Skip to main content

This is how you sell classic novels to a new generation


Not feeling drawn to that classic novel with a minimalist design on the cover? Well, the eye-catching book covers from Pulp! The Classics just might grab your attention. I saw copies of The Great Gatsby, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wuthering Heights in a bookstore a few days ago and I just had to pick up the paperbacks for a closer look.

In a competitive book market, Pulp! The Classics is a great idea. They take some of the most famous works of literature and redesign the covers so that they look like vintage pulp novels – complete with clever strap lines, cheap-looking colored edges and fake scruff marks. Some of them even feature faces of movie stars.

The cover of their Tess of the D'Urbervilles gives us a barmaid-ish Marilyn Monroe. There's also a Colin Firth version of Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and the tagline, "Lock up your daughters…Darcy's in town!" How about a glaring, ruffed-up Mr. T as Othello? Or Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as Romeo & Juliet?

Check out Pulp! The Classics' website for more. I really like the hippie Alice. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Where Bad Space and Good Music Collided

My first apartment was in Malate, and calling it “small” would be generous. I lived there with two girls and one guy, and to this day, I genuinely don’t know how we all fit. It felt like a magic trick. Or a health hazard. We were a musical mess. One roommate lived and breathed ’70s classics. Another was permanently blasting Korn and Slipknot. One survived solely on cheesy love songs. And me? I was floating somewhere between new wave and folk rock, pretending that made sense. Somehow, despite the noise and the chaos, we all lived together in this weird, mismatched harmony. No murders. No lawsuits. A win, honestly. My music taste now is nothing like it was in my twenties. Not even close. But I’ll always be grateful to Jacqueline for introducing me to this song in particular. It was playing when I woke up from a very memorable sleep in 2002. I was 21, half-awake, probably confused about life, and that song stuck. It still hasn’t let go.

Eric van Straaten's 3D-Printed Statuettes

I can't remember when I first became entranced with Eric van Straaten 's 3D-printed sculptures. I think I stumbled onto his work through tumblr when I was searching for new artists to follow. Eric's attention to detail is pretty amazing, and the image of the eroticized child-woman is familiar throughout his work. Most of his hyper surreal pieces are 3D-printed in sandstone material, which are created by laying down a thin layer of gypsum powder and using a binding agent and color inks to print a pattern onto it. Once the entire model is printed, it is withdrawn from the print bed and the excess powder is removed. The model is then sealed and ready for display. "I think that the girls I create in my work are visualizations of my own feelings, fantasies and thoughts," the Dutch artist explains. "The girls actually look like someone I (used to) know and the different ‘portraits’ tell something about what I think of myself in regards to her or women ...

The Adorable Sculptures of Yen Yen Lo

These images are from a series of wall sculptures created by Yen Yen Lo . Here you can see her intricately textured ceramic pieces, looking downright adorable. Yen Yen Lo's eye for the unique and whimsical is delightful. Apparently they are not intended for kids under 16. Fifteen-year-olds cannot be trusted with fragile stuff. Get them a Funko Pop instead.