The next step beyond white washing characters on the cover

[james_davis_nicoll]

Removing the author's name while drawing attention to the white male producer.

Wow, these people have even removed my NAME from my novel's cover in the tweet. Woooooooow, mschew. 😒. They don't even know details. https://t.co/HacaZKMRQi

— Nnedi Okorafor, PhD (@Nnedi) July 11, 2017

Comments

[kjn]

The contrast with Martin's announcement is staggering.

[kithrup]

Yeah I'm thinking GRRM isn't too happy about that vice story. I wonder if he's yelled at them. Or had his lawyers do it.

Since I'm not looking at LJ anymore...

[dewline]

...I'm guessing that he gave full credit where it's due there?

Re: Since I'm not looking at LJ anymore...

[kithrup]

Vastly. Including a photo of the author.

In that case...

[dewline]

...go Team Martin/Okorafor!

Re: In that case...

[ba_munronoe]

Martin would like to reiterate that it's team Okorafor/a bunch of people which happens to include Martin. :)

Re: In that case...

[dewline]

I stand properly and justly corrected.

[catherineldf]

Soon, we will all be GRRM...

[princessofgeeks]

*see icon*

[conuly]

WOW. That's... I don't... I can't even. Wow.

[eub]

My initial thought was "I bet they're feeling aggrieved and telling themselves they just took the automatic centered crop to this squarer aspect ratio, but I suspect they would somehow have managed to notice the problem if it were a different author."

But no. It's not an automatic centered crop, it's above center. The title and author are symmetrically placed at top and bottom (very close), and yet the crop manages to include one and not the other.

[nelc]

Tbf-ish, the automation in question might have existed only in the mind of the graphics bod who cropped the picture, i.e. they looked at the composition constraints, determined they needed a squarish crop of the cover, cropped it to the maximum width, and then jigged it up a bit to make it a more pleasing image. Many of my brethren are somewhat aliterate, and regard all text as just more-or-less inconvenient shapes, giving no consideration to the literal meaning, let alone the context, of text. I don't think that's a desirable attitude, btw, I just know a lot of oblivious designers.

Saying that, their director or editor should have shown a bit more awareness, maybe tossed it back to the graphics bod and told them to crop GRRM differently or crop the cover to include the name then apply contextual-fill to the edges, or retype the author's name, or something.

Edit: Here's what another website did with the same image to fit their requirements:

[vass]

Also, in the text of the tweet, attributing the novel to 'African'. Not Nnedi Okorafor, an award-winning Nigerian-American author of Igbo heritage. Just the continent of Africa. Like, the actual physical land mass.