Recently I've been adding some later reprints of Oz titles to my
collection. These are copies from the 1950s and '60s that were produced by the publishers Reilly & Lee
with new cover designs, in hopes of appealing to a new generation of Oz
readers.The three that I'm showing here have covers designed by Roland Roycraft, in a very slapdash cartoon style. They're bright and colorful, and would certainly catch the eye on display in a bookshop. I find them amusing, as the covers have nothing to do with the style of the interior artwork!
Mr Roycraft was an artist with a variety of talents. He spent his later years living in Michigan, teaching watercolor techniques, as well as creating instructional videos and a book. Examples of his work can be seen here on his website. His watercolor work is quite different from this early commercial Oz work!
While I personally don't much like these illustrations, I can appreciate the publisher's motive. I know that the covers of the Del Rey paperbacks in the 80s were a huge factor in my wanting to read the series.
ReplyDeleteI was never much of a fan of these either, but I have come to enjoy them as somewhat unusual variants of the Oz books. And they do have a charm of their own, though I do prefer Neill's imagery!
DeleteI actually love these covers as an alternate take on Oz. Wish they'd had him do the interiors as well. It's a bit jarring to go from the cartoon style cover to Neill's fine line interiors.
ReplyDeleteThese covers are awful, not a patch on Neill's great covers. I do like the Del Ray covers, which are at least based on Neill's illustrations, but these books do not need new covers.
ReplyDelete