Magazine Cover Artwork

[lin robinson]

I'm easy. I don't think I've ever been offended by artwork in my life.


(PS I was kidding about the ex-wife thing, just a little joke about anatomical draping...no real person involved)

[darkwolf]

Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with the cover art I've seen so far. It might not all be to my personal taste, but I don't see anything offensive about it.

Just go with what feels right for your magazine. You're always going to have some reader somewhere who will get offended over the least little things. I've come across the same thing in my artwork. Some people see a nipple and just go ape-poo. Apparently, either there's a minor chonological distortion and these same people have their brains stuck in the 18th century or Darwin was wrong.

Personally, I blame the Puritans, but then again, I blame them for pretty much everything.

Darkwolf

[Lith]

Regardless of censorship (which I don't think is quite the right word for such a case as this), there is such a thing as public decency. It has more to do with politeness than anything specifically moral. I haven't seen the covers in question so I can't give an opinion on them. (I'm only seeing red boxes. Scantily-clad little red boxes, I might add.)

And really, "don't like, don't buy" only gets you so far. It's not as easy as it sounds. I like a lot of things in Play magazine, but don't like all the skimpy anime babes they always stick in the back. And try finding an adult movie without a lot of offensive material.

If you know what kind of covers you want on your magazines, then go with it, and let the cards, uh, fall where they lay. Or play the ball where it lies. Or however the metaphor goes. Opinions are all over the board and you'll just have to take a few complaints, even if it's not (as it sounds like from the responses here) truly a case for complaint.

And as a woman with interest in sci-fi and fantasy, I have to ask why you aren't putting up covers of sword-wielding WARRIORS? Or are you only trying to attract male readers?

[lin robinson]

A survey of magazines oriented to men and to women will quickly let you in on the fact that both men and women respond to scantily clad women on covers. Sometimes I think Cosmopolitan has sexier nudes than Playboy (and I won't even mention Seventeen, so please forget that I didn't mention it)

It's a quirk in the human esthetic, but everybody likes naked women (perhaps because they are beautiful? Just a shot in the dark) and men are less popular. Both men's and women's mags will show pictures of nude or partially nude women in the same shot, or touching each other, by the way. Only magazines for gay men will show naked men touching each other...and then only in fairly hard core mags.

Go figure.

Given that, the decision to go with Warrior Maid over Abs Boy is a quick one. And...and I'm drawing on my own publishing/editing experience here...maybe it has something to do not so much with atraction plans as the submissions they get?

[Lith]

I know there won't be much market for it.

There are so many factors feeding into our responses it's difficult to single them out. And I'm not even going to comment on Cosmo. Not going to do it. Not even a little. Okay, maybe a little- no, not going to do it.

I think as women are encouraged (be it by nature or conditioning) to spend more time with their appearance, they are more willing to look at other women than men are at other men. And there are some theories about dominance as it relates to the sexes and watching, displaying the body, etc. But I'm not going there.

And then there's the stuff we've just learned to tolerate, as until recently women SF&F fans were in the minority.

[Roy1]

Thanks Lith for a reason to reload those covers. They were here as links before but the links broke when the website changed.

Page 2 of this thread includes a cover with a male in a pose that would have brought complaints had the subject been female. There are lots of fantasy covers with sword-wielding male warriers but maybe more with sword-wielding females.

The Best SF reviewer said that the (IZ 199) illustration didn't need to feature the squished-together cleaveage. There are plenty of other titles on the bookstand doing that kind of thing already, thank you. I read part of this issue in public, and had to go through complex machinations to keep the cover covered up. For me, a disappointment after several excellent covers.

Interzone 199 July/August 2005

The IZ 205 cover was also a source of complaint.
Sorry about the mismatch in images file sizes.

[lin robinson]

Those tits were MALE???? Wow.

Love those big, thrusting ears on that babe on the left above, by the way.

[Roy1]

Love those big, thrusting ears on that babe on the left above, by the way.

I still have a few for convention sales and Andy has some back issues if you want your own copy.

[lin robinson]

I don't want to get caught with any ear porn on me. I might have to work as an audiologist some day.

[dustinzgirl]

LOL...

I actually like those covers. They don't seem promiscuous or pornographic to me at all, but of course the way a woman sees something and the way a man sees something are entirely different. I didn't even notice her tight little ears but I did notice the differences in style of dress between the two covers, the pretty details on the left one in the earthy tones is a stark comparision to the deep, plain red on the right. Both women might be warriors of a sort, but you can tell from thier stance and dress that the one on the right is probably crazier. She just has that crazy look. They should both be in a wet ear mud wrestling contest....lol....

[darkwolf]

Good grief. If people are complaining about those covers, then they should run away and join a convent. Some of my own artwork features women with a lot less on and I've got nothing but good comments on it.

It would seem that some of your readers just haven't decided that the Puritan society has been dead now for a couple of hundred years.

There's certainly nothing offensive in those two covers posted above. They're sexy, yes, but not derogatory towards women, for pete's sake. You'd get even worse complaints if you used pictures of nuns in full habits. I'd stop dwelling on the handful of readers that are complaining and just keep publishing your magazine and doing everything you can to make sure you have the best content available to you.

Good magazines sell no matter what the cover image is - take Newsweek, for instance...they sell millions of copies a month and they often feature images of a talking chimp...um, I mean the president.

Darkwolf

[Roy1]

Well they do complain, and threaten to stop subscribing, as the quotes show.
Would you feel comfortable reading either of them on a train or in an airport waiting area? People have mentioned that as a drawback of such covers.

[lin robinson]

It might be some genetic flaw, but I find that don't really give a damn if pepople in train stations approve of my reading habits.

[Lith]

The one on the right's fine. The one on the left- if it was just once in a while, it would be okay, but if it was every cover, I probably wouldn't pick the magazine up. And I would feel a little uncomfortable reading it out in public.

It would seem that some of your readers just haven't decided that the Puritan society has been dead now for a couple of hundred years.

It's actually not dead. It's just much smaller than it used to be. People that grow up in the church often have a different perspective on things. It can get a little silly sometimes (like the time my youth group shut off The Gods Must Be Crazy because it had naked african tribespeople), but on the whole it has its good points.

[Roy1]

No I am not going to re-read the Calder serial so I can't comment because it did not stick in my memory, which may be telling about the story or about me. Either way you win on that but this is probably not the thread to discuss it.

Looking at the view counts in this Art category I am tempted to tell Andy Interzone needs a cover with a female barbarian warrior.