Books Empire & Rebellion #2: Honor Among Thieves

I like stories that have Han as the central character. You know that when he takes the center stage, chaos usually abounds. And while I liked Scoundrels, I didn't take to it like I did with all of Zahn's other works.

 

Look out! It's Zombie Han and the Attack of the TESB Promotional Images!

 

I am disappointed people, no Uncharted 2 jokes or photoshops yet?

 

No more Empire and Rebellion?

Sent from my Secure-A3 comlink

 

Nope. She's completely modeled over LL

 

He looks haggard and dead-eyed, with his arms hanging loose, shoulders slumped, and head hanging forward. It's a really weird pose for a book cover. Add in the cardboard cutouts of Luke and Leia lurking behind the film still of Chewie, and it adds up to another Photoshop abomination cover. Better than the ultra-cheap-looking Razor's Edge, but Jesus, would it kill them to pay for actual art? Chris Trevas can't be that expensive if they're willing to pay him to do twenty pieces for an EG, or all the pieces they commission for Suvudu can't be breaking the bank. It can't be the price of real art -- it must be that they honestly think, "Gee, what people most want from their covers today, what will really sell this book, is incredibly lazy Photoshop collages!"

 

I don't think it's a photoshop collage. The Star Wars Books Facebook page said it was by Alan Brooks. Author's site here: http://alanbrooks.carbonmade.com/projects/4859520#2

I like the cover. *shrug*

 

At least it is better than any of the LotF covers, but than again that is not hard

 

Oh, that's definitely photoshop. Leia and Luke are both obvious TESB stock images. Chewie isn't as recognizable a shot but from the blowing hair I'm guessing it's a Hoth or Bespin still. Han is definitely a stock photo of Harrison Ford with some manipulation. It's not the ugliest lazy Photoshop cover ever, but it's definitely a bunch of stock photos, only one significantly manipulated, plonked down on a generic background with one probably more-involved manip for the OC. It's classic basic-Photoshop cover work.

 

This is how you do it

 

That was unnecessary.

 

Yeah, but cool.

 

As someone who went to school for VFX, I feel like I should object to the reflexive conflation of "Photoshop" and "lazy". Not that lazy Photoshop isn't, well, a thing.

 

Gamiel Should have just posted a bunch of the Japanese NJO covers. That is how you do it

 

It's a total thing. I don't mind good Photoshop -- something like the cover of Shatterpoint is passable, and the crazy NJO hardcover collages are kind of awesome in their wild distinctiveness. But we've got way too much lazy Photoshop going around. These Empire and Rebellion covers, Millennium Falcon, the FOTJ Photoshops -- they're all just taking some reference images, slapping them together, and maybe putting on a filter or changing an arm to point outward or swapping heads. It's incredibly lazy, and it never looks as good as actual art. And it's so limiting. "Oh, we can't put Saba on the cover, because we don't have Barabel photos." "Oh, Kenth Hamner doesn't look like he does in all the other pictures because Chris Trevas can actually draw but I'm stuck trying to find photos of Arby's managers to put a filter on." "Hey, if I were actually good at drawing, I could draw a great Jedi Master Luke that would be pretty photorealistic, but I'm stuck with lazy Photoshop, so you're getting Obi-Wan with Luke's disproportionate head stuck on top and his shoulder looks kind of weird because I had to tweak it but I don't know how to fix it to look natural again I guess that's good enough." Photoshop can be a tool in the right hands, but way too often it's a creativity-crippling, quality-diminishing way of enabling laziness.

 

I tried to like FOTJ's covers, I really did...but I just can't. They're really, really weird. At least with LOTF, they tried to have new characters on the front. With FOTJ, except for Ben and Vestara (and Gavar on that one) all the characters on the covers were easy photoshops of old stock photos of the main characters. Look at Scoundrels, or Riptide, or Dawn of the Jedi. That's how you do an (American, adult) novel cover.

 

Unfortunately, it seems like gone are the days of Paul Youll cover art.

 

Or is it all about speed? i.e. This cover is NEEDED and it's needed TOMORROW!

 

I actually prefer the YJK covers over the Japanese NJO covers

 

I would have loved if that exclusive illustration from Razors Edge was actually the cover art, it was much better then the image of Leia they used.
This one, although just altered images, is one of the better ones, I think, but still could be much better.

 

Best covers? Ahem.

Spoiler

 

I honestly HATED that Story. one of the worst in my opinion.