Mistborn YA Covers

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

There was a news topic about the first one some time ago, but tor.com has now released the covers of the second two.

I like the painting on the first, but the typeset and tag about an evil being defeated are terrible.
I'm glad its being marketed a bit more, but they don't need all that to make teens buy it.

I really don't like the covers for WoA and HoA. Vin looks about 13, despite actually being 20. And the "evil has been defeated" on WoA!!! The Lord Ruler never has been and never will in my mind be evil!

I just hope these don't become the dominant editions of the series.

Edited April 7, 2014 by GreyPilgrim

[Argent he/him]

I'll just copy my comments from Facebook:

 

 

I probably shouldn't be, but I *am* amazed at how... YA those covers look.

[in response to a friend's comment about the covers being very  "Oh hey, YA likes young female protagonists, here's another one!"] Well, the female protagonist on the cover is fine. It's pretty much mandatory, actually. But all three are just "young teen girl kicking chull... and that's kind of boring. Plus, the HoA Vin looks REALLY familiar to me for some reason, and that bothers me.

Actually, the WoA Vin also looks weird to me, though not because she is familiar. I think I just don't have an objective idea about how young teen girls *look*...

[Kobold King he/him]

I think the cover artists can be forgiven for referring to TLR as evil. While he arguably had redeeming qualities (like all great villains), he had an extremely antagonistic role in the first book.

 

That said, I'm inclined to agree with you about the artwork, even though I'm not nearly artistic enough to do anything better.   Vin looks way too young. But hey, at least she isn't drawn in some kind of scanty costume like a lot of modern fantasy heroines.

[bartbug he/him]

Uggh... first one's great, second ones eh, and the thirds awful. How come it looks like a different girl in all three, with an overall decrease in maturity? The one in Hero of Ages looks pre-puberty.

 

EDIT: If it wasn't for the weird look of Vin-child in Hero of Ages, I just realized that I would love it. That koloss looks so badchull.

Edited April 7, 2014 by bartbug

[Ketek]

Hate the YA covers. Bring back the previous ones, please, where Vin actually looks like Preservation's heir and not another kid.

[Kobold King he/him]

Uggh... first one's great, second ones eh, and the thirds awful. How come it looks like a different girl in all three, with an overall decrease in maturity? The one in Hero of Ages looks pre-puberty.

 

EDIT: If it wasn't for the weird look of Vin-child in Hero of Ages, I just realized that I would love it. That koloss looks so badchull.

That koloss does look pretty awesome. By the way, is "badchull" what you typed, or has the swear filter struck again?

[bartbug he/him]

I typed badchull. not the other one.

[Baine he/him]

Blechh! I Hate the WoA an HoA ones! Vin just looks.... not like Vin at all!

[Argent he/him]

Well, do keep in mind, book covers for the YA and middle grade markets have to feature more... childlike protagonists. The art itself isn't bad - it's just not the Vin we see in the books. 

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

My understanding is that it is not terribly common for YA novels to portray their protagonists so blatantly on the cover. The Rithmatist didn't, and on Steelheart's cover David was not the center of attention and his face was not shown. I just feel like these don't portray Vin properly.

But Argent is right, this just isn't how we're used to seeing Vin. I have always felt she was well-captured on the original paperback covers: small without looking too young, and powerful. Badchull.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

To me it looks like Vin gets younger looking in each cover. She looks the most "mature" in the Mistborn cover, while super young in the HoA cover. 

 

I'm not a fan of the "YA re-branding" with the mistborn novels. 

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

damnation. I loved that TFE cover, and was so hopeful about the next two... and now we get this. Great. This is Vin, not a female Benjamin Button. Aging increases with time, not the other way around.

[Scriptorian he/him]

My very first thought at seeing Vin's expression on the WoA cover:

"Hello. Would you like to destroy some evil today?"

I don'y like the new covers overly much, but I don't know that they're as terrible as everyone is making them out to be.

(Okay, Vin in the third one looks pretty bad).

[Cracknut he/him]

Don't like this Vin looks too young, whole evil thing is okay on first book but it shouldn't be on second, that sword doesn't looks like Koloss sword at all and third one fails on so many levels... That Koloss doesn't looks good, he looks like Spy from Team Fortress 2, I don't understand how is this supposed to sell better than ones with original covers  

Edit: I read Mistborn when I was 16 but I most likely would have skipped it back then if these covers were there.... You need to be 'cool' when doing stuff for teens and this is nowhere near cool.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Cracknut

[Delightful]

Those covers would actually be pretty cool, of only Vin where the correct age. Other than that they're awesome. And honestly, I think the cover is just to get someone to pick the book up. If 10yr old looking Vin does that, and gets someone hooked on the series, then the cover has done it's job. As artwork depicting the characters accurately, that's another story entirely.

[Kobold King he/him]

Those covers would actually be pretty cool, of only Vin where the correct age. Other than that they're awesome. And honestly, I think the cover is just to get someone to pick the book up. If 10yr old looking Vin does that, and gets someone hooked on the series, then the cover has done it's job. As artwork depicting the characters accurately, that's another story entirely.

Fair enough. Leave the job of creating true-to-canon works to the fan artists, I suppose. And there are aspects of the covers that I like.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Those covers would actually be pretty cool, of only Vin where the correct age. Other than that they're awesome. And honestly, I think the cover is just to get someone to pick the book up. If 10yr old looking Vin does that, and gets someone hooked on the series, then the cover has done it's job. As artwork depicting the characters accurately, that's another story entirely.

I don't know... Vin's face on Well of Ascension is pretty messed up...

I wonder if the pages are being reformatted to be more like a YA book as well. Tor hardcovers usually have about 40 lines per page with pretty small print. YA books usually have about 33 lines per page. These books could be almost 700 pages in hardcover, which is daunting for those who usually read YA novels...