"The End": Cover on New York Times Book Review

[Skeleton Key]

joshspazjosh said:

Also I think that may be. . .tomatoes? Apples? Cherries? Didn't Snicket mention something about an island with fruit or something in an earlier book?

Chicken pox? Pennies? Blood? The period of the last sentence in the series?

It could be anything.

[Phoebonica]

Oh wow.

I think that is Olaf in the water - there's something on his ankle that could be the tattoo, although it's too blurry to really make out. And I can't think who else it would be. (It's quite a startling image, for some reason. Probably because we've never seen him in a vulnerable position before - he's always been the villain, the figure of fear, and we're only just now seeing him as human. Our perceptions of everything are changing. That seems to be the theme with all the stuff for B13, so far.)

Yeah. Great cover.

[Dante]

Heh, the funny thing is, when I first saw the cover, my first impression was that Olaf was lounging or sunbathing while the Baudelaires did all the work. Even if he's meant to be in a vulnerable position, I probably can't shake that initial impression off now, although it's probably accurate. Also, I now figure that the spine is probably meant to be a sandy colour, so I like it more now... Plus I figure that the U.K. edition could be completely different and have a colour scheme I can like more.

[Phoebonica]

I think it's the missing shoe thing. It makes it look like they crashed and he was knocked unconscious. That and the fact that he seems to actually be in the water.

[Antenora]

My first guess was that the feet belonged to an Female Finnish Pirate--I thought the shoe was a high-heel, for some reason. But it's more likely Olaf; I can see he's wearing striped trousers, and there could be a tattoo on the ankle.

I ran the cover through a "Texture Preserving Smooth" filter in Paint Shop(cropped down to the illustration, because the filter doesn't work well on really big images), which partially got rid of the pixellated appearance(it's still blurry, though, but this is probably the best I could fix it):
img.photobucket.com/albums/v368/pgdavis/Emily2/b13-improved.jpg

This makes it look like there's a rope near Olaf's feet, and perhaps Violet is holding a rope as well. It also makes it look more like the ankle has a tattoo on it, perhaps confirming that this is Olaf(as well as his striped trouser cuff).

Also, if that's the real border we're seeing, I think fruit is the most likely design for it. Otherwise, it could be a random placeholder(as the title is probably one) like the reddish wavy pattern used on the TPP teaser cover.

[twistedbrain]

Kinda off-topic, but: www.unfortunateevents.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18395

[freeeagle]

Wow. I cannot believe that they just released the cover like that! It's really cool. I wonder...does Olaf look dead to you?

[Phoebonica]

Kind of, but I doubt they'd give away something like that on the cover.

[Deleted]

Is that an eye on his ankle, or is that just me?

[hewhomustnotbeseen]

*faints*
*gets up*
Very very happy about the cover art. So very very happy. But I do hope that THE END is not the actual title. It just won't work for me. The pattern would be ruined. But, oh well...

[Nicky]

I wouldn't like THE END as the title either. The cover doesn't look bad, but I only wish it were more clear...

[Deleted]

how come they don't have all the books? is there antoher page and can we see it

[Antenora]

The original ad did have pictures of all the books. Here's the picture of it that Josh scanned, somewhat shrunken, but you can tell the books are all there: www.project-am.info/mazead.jpg

And it does look like Olaf could be dead, or at least injured or unconcious. The rope visible near him might be taken to imply that he was tied up, or someone attempted to tie him up. Hard to say what the Baudelaires are doing--apparently standing around looking moderately shocked, but Violet appears to be holding a rope. Are they tying up Olaf?

[twistedbrain]

I would prefer injured/unconcious over dead, because it just seems, I don't know, kinda bleh to have him die in a boat crash, which is evidently what happened.

[Hanae]

I think I'm going to faint. *gets woozy* I shall exalt you for giving us this valuable information.