Word & Image - book covers

In my previous blog, I discussed Brian Fies’s comic Mom’s Cancer, explaining the relationship between word and image and how they are able to communicate a meaning or message much more effectively when used together rather than a using single image or text would. Not only are word and image successful in comic book storytelling, they are also used in marketing and advertising for book covers.

   

Image: Brian Fies

     

Image: Brian Fies

In the comic, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? by Brian Fies, both word and image are used on the book cover to create a quick glimpse of the narrative, while not giving away the whole story at once. It is important that image and word must coincide to create a message or theme that will attract the reader into picking up and reading the book.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? contains two parts to the original book cover. The outside layer includes a paper flap which wraps around the hardcover book itself (picture on the left) and the main cover, without the cover flap (picture on the right). The picture on the left displays a world during the 1940s to 1960s era and the picture on the right portrays a more futuristic and space age time. The two images combine to make the official cover for the book. The cover works by putting the two images side-by-side, comparing and contrasting the two periods of time, which relates to the narrative of the comic. The title, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, at the top of the cover ties the two images together by asking a question to the readers. It makes the reader view the page as whole, making them think about the narrative and theme of this of this comic.

Credits: Fies, Brian. Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?