Scholastic UK have now released cover designs for the first six books of their repackaged Fighting Fantasy series, which includes Ian Livingstone’s new adventure, The Port of Peril. These vibrantly energetic cover illustrations are by Robert M. Ball, who is known for his ‘Beautiful Death’ series of illustrations for HBO’s Game of Thrones. Let’s hope that this new approach successfully captures the imaginations of young readers!
This first release of Fighting Fantasy books for a new generation is now available to preorder and will be released on August 3rd.
What hideously bad covers; incredibly cheap and tacky looking!
They’re certainly not to everyone’s liking. However, the publishers have a set strategy to attract new, young readers, so we’ll have to wait and see if this cover style genuinely helps them to achieve that.
Definitely a (not good) surprise. I even like the artist, having seen his work for Game of Thrones, but these don’t do anything for me to the point that I’ve cancelled my preorder of The Port of Peril. Will now wait to see if its worth the purchase – will it harken back to the better Livingstone gamebooks of old or will we get a ‘dialled in’ game a la Blood of the Zombies?
It will be very interesting to see the style and standard of the internal illustrations, as these were always an important visual highlight of the series. Ian’s stated that he’s tried to create an adventure that will please fans of the original FF books, and newer readers. I’d suggest that he’s gained quite a bit of feedback from BotZ, so would expect something similar to his classic adventures. The Port of Peril will also be available as a special hardcover with a cover illustration by the legendary Iain McCaig – that might be a better option for those who don’t favour the new covers.
That’s interesting Michael, thank you for sharing.
Look the Windows of the house of hell. The lights. It´s like hard party in the House of Rave. I think covers are ugly; but only the originals please me.
Well, creatures from hell like to have a house party too!
I love the classic covers, just like most FF fans, but this is a new direction and the ‘old’ style was never going to remain in the world of modern publishing. The key for existing fans is the actual quality of the adventures. If TPoP is a cracker, I’m sure most can look past the cover illustration.
Having picked up Port of Peril, I have to say my concerns have been fully realised. A dull, lazy adventure from Livingstone. He really is just dialling it in. Stick to the older classics of the line.
Remembering back to when I was first intrigued by these books, I felt the cover art was dark and looked like a book for adults, but is a story for kids. I think the current art is sanitised and that sense of “early grown up feeling” is lost. City of Thieves is a direct comparison… Bring back the caress of the scythe and the impaled heads on stakes! The realism was the good stuff that I liked, and still do.
I completely agree with you, however, that was a different time with a different publisher. The cover of the special hardback edition of Port of Peril perfectly shows what we’re missing!
The new artwork is awful and no where near as good as the originals!
I have to agree, James. Now that I have copies all the new editions, it’s quite clear to see that many of the illustrations aren’t even close to the high quality produced by the original artists. Also, I don’t understand why the interior images were copied, rather than allowing the new illustrator to compose entirely new layouts/poses etc. – this just highlights how poor some of these ‘recreations’ are. The printing reproduction for the text pages isn’t good either, making the illos too murky and flat. Most likely this is all down to expenditure reductions and a desire to maximise the profit made from each book.
What? They re-did the interiors? I just picked up some of my old books, to see if the illustrations had aged badly… but no, they are still amazing (I’m looking at Deathtrap Dungeon and Forest of Doom as I write this…)
Sad, but hopefully the publishers know what they are doing, trying to attract a younger audience (times have changed, and we live in an era of computer games…)
The original FF illustrations will never age – some of the most artistic and gifted illustrators brought those books to life.
New publisher, new ideas – can’t really complain about that. Unfortunately, they’ve dropped the ball regarding the quality of style/technique and the nature of mono paperback printing for continuous tone images.
The original cover artworks were amazing – these are absolutely ##it. Gone are the beautiful, detailed and atmospheric original works, now we have these generic designs that looks like a 9-year-olds art – rubbish.