Under Cover Operations: Examining Zoo City’s Artwork

January 15th, 2010 by Mandy J Watson

A special report by Mandy J Watson

Book covers are a serious business. Their primary purpose is to catch the book browser’s eye; at their best, they are a combination of amazing art and design that complements the author’s text and intentions beautifully, while forming a visual identity for the reader that is immediately noticeable but which also makes a lasting impression. This is especially true in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres and their sub genres, whose stories are often so visual and otherworldly that it’s almost impossible not to create gripping, mesmerising cover artwork.

Unfortunately, at their worst, covers are used as tools to manipulate shoppers in the most disingenuous way, based on biases and bigotries about what people will purchase and what the market likes, which become self-fulfilling, self-sustaining prophecies. This has been a(n often quiet) battle for decades, with authors usually having very little, if any, say in the presentation of the visual identity of their work, and it once again came to the fore last year when Australian young-adult fiction author Justine Larbalestier’s novel Liar was published in the US. It was published initially by Allen & Unwin in Australia with a cover that the author feels is “very true to the book” (she didn’t want a girl’s face on the cover so as not to influence readers’ perceptions of the character, and you’ll soon see why) and then by Bloomsbury in the US.

I won’t go in depth into the story – you can read about it here and here – but suffice to say that the main character is a black woman named Micah who is a compulsive liar trying desperately to mend her ways and finding it incredibly difficult to do so. Bloomsbury, in its infinite wisdom, decided to put a white woman on the cover to represent the main character, because (to put it bluntly, and these are my paraphrasing words, not hers) covers with black women on them don’t sell and whitewashing is not an uncommon practice. There’s nothing much else I need to say about that – bar the racist ideologies at work that don’t require explanation (they come from more than just publishers and their marketing departments and can also permeate book shops), the decision completely compromised the integrity of the author’s work, which is about a woman who lies, and created confusion for the readership that had bought the book with the US cover. Was the cover presenting an extra layer to the story that therefore requires a different interpretation of the text?

It was therefore quite refreshing to see that in the artwork of Lauren Beukes‘ new book, Zoo City (to be published by Angry Robot and Jacana later this year) we have the main character, a black South African woman, front and centre representing the story inside and drawing you in to wanting to grab the book and read it immediately. (To any South Africans looking at it it subtly shouts “South Africa” in ways that are comfortable and meaningful to us, from the architecture in the background to the sassy expression on Zinzi’s face.) Not only that, but the international buzz building on the Internet was about nothing but how amazing the artwork is. No outrage, no surprise, no shock – just acceptance and congratulations all around.

I suspected that the process whereby the cover came into being was probably not typical of the publishing industry (it’s Lauren Beukes, after all!) – or, perhaps I should say – not typical of the more entrenched, outdated ideologies that still permeate and poison the industry – and was curious to hear the opinions of those involved, as well as find out how the Zoo City cover came about, because I’m a huge cover-art fan and have been known to buy multiple copies of the same book just because the art is different.

The replies I received were so insightful and warm that rather than chop them up and try to weave them together I’m going to reproduce them pretty much verbatim. First, Lauren had this to say about the process of the Zoo City cover design and on the choice of cover artist, John Picacio, when I asked her how it came about:

“I met John at WorldCon. Actually, maybe “met” is the wrong word. More like “pounced on”, “accosted” even. Marc dragged me along to a session on cover art which turned out to be riveting and I was blown away by John’s work. (On the scale of blown away, we’re talking hurricane rather than leaf blower.) I ran into him a few hours later at the launch party for Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Wind-Up Girl and we ended up hanging out with a bunch of other interesting people.
When Marc and I were discussing potential cover artists, I suggested John and he leapt at the idea. Luckily, John did too.
But I don’t think it would have happened without that initial connection at WorldCon.
I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. Publishing three different books with three different publishers, every single one has allowed me input on the cover and the choice of cover artist. I don’t think that’s usual by any means.”

I then asked Lauren as to whether John had been briefed as to what either Lauren was hoping for, or Angry Robot was expecting, for the cover. Her response:

“It’s interesting because I’ve gone into every cover meeting with very specific ideas about what I think would work and what I’d ideally like it to look like and every time the illustrator has countered with something better than I could have imagined, that’s completely different to what I’d imagined and yet more true to the book. There’s probably a good reason I’m a writer not an artist.
It was true of working with Joey Hi-Fi on previous covers and with John on Zoo City.
John was amazingly open to suggestions and ideas on the specific looks of the characters and I sent him tons of reference pictures, of Hillbrow, of photos of people I felt matched the look and style of the people in my head. It was very important to all of us that it was distinctively South African.”

Zoo City’s cover artist, John Picacio, is an award-winning illustrator, artist, and designer from the US who has produced cover art for some of the most famous science fiction authors in the world. He has also, of course, worked with, and has experience of, many of the most high-profile publishing companies. I was very curious to hear about his experience designing this cover (some of which is highlighted here on his blog, and includes an “initial thumbnail doodle” for those interested in a visual representation of the progression of the process). I was also curious as to his general impressions of the book-publishing industry and publisher interference in cover design related to “marketing” bigotries that are often non sensical to the rest of us:

“Generally, authors don’t have much direct input into the making of their covers (at least that’s the case with most American and UK publishers I’ve worked with). It’s usually a relationship between the illustrator or designer, and the company’s art director that makes the cover happen. It’s generally a fairly closed loop that involves significant input from editorial, sales, and marketing departments. Angry Robot is the UK-based publisher of Zoo City and this was a different experience from the norm. They gave Lauren significant input into the cover’s making. She was copied into all emails between myself and Marc Gascoigne, Angry Robot’s publishing director. That said, I give them both a LOT of credit for handing me the job, having their say, and then letting me dream in their sandbox with the intent of giving them something special. They didn’t interfere with me one bit. With my art, I always like to take the client somewhere they might not necessarily be able to go by themselves, and that has just as much to do with vision as it does technique. Lauren and Marc were extremely receptive and supportive.
We were all keenly aware of the recent failings of some publishers toward accurate race depiction on genre covers. That said, we didn’t make a big deal about it in our discussions. Our mission was to be true to the spirit of Zoo City, its story, and its people. The main character, Zinzi, is a strong black female protagonist, and Lauren was very clear about the character she wanted to convey. She emailed me lots of photos of South African people. Lauren gave this kind of specific guidance regardless of race, whether it be the white Marabou, or the black maltese[1]. I think it was important to her to be true to South Africa, its people, and her own characters. I drew a collage of Johannesburg architecture in the background of Zoo City because Hillbrow is the setting and it’s vital to the character of the book itself.
Give Angry Robot a lot of credit. They’re publishing this cover and this book because they believe it’s a fabulous story, well told. I hope the book sells extremely well and I think it’ll be a big hit with lovers of quirky, well-written genre fiction. If it does sell well, it’ll be because of Lauren’s talent and the great story, not the race issue. And if so, then hopefully others will take note and expand their vision a bit.”

Marc Gascoigne, Angry Robot’s publishing director, expressed similar sentiments:

“The recent fuss in the US over Justine Larbalestier’s Liar – in brief, a book about a plain black girl was initially packaged with a very pretty blonde white girl on the cover, until public complaints persuaded the publiser to rethink – bears heavy in everyone’s mind. It’s hard not to take another look at one’s own policies and attitudes in the light of that one.
But for us at Angry Robot, well we’re of that new generation, in the UK at least, for whom race is just one of a great many identifying characteristics. In our multicultural society, most of us have grown up with friends from a wide variety of cultures, and there are plenty of other reasons to like or dislike people!
The old ‘black people on covers don’t sell’ adage is certainly bandied around a lot. But so is ‘books by women don’t sell in the SF world’ and that didn’t affect Lauren’s previous book Moxyland at all. (One can think of a swathe of other female SF authors to back this up too.) I think in genre books like science fiction and urban fantasy there are slightly different criteria from that which apply to pile-em-high bestsellers and the like. We’re already selling to fans of a genre that embraces male and female writers, and has male and female readers.
Furthermore, for Angry Robot’s particular end of genre publishing, namely the post-YA generation who’ve grown up on Harry Potter and X-Box and who are looking for new thrills from their fiction, once again this younger audience seems more integrated and comfortable with a variety of cultures being represented.
I should mention, too, that this is our second book with a person of African heritage on the cover. Maurice Broaddus‘ King Maker: The Knights Of Breton Court Book One [ cover details ], a powerful fantasy thriller that reworks the King Arthur myth cycle through the eyes of an inner city American drug gang, also proudly bears its defiantly African-American hero on its cover. Perhaps that one was easier – if it was a movie, Denzel or Will would be playing King, and nobody black or white would pause in lining up at the box office. Zoo City is a different sort of book, less kick-ass, stronger on investigation and the fantastical.
In general terms, publishers only know that everything about a book’s package helps sell a book to someone. But it’s not an exact science. It could be an arresting image, the title, the price, the quote on the front from someone the customer really likes. Within the SF field, it is as helpful to Lauren that we’ve used a recognisable, award-wnning artist in John Picacio and a good cover quote, and that this book is coming off the back of our acclaimed edition of Moxyland. We believe this cover suits the book very well, and is right for the new readership we’re attracting, a readership who want to read stories about a cool black South African girl and her symbiotically linked sloth, who finds lost things.”

Lauren’s take on publisher’s strange decisions that foster antiquated bigoted ideologies and therefore self-perpetuating prophecies about “what sells”:

“It’s kinda pathetic. I worked at a major woman’s magazine many years ago and, at the time, they were bemoaning how black covers just don’t work. But they were featuring Alek Wek, who is incredibly beautiful in a very distinctive way that wasn’t in line with their young, pretty, fashiony style. They wouldn’t put Tilda Swinton on the cover and then freak out that white girls didn’t sell. It felt like not just a self-fulfilling prophecy, but self sabotage. I’m happy to say the magazine’s come a long way since then and now fairly regularly features black women on the cover (we’re not gonna get into the ideas of skinny conventional beauty here). But I suspect book publishing may be falling into the same trap.
Obviously a cover has to work commercially, but it also has to be true to the integrity of the story. A friend was bitching recently about a Star Wars book he was reading where the two characters featured on the cover locked in a dramatic lightsabre duel never even met in the actual story. The Liar debacle was embarrassing and outrageous.”

I also asked Lauren about her main character, a black South African woman, and whether these sorts of issues entered her mind in terms of the content of the book when she was writing it or if it was very much a case of “this is the story, this is the character for the story, and these potential societal bigotries are ridiculous and I won’t let them influence my work”:

“Both. I’m absolutely aware of being a white South African writing a black protagonist. I didn’t get trussed up in knots about it, or let it affect the story, but I did work at making Zinzi true to herself and her background. It had to be her in this story – this couldn’t have happened to someone else.”

Jacana, which owns the local rights to Zoo City, is still working on the cover for its edition of the book and has not yet approved the final artwork and design, therefore I couldn’t obtain an official comment about Zoo City’s cover from the company. It could be that it chooses to use the Angry Robot version or it could be that it chooses something else, based on its perceptions of what may be more marketable in South Africa – we will have to wait and see, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens. Either is quite likely, although if it ends up being different artwork you can bet that I will have questions, but this practise is not unusual. The international release of Lauren’s previous novel, Moxyland, had a completely different cover from the local Jacana release, though by the same cover artist, because the international publishers, also Angry Robot, had a different perspective to the local publishers on what the cover should convey. I asked Marc Gascoigne about this, and these were his thoughts:

“Ultimately, the reason we went with a new cover was because our market in the UK really responds to something a little tougher and ’street’ and although Moxy is a cute gimmick he is very peripheral to the story – he turns up in one short chapter. There’s a danger that you pick out something from a book that doesn’t represent the rest of the book so well. The pink and yellow was too soft for what we saw as a tougher story. Hence our final cover design – a mix of Banksy graffiti and Trainspotting packaging, which on the finished book has a fluorescent finish that you can see at 50 metres. The artwork was done for us by Moxy’s original designer Joey Hi-Fi so we maintained continuity there.”

Some interesting perspectives regarding an art form and marketing genre that is often overlooked – except when it’s controversial – in favour of the words inside, even though cover art is a crucial component of the business of book publishing and, most notably in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres, a well-regarded, highly respected practise with many illustrators who are as famous for their work as the authors for whom they provide art.

As mentioned, the Zoo City editions (from both Jacana and Angry Robot) will be available later this year and I’ll leave the final words on that to Lauren:

“It’s amazing and maybe a little bit intimidating to have John frikking Picacio doing the cover art. I’m working on edits at the moment and the thought that runs through my head is “just make sure it lives up to John’s cover’.”

[1] Lauren clarified this for me, as I haven’t read the book, of course: “Those particular characters sometimes define themselves by their animals. It reads ‘Marabou & Maltese’ on their business card (under that it reads, ‘Procurements’), so this is referring not to the species of the animal, but rather the skin colour of their owners – the white chick with the Marabou Stork and the black guy with the chiskop and the fluffy dog.”

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