COVERS: GOOD OMENS

The first book I have chosen to discuss is Good Omens (subtitled "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch"), a collaborative novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, first published in 1990 by Gollancz. The story is a fantasy comedy that plays with Christian mythos and the occult, following the misadventures of an angel and demon as they try to delay the Apocalypse.

The above left is the first UK hardcover edition from 1990, and the right is the 1991 paperback edition (the version I own). I think the dominance of black and the antiquated oddity of the type very much befit the book's supernatural mood and arcane trappings. However, I find the imagery used on the first edition to be too obscure - the symbol is a stylised map of the London Orbital motorway, which is referenced in the text but has little narrative weight. The paperback edition then leans to the opposite extreme, with the three primary characters heavily illustrated; though I prefer this cover and admire the high quality of the artwork (by painter Graham Ward), it seems more dated than its predecessor, and comes across as an odd phase for a book that otherwise has had very minimalist artwork.

These 2006 editions take some aspects of the first two - minimalism, a formula of "authors, icon, title and subtitle", and the presence of the demon and angel characters - and combines them. The covers are now bold, clean-cut and high-contrast, appearing stronger from a distance than the previous paperback version. Black and white/good and evil are established as a mainstay of the book's design, reinforced in this case by having two different editions, the appearance of inversion adding novelty and collectibility to what is really a stand-alone one-off book. I particularly like how the quirky title font has been subtly built upon, new details having been added ever since the first edition.

The 2007 issue of the book takes the minimalist principles of the last version even further. Small vignette illustrations are changed in favour of succinct icons, and even the familiar title font is pared down to one more basic. The result seems slightly like an attempt at repackaging the book to appear less kooky and more "mature", as often happens to fantasy novels (including Pratchett's Discworld canon).

While these covers are the sleekest yet, I find them to be a step backwards in terms of character - particularly the loss of the expressive title, which has always been a dominant, staple feature. Perhaps too bold a title would have overpowered the increasingly small icons, but the clean new typeface appears slightly at odds with the hallmark Pratchett font still used for the author names. It no longer seems to warrant occupying half the page, but it does, and looks thin and stretched - I believe the font would have benefited from being wider and bolder.

I believe this is also the double-sided edition, which I could not find better pictures of, but features a dust cover with two "fronts" that can be viewed by turning the book - another novelty play on the black-versus-white inversion that keeps the new editions eye-catching and collectible. Such a material gimmick would not have worked if the book was in a digital format, reinforcing the notion that this is a book you must own and interact with, physically, to appreciate its full character. (Unfortunately, the book can still only be read one way up.)

Overall, I find Good Omens' covers to be distinctive and compositionally strong, with well-measured gimmicks that keep such a lightweight novel fresh and gift-worthy. The covers have come to really capitalise on the duality of the book's characters and themes (Heaven and Hell, angels and demons) and of the two authors (humorous Pratchett and the darker Gaiman), in a way that is visually striking and entertaining. I only hope that newer editions do not reduce too much of its character and quirky good humour, which would be an unfortunate waste of the book's long-standing, distinct visual language.