The Stand book cover

[Danny McG]

I fail to see the relevance to the story.
Someone dressed like a Jedi is fighting what appears to be a villainous character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 

[Toby Frost]

I expect they're personifications of good and evil, hence the black and white robes. They're probably meant to resemble figures from a medieval religious painting, hence the tunics and long shoes. The evil creature looks like a demon from a Hieronymous Bosch painting, which would be late medieval.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I really dislike book covers with no resemblance to the book.

Although my least favorite are the really generic looking covers - I think the new Gemmell recovers fall into this category unfortunately.

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't really mind if they're a bit abstract. I think there are some that have become overused, though: Mysterious Hooded Man, Fantasy Object on Fantasy Background (probably a sword on a wooden table or a map) and Woman With Elaborate Tattoo With City In Background (urban fantasy).

 

[Phyrebrat]

I think that as The Stand is so inextricably linked with The Dark Tower mythos, I'd always seen this picture of the 'Dark Figure' to be The Man in Black, who has many other names, one of which is Randall Flagg. The DT books occur largely in a medieval future after The Drawing of the Three, so it makes sense to me.

pH

 

[SilentRoamer]

Fantasy Object on Fantasy Background (probably a sword on a wooden table or a map).

I agree with you but I really do like the First Law covers that are a sword and a map. No accounting for taste.

 

[Frost Giant]

I agree with Danny, I always thought the one figure was influenced by the Jedi. I remember wondering what the deal was with the sickle-wielding black chicken figure when I first saw the cover as well. In my opinion, they had many good scenes in the story that could've been rendered into excellent cover art. I think using the Jedi vs Chicken artwork didn't do the novel justice.

 

[Steven Sorrels]

While I like the artwork, it does leave one wondering what the heck is going on lol. I have a newer version of the book with one of the Four Horsemen (Pestilence, being the most fitting guess)

*Also, to flash my nerd card heavily, I was amused by the fact that Pestilence was on the cover of my version of The Stand, and the actor who played the Trashcan Man was also the same actor who played Pestilence on Supernatural. Intentional or not, it amused me.

 

[Dave]

I fail to see the relevance to the story.

I've just finished reading The Stand. My copy has a single man walking along the centre line of a highway. There is a lot of travelling involved, but rarely are people walking on their own. It is about community and overcoming evil by standing together. So, that isn't much better. I think it may be meant to be Randall Flagg walking south before he reaches Las Vegas. He was the Walkin' Dude.

I expect they're personifications of good and evil

Randall Flagg is very clearly the devil himself and the story concerns his defeat, but I agree with Danny that there is no combat between two individuals and you would expect to read what you see at some point. On the other hand, I haven't read the Dark Tower series and if he appears in all the books then I expect that would explain it

I've been thinking what I would put on the cover that would be better. Many of the images I could think of would be huge spoilers if, for instance, it were a mushroom cloud.

I haven't seen the new TV series, but the trailers show an image of men being crucified. I think that is probably a better choice of image. It doesn't spoil, however it still tells you nothing about what the book is really about.

 

[biodroid]

Weren't the 70's a strange drug addled decade?

 

[paranoid marvin]

I guess the whole purpose of the illustration on the front is to make it stand out on a book shelf. Whether it actually represents the contents of the book is neither here nor there (from a sales perspective).

On a similar note, a lot of the video games of the late 70s-80s had covers which bore little resemblance to the game once you had loaded it, but that's advertising for you!

 

[Dave]

Whether it actually represents the contents of the book is neither here nor there (from a sales perspective).

I think that is probably very true within the SF genre as a whole. There is a discussion somewhere on Chronicles about how iconic artwork for covers was re-used over time for several different books, with no resemblance to the stories in books that they covered. It was just "science fiction enough" to make a good cover. I don't think this makes it right. If I see a spaceship on the cover, I expect a spaceship to feature somewhere inside the book. If I see, as @Danny McG put it, "someone dressed like a Jedi, fighting what appears to be a villainous character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," on the cover then I also would expect this to happen, even in some symbolic manner.

 

[Galactic Bus Driver]

Of all the covers I've seen for The Stand, I don't think this one's ever been topped:

 

[HareBrain]

I fail to see the relevance to the story.
Someone dressed like a Jedi is fighting what appears to be a villainous character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I'm pretty sure the artist misread the title as "The Sand" and thought, "What leftover picture do I already have of people on yellowish ground?"