I know that a lot of fantasy readers have a fondness for the 90s era covers, which are largely out of style nowadays other than the Stormlight Archive books. Personally, I’m more of a fan of the illustrative style that kids books have been championing for years, and I cannot stand photographs of real humans on my books. The romance genre is guilty of this, and nothing could interest me less than a generic model torso. I wish I could say that covers didn’t matter for the books I pick out, especially since self-published authors are much less likely to have the budget to throw at a professional cover artist. However, I know I’ve avoided books for years that ended up being favorites because of bad covers (shout out to Red Dot by Mike Karpa!)
Because I’m not talking books, I’ll talk about artist names and link book covers to their websites instead of the Goodreads pages. Similarly, I’m limiting myself to novels only. Comic covers are a whole different beast, with traditions completely seperate from the prose books.
- Weston Wei – my new obsession. His sense of color is unique, and I’m entranced by everything this man has created.
- Simón Prades – his cover for The Spear Cuts Through Water is a perfect cover for a perfect book. He’s got a wide variety of styles, but his use of perspective and scale always impresses me!
- Michah Epstein – there are so many book covers I could have chosen here, but his work on The Deep shows the emotional depth and stillness that runs through much of his work. He also did the Subterranean press Jade City editions, which are incredible.
- Feifei Ruan – I feel like her covers constantly border on too crowded, but she manages to create focal points within chaos that guide the eye through her covers.
- Marcus Whinney – I can’t say that I’m in love with every cover Whinney’s made, but this man created the best epic fantasy covers of the last decade. His work on Bloodsworn Saga is a masterpiece. Look at the itty bitty human next to the dragon!
- Alyssa Winans – has a mountain of great covers to pick from. I could have gone with Singing Hills, Floating Hotel, or Polk’s new novel Feywild Job. I chose her Forever Desert work because of how symbolically intense it is when taken in conjunction with the stories themselves.
- Yuta Onoda – she mostly works in the kids lit space, and her covers are always dynamic and full of movement. Truly a feast for the eyes.
- Sam Weber – Sam’s done a variety of cover styles, including Mistborn books. However, I think he’s at his best leaning into hauntings and horrors with his cover art. I haven’t read Prosper’s Demon yet, but the cover is unfortgettable. Sadly, I couldn’t find a website for him that I was 100% confident was his.
- Patrick Léger – His covers are simple – the Fox Wife is one of his more complicated ones – but I find they pop because he excellently manages his foreground characters. These aren’t flashy, but they resonate with me a lot.
- Charis Loke – she also does a bunch of mapmaking for fantasy books. Mostly, after the horrible covers for Greenbone Saga, I was happy to see her tackle one of the short story collections with something more evocative.
Who are some of your favorite cover artists? Do you notice when a style pops up on multiple books you’ve read?
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
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