JUDGING A BOOK BY IT'S COVER

Recently I've noticed myself being very influenced by covers of books. I knew nothing about the novel Fallen by  Lauren Kate but the cover was stunning and noticeable. I was intrigued with Carrie Ryan's The Forest Of Hands and Teeth when I heard Zombies were involved but the beautiful cover is what really cemented the purchase. I love comic books and have recently cut back on individual issues and increased my trade collections. As a Female comicbook reader I'm used to female characters having flimsy costumes but recently I've found myself being turned off by a lot of books just by their covers alone. Here are two examples:

                                                                     

When I saw the covers to both of these books I immediately decided they weren't for me. I felt on a basic level that these books weren't marketed towards women. I didn't even bother opening the book to see inside. This proved to be a misjudgement on my part. As the month's went buy I started to hear positive buzz about Marvel Diva's. I recently picked up the tpb. The book is amazing. I can best compare it to Sex And The City with SuperHeroes.!

The characters are smart, sexy, and deal with a lot of issues young women face today: career, love, independeance, and for the character Firestar a major illness. Thankfully social networking sites like twitter connect with a lot of comic book review sites. It was a review by Laura Hudson that convinced me to buy the book. She also brought up the subject of the covers of the series. I guess some male readers might have enjoyed this series but a lot of female readers missed out. With the proper covers this series would have been successfully marketed to teen girls and the magazines and websites they visit.

Similiarly with Power Girl I based my initial opinion on the cover. Power Girl's magnificent "assets" dominate her costume and the cover. Again I thought not for me though I was intrigued by Amanda Conner's art. It was a wonderful review by @thenerdybird on her blog:  "Has Boobs Read's Comics" that changed my mind. I've just started the book and it is a Joy!  Kara is a wonderful character and again she has much to offer to teen readers. She is trying to find a place for herself in the world and builds a supportive cast of characters around her. Amanda is an inspiration as an artist, rather then try to downplay Kara's figure she embraces it without oversexualizing her. I'm so grateful I didn't miss out on these two books. I wonder again though about the marketing of them visually I'm hoping word of mouth and my contribution thru blogging gets these books into the hands of girls that will really enjoy them :)

Both of these books really reinforced with me that I need to look thru the supeficial aspects  of the book and give it a try!