Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Original Sunglasses After Dark Cover






The original cover for Sunglasses After Dark, first published in 1989, was by artist Mel Odom, an immensely talented and highly stylized illustrator whose work has graced numerous book covers over the last 20+ years, as well as periodicals such as Playboy, Andy Warhol's Interview and The Advocate (which recently pubbed an article about Gene, a collectible 'art doll' that Mel designed). I attribute a good deal of the success of Sunglasses After Dark to its striking cover. In a time when 99.9% of all "horror" novels had embossed black covers featuring either a skeleton, skull or a demonic child (if not all three) , mine was released with a white cover and free of type. If you have a copy with this artwork, but with a title  across the top, you have a 2nd edition.  Mel's design for Sunglasses After Dark was nominated for, and won, several design awards within the commercial publishing industry that year. He would later provide covers for Tempter and In The Blood as well.

3 comments:

  1. Been recommending it for years. Ive also had more copies of the series snagged than I can count,until I got the TP with all 3 in one volume. Damn good read.

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  2. This has to be one of my favourite books and covers ever!

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