I’ve raved a fair bit about Marc Simonetti on Fantasy-Faction before. In case you missed those posts, he’s a French artist who has been in high demand by a number of high-profile SFF publishers as of late. What impresses me most about Simonetti’s cover work is that everything he produces absolutely nails the tone of a book by capturing a scene from within absolutely as you imagined it. Where as most SFF covers seem to be created from a brief along the lines of ‘a hodded man looking at a magical looking city’, you truly believe Simonetti has read the books he has been commissioned to produce art for, carefully chosen THE moment he believes best represents the soul of the book and poured his heart into making it come alive.
Now, I should add that I do really like the covers that already exist for the Discworld novels. Well, the ones created by Josh Kirby prior to his death in 2011. I felt the characters and scenes on each novel were really well thought out, enjoyable and worked hard on. I should also say that I don’t dislike the covers that have come since. However, when you look at say Snuff, Thud, Dodger, etc you do get that familiar feeling that the artist has been told: ‘we want the main character, who is like a kid in a top hat, in the style that Kirby used to do.’ They work, they serve their purpose, but they don’t seem to have been created by someone with a genuine knowledge and love of the books.
If you have ever seen Marc’s work for authors such as Sanderson, Rothfuss or Martin then you will understand why I get excited every time I hear that he is working on a book or series I enjoy. On that note, I should actually say that Pratchett’s books aren’t my favourite (I’m an epic fantasy fan through and through), but I’ve come to love his characters and enjoyed certain scenes that make up the overall satire (which is what I find less interesting). That said, despite me not being Pratchett’s number one fan I was super excited when I heard Simonetti was working on the covers and I was right to be… they are phenominal. I’ve uploaded a few covers below, but for the whole lot do head over to Marc’s website and enjoy the rest of them (and everything else as well!)
Again, this is just five of the 30+ images that Simonetti has created, so make sure you head over to his site to check the rest out and tell him how awesome he is over Twitter too!
Julia Kitvaria Sarene