For the first Cover Controversy of 2010, we’ve got a pair of titles that match up more than most. It’s almost… controversial. Let’s have a gander at the first cover:
Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature by Leonard S. Marcus.
What’s that, you say? Not a children’s book? Oh, come on, this one counts. Now the twin:
The Runaway Dragon by Kate Coombs.
Side by side:
A curious assortment of similarities here. Both have the paper-bag brown background, the red dragon (facing the same way), and an arched title type. They also both employ what appears to be a block printing technique that gives off a pleasingly imperfect vibe.
The Minders of Make Believe illustration is indeed a classic, created in 1899 and originally appearing in L. Frank Baum’s Father Goose, His Book (view the original here). Could the Runaway Dragon artwork be an homage of sorts? Or is it just a coincidence?
100 Scope Notes 
7 comments
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January 13, 2010 at 8:15 am
Fuse #8
You might even add a third to the mix. I’d been noticing how similar The Runaway Dragon was to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Different colors. Similar tone.
January 14, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Scope Notes
I didn’t think of that one, but the similarities are certainly there. I’ll add it in.
January 13, 2010 at 11:53 am
Diane
I’d vote coincidence in this case…and by the way, I love your blog!!
January 17, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Rob Dunlavey
Maybe you could call it an “informed” coincidence. Having drawn many dragons over the years, there are just so many ways to get them to fit in a vertical format. The use of the brown paper and the rough silk-screen style is in common use these days. I do like the way the type flows right in with the tail. Plus “The Runaway Dragon” has the girl on the flying carpet. How cool is that?!
Be careful if you hint about artistic theft; think of it more as two people presented with similar graphic problems and coming up with similar solutions.
January 17, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Scope Notes
Thanks for commenting, Rob. Rereading the post, I may have gone a little too far with the “too similar to be a coincidence?” angle. I didn’t mean to imply anything improprietous, and I think both covers are very well done. It was interesting to get some insight into your process. Your “similar graphic problems, similar solutions” comment is a good one to keep in mind when looking at similar covers.
January 17, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Rob Dunlavey
Illustrators are extremely visually literate people. They endeavor to communicate with well-understood graphic forms that efficiently convey a message for the thing being illustrated. To do this, they often use schemes or symbols that have worked for others. Granted, there is a lot of imitation in this industry but often it’s a phase that the illustrator is moving through as they find their way to make an original contribution to the canon. Hopefully, what motivates an illustrator or designer is a sincere love and almost a feeling of “helplessness” when confronting their sources of artistic inspiration.
Travis, with all due respect, I think your only fault, was the use of the word “Controversy”. Your respect for books, literature and their attendant craftspersons is evident to this reader. And finally I have to arch an eyebrow at your use of a word new to me: “improprietous”. I found one meaning for it but it may not be what you intended! ;-)
January 18, 2010 at 1:30 am
Julie Larios
I know this is only tangential to your post but it involves the next cover controversy for 2010 – Bloomsbury (publisher of LIAR by Justine Labalestier, which caused the great Cover Scandal of 2009 – a white girl on the cover of a book about a black girl) has published yet another white-on-the-cover-but-black-inside book – it’s titled Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.