8 Replies to “Kazu Kibuishi's new Harry Potter cover illustrations”

1. Mmm, not too impressed to be honest. Seems like a step backwards as far as art goes, and doesn`t seem to fit in with the movies but hey, other`s may absolutely love this work :)

2. Perhaps I come in predisposed to like his work, but I like them better than the original covers.

3. Although I like some of the color palettes Kibuishi’s used, I’m afraid I find his representation of the main characters too cartoon-like, particularly compared to Mary Grandpré’s covers. A little biased here, perhaps (I read all the Grandpré illustrated books along with my kids).

4. I think that makes a difference; I have no attachment to the original editions, but I do favor Kibuishi’s other work, so my associations are different.

5. Bummer for Mary. Maybe her thought was…I already did this. Plus I never saw it as her strongest work. I really liked Mary back when the art had a Gary Kelley look to it.

6. I’m not sure these are actually replacing the original books. These are a different line from a different imprint.

7. It looks to me like Kibuishi has only seen the movies and hasn’t read the books. These all have definite visual quotes from images in the movies, rather than taking his cues from descriptions in the books. I really liked the cover of The Half Blood Prince, however.

8. My guess is that was the intention of the publisher in putting out the new line of books: to more closely associate them with the movies.

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