turned it down.

[HistoryProf]

Does anyone have a reference point for bad covers other than swimminghorses? It's like a one-size-fits-all criticism.

Say what you want about Devil's Backbone, Gate of Hell, Badlands, and the Chaplins, but none of them look anything like swimminghorses. Babette's Feast, maybe, because it's just a random still with a boring Euro-art-movie font. But it seems like a meaningless criticism when applied to the others.

i'm all for a better reference point...he's just the best known and most prolific progenitor of the art form. To me the Devil's Backbone is classic SW work - all clip arty and disjointed. and the Chaplins are as well - especially The Great Dictator with the garish use of orange.

To be fair, Badlands and Gate of Hell are far beyond his ability. But as a point of reference he's it as far as "awful cover art" goes. Though for the record aside from the hideous face, in hand Gate of Hell overall is very nice.

[Adam X]

Devil's Backbone is up...

http://www.criterion.com/films/27914-th ... s-backbone" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Complete with shitty cover.

Wow. I could say many things about Mike Mignola's art, but shitty definitely isn't one of them.
As for how well it represents the film, I can't say, as it's been too long since I've seen it.
Certainly though, it's not a bad cover, and will no doubt look much better in person.

[boywonder]

oh, fer gawd's sake ... lay off swimminghorses. that is so 20th century. people change, they do!

[tojoed]

oh, fer gawd's sake ... lay off swimminghorses. that is so 20th century. people change, they do!

But do they ever remember to use capital letters when they need to?

[med]

Babette's Feast has the same dirty, dingy look of the cover for Sweet Movie.

[Jeff]

But do they ever remember to use capital letters when they need to?

You can't teach an old horse new tricks!

[Adam X]

According to this post at the CHFB, Mignola didn't draw that The Devil's Backbone cover. He was offered the job, but turned it down.

Huh. My immediate thought was that it was Mignola, though there was something off, that made it seem slightly different - a little too smooth maybe. Guess that answers that. Next thing, someone'll find evidence that the Lord of the Flies cover isn't by the great Kent Williams.

[sidehacker]

Babette's Feast has the same dirty, dingy look of the cover for Sweet Movie.

They're both food movies!

[mfunk9786]

Savory Movie

[dwk]

Huh. My immediate thought was that it was Mignola, though there was something off, that made it seem slightly different - a little too smooth maybe. Guess that answers that. Next thing, someone'll find evidence that the Lord of the Flies cover isn't by the great Kent Williams.

Since he tweeted months ago that he was doing it, Lord of the Flies is definitely Kent Williams

[RyanGallagher]

Babette's Feast will be a digipak.

[chatterjees]

I wish they could have done a digipak for Oharu, not Babette's Feast,

[sidehacker]

Oharu could still be a digipak, no? It would fit with the other two Mizoguchi releases.

[chatterjees]

That's why I am hoping for a digipak. So far, its a NO! Let's see if anything changes.