Author Topic: Does the cover of this magazine do the content justice?  (Read 3296 times)

ollie

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A quick intro first since I am new in these parts:

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Throat cleared…

To my eye (mind and ears…) the visual used to represent Escape Pod is not of the same imagination stirring standard as the audio and stories. I say this with no appreciation of the likely story or background of the art currently featured on the website, so sorry if I have offended any warm sentiments it carries for you.

I’d love to see some top-notch work commissioned. Thoughts?



Fenrix

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Reply #1 on: April 27, 2014, 04:07:03 PM
Are you thinking about the escape pod cover art, or are you thinking about cover art for individual episodes?

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


ollie

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Reply #2 on: April 27, 2014, 10:27:07 PM
Are you thinking about the escape pod cover art, or are you thinking about cover art for individual episodes?

The cover art.

Per episode art would be amazing!!! Please let us know when Escape Artists have more time and money than they know what to do with…

Sorry for the sarcasm, I’m trying to say I understand you guys are busy and I’m not asking the core mission to change direction.

What motivated me to make this suggestion was the work of Dan McPharlin: http://www.danmcpharlin.net/.

I expect he is not cheap, but for Escape Pod that is an investment I for one would contribute to.



TrishEM

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Reply #3 on: April 28, 2014, 03:16:35 AM
I rather like the cover art, although I don't know anything about its history. I like the banner with the exploding spaceship, and the curved arc (curved by gravity, I assume) that leads the eye down the page to the panel with the actual escape pod. There aren't any people visible, although they're implied, but the pod itself looks rather anthropomorphic. It's certainly evocative enough for me, although I understand that tastes differ.

I followed the link to the suggested artist's website, and although a couple of pieces in the gallery were cool, the majority was pretty unimpressive to my eyes. If there's a possibility of replacing the cover art, I'd rather have a contest than commission one artist to do a piece.

In any case, I'd way, way, way rather spend any available money on the stories and a little recognition for the staff than on the site cover art.



matweller

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Reply #4 on: April 28, 2014, 01:21:29 PM
I have no say in it, but personally I would be open to new, alternate or even regularly changing cover art.

I would not recommend we pay for it. I advocate taking every opportunity to support artists, but we are not yet to a point where we have enough money to pay for everything we should be paying for. To put money toward something non-essential would be a serious disservice to our audience.

A possible compromise: Maybe we could run a quarterly art contest with open submissions for 2 months and 2 weeks of forum/Facebook voting, and the winner gets featured for the next three months. Winners, of course, would get links on the posts for all of the episodes featuring their artwork and a mention in at least the episode where their work first appears. If there was enough interest, we could do it more often.

Like I said, it's not my call at all. It would have to be run by the editors, and probably even Steve since the cover that's been used since the beginning is his baby. But I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.



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Reply #5 on: April 28, 2014, 01:57:51 PM
When Drabblecast revamped their site a few years ago, they asked for volunteers to fill in all the old episode cover art.  The Escape Pod readership is large enough to make something like this possible if it's mentioned in an episode.  I'm sure there are a lot of talented people listening who would make great cover art.