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He probably rarely has total freedom... DomA Send a noteboard - 07/05/2012 03:59:46 AM
Clearly they let him be an artist with those, instead of saying "ths is what we want, draw it"


American publishers in particular (because the stakes are higher than in other markets, the competition more ferocious as well) take the marketing importance of book covers fairly seriously.

Whelan's style is in demand, so when they hire him normally they expect him to do something Whelanesque, but that's another type of constraint in the end, and they would never let him complete freedom with the illustration, the choice of scene etc. anyway. His professional opinion and creative input yes, but the final say on much of anything no. That's part of the job definition of a professional/commercial illustrator.

In this case he had the additional constraint that he was hired because he was capable of creating an illustration that wouldn't clash with the "branding" of WoT, which is exactly what he delivered.

I know it's not you who brought it up, but "being creative" and coming up with a wholly different interpretation or style for WoT, when it's the last book of the series was exactly what they didn't want to do. For all that for many people (incl. me) the art direction chosen for WOT sucks and discouraged me from buying the first book for years because those tacky retro covers could only mean post Tolkien atrocious Fantasy, Tor did manage to create a strong, hard to miss in stores, brand recognition for the series. They'd have been stupid to throw this away at this point, not to mention a lot of hardcover buyers of series are pretty fussy about their matching covers. They're well aware they'll need in a not too distant future to revamp and modernize the image, which they started doing with the ebook covers that we will begin to see in trade format this year. It just would have been a very bad idea to do this for the last HC, especially since their plans for the revamp is apparently to offer the books in trade and mass market PB once the series is over.
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AMOL: Michael Whelan’s Cover for A Memory of Light Revealed - 03/05/2012 03:58:59 PM 1783 Views
Meh - 03/05/2012 04:19:00 PM 826 Views
Meh to your Meh, Its great! - 03/05/2012 04:26:42 PM 872 Views
yeh, alright - 03/05/2012 05:19:48 PM 874 Views
Sword grip is not wrong - 03/05/2012 06:14:11 PM 815 Views
Re: Meh - 03/05/2012 05:11:43 PM 885 Views
Didn't he - 03/05/2012 05:26:52 PM 764 Views
Re: Didn't he - 03/05/2012 07:01:24 PM 877 Views
*Psst* It's been posted. *NM* - 03/05/2012 04:45:19 PM 543 Views
*Psst* I know. See my reply that said post. *NM* - 04/05/2012 07:40:37 AM 329 Views
*Psst* Sorry, I missed that. *NM* - 04/05/2012 03:02:49 PM 439 Views
As did I.... Heh *NM* - 04/05/2012 03:16:54 PM 349 Views
Guess we know he picks Nynaeve and Moiraine to link with Callandor - 04/05/2012 12:25:44 PM 799 Views
Re: Guess we know he picks Nynaeve and Moiraine to link with Callandor - 12/05/2012 01:16:27 AM 673 Views
Re: Guess we know he picks Nynaeve and Moiraine to link with Callandor - 12/05/2012 04:07:44 PM 695 Views
Re: Guess we know he picks Nynaeve and Moiraine to link with Callandor - 14/05/2012 03:26:55 PM 883 Views
Its Moiraine and Nynaeve... - 14/05/2012 03:42:10 PM 664 Views
Min is not in the equation IMO. She can't channel which makes her useless for Callandor - 15/05/2012 03:02:40 AM 632 Views
... you had me at "useless" *NM* - 15/05/2012 04:06:29 AM 327 Views
And another awful cover for WoT. - 04/05/2012 01:26:00 PM 914 Views
Re: And another awful cover for WoT. - 04/05/2012 06:45:05 PM 846 Views
It's woefully underwhelming for the final cover of a series will be going on 24 years - 05/05/2012 12:19:09 AM 853 Views
why don't you do the cover art then? - 05/05/2012 05:24:32 PM 777 Views
+1 *NM* - 06/05/2012 11:00:59 AM 362 Views
why don't you learn how do deal with criticism? - 06/05/2012 08:16:03 PM 733 Views
that's a shame. I love his ebook covers. - 07/05/2012 03:10:31 AM 828 Views
He probably rarely has total freedom... - 07/05/2012 03:59:46 AM 757 Views
Re: And another awful cover for WoT. - 12/05/2012 04:46:29 PM 729 Views
Can I wait for the E-Book cover? - 05/05/2012 03:15:42 AM 748 Views

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