From Front To Back, It’s The Wraparound Cover Featuring Ian Miller

I’ve long since been fascinated by the endless inventiveness of book covers and a good designer’s approach to the artistry applied to such a relatively small surface area. This is an art-form now all but disappeared due to the proliferation of those chunky petrol station/supermarket paperbacks and e-books. I hope that I have presented some good examples of well designed covers from the past on these very pages to even things up a little though. For this week’s selection I decided to concentrate on a novel (oh dear, sorry for the pun) solution to this problem of working in such a small area by carrying the design work over onto the back cover. These pieces are not as common as you might imagine, people rarely look at the back of a book and so it’s always a huge bonus when I find a wraparound cover where I didn’t expect one. You should always check your back covers people!

The king of the wraparound (for me at least) is a chap from the UK called Ian Miller who has a website here. Pretty much everything he produces spills across the front cover and spine, flowing on to the back of the book like it just doesn’t want to stop. I wrote a short piece about him here which included eight of my then current favourite front covers but at that point I hadn’t figured out how to photograph the whole book without it looking rubbish or damaging the fragile spine by flattening it out so the article just didn’t have the impact I thought it deserved. I’ll always see that post as a missed opportunity and a bit of a flop despite it’s very respectable viewing figures.

Well, after lots of experimentation (and a little technical innovation) I finally developed a technique of successfully creating wraparound covers to sufficiently appease my exacting expectations and got an early chance to work with three of my favourite Ian Miller/H. P. Lovecraft pieces courtesy of my good friend, fellow paperback aficionado Teece. His bit can be found here and features Teece on words and me on images. The thoughts of that missed opportunity were beginning to recede after showing off these three covers in all their wraparound glory and seen fully as the artist intended.

This post should now finally put the personal humiliation of my dreaded missed opportunity well and truly behind me as I present eight full wraparound covers by Ian Miller. It’s only fair to admit that several titles have appeared before elsewhere on the blog but only as front cover photographs. This is the first time that they’ve appeared here in this fully extended format.

I’m really pleased to be showing these off as they’re not easy to shoot (especially the spine) and the post-processing always takes longer than you plan for but I think the results speak for themselves. Clicking on an image will result in a larger view of each cover so feel free to dive in and have a closer look.

I hope you enjoy this first batch of wraparounds as much as I did creating them, your comments are always gladly received;

R Is For Rocket by Ray Bradbury
This version was published in 1972 by Bantam Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

S Is For Space by Ray Bradbury
This version was published in 1978 by Bantam Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

The Golden Apples Of The Sun by Ray Bradbury
This version was published in 1979 by Bantam Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

Galactic Pot Healer by Philip K. Dick
This version was published in 1977 by Pan Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
This version was published in 1974 by Pan Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury
This version was published in 1978 by Bantam Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

Beyond tomorrow edited by Damon Knight
This version was published in 1973 by Pan Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller

War Games by Brian Stableford
This version was published in 1981 by Pan Books
The cover artist is Ian Miller