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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The Tourists

The cover for The Tourists jumped out at me in a Borders yesterday. And by "jumped out" I mean whomped me in the side of the head.

I try to keep things decidedly not mean-spirited here, but when boosting an idea, you would do best to aim lower than stealing from John Gall.

UPDATE: Most who have left comments feel this might be coincidental. See, I told you I don't do mean-spirited very well :-) (And for the newer readers, we have previously discussed the issue of flattery, imitation, or something worse.)


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah. This is a bummer. They are both nice and work and are funny, but this is a rip off—or a very crazy coincidence. Either way, Gall's work is obviously much better and well thought out. The later looks vulgur and offensive in some way.

Anonymous said...

I would bet coincidence. I don't mean to trivialize the designs at all, but I don't think representing people with chairs is huge conceptual leap. The idea could easily pop into more than one head without help.

And I don't know the plot of the book, but the vulgarity appears to be intentional to me.

I personally like them both. The fact that simple chair placement can conjure up both vulgarity and tenderness so effectively is fascinating.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if it's an intentional rip-off, but wouldn't say Gall's is much better. The first cover is equally pleasing to me.

Andrew Wheeler said...

If the first cover is ripping off anything, I'd say it's more likely to be the cover art for Cracker's recent record Get On With It.

Of course, as the old saying goes, once is originality, twice is plagiarism, a thousand times is a movement. We're up to three now; if there are a few dozen more, who knows who the originator will end up being?

Readymade said...

Gee Joseph, you're probably being a bit too harsh. It's most likely coincidence.

In any case, furniture porn isn't a particularly new or brilliant idea. Just google the term, or take a look at PES's hilarious "Roof Sex"

http://www.eatpes.com/roofsex.html

Unknown said...

And furniture porn has existed on the web even before that *grin*

Bob said...

This is not an accusation by any means, but the second cover reminds me more of Jason Kottke's Cones in Love than the first.

Anonymous said...

This furniture porn stuff. Geez, the world does not amaze me any more. At this point, the furniture love thing is free game if furniture love has been around for a while.

Here's to furniture love. And book cover designers who stumbled upon it an used it in their illustrious work...

Gee wiz. Still shakin' my head...

The place we find inspiration. I might as well run a search for "car parts porn" the next time I'm doing a book on... oh well never mind, you get the idea...

Mel said...

I think the top is totally differnt thing! It's chairs having sex as oppossed to chairs leaning on other chairs for support. The chairs as people anaogly could be conicidental, but it is totally different from the second regardless.