This is, admittedly, a stretch. Let’s acknowledge that from the outset, from the get-go, from here on out.  But also, let’s do it anyway.

“The time has come,” Jeff Waxman said,
“To talk of many things:
Of covers–of books!–and end papers–
Of Penguins–and of kings.
And why my shelves are full of rot–
And if good design can sing.”

Ever since Penguin’s 75th Anniversary roadtrip I have intended to address the somewhat simultaneous release of Penguin 75, a sort of vanity book of Penguin covers.  This book is delightful, but flawed. Delightful, but misleading.

See, this isn’t a collection of Penguin’s covers over 75 years. In fact, what we have are 75 Penguin covers in a book.  The relationship to Penguin’s 75th anniversary is merely simultaneous, two things existing at the same point in time, but largely unrelated–like me and Scarlett Johansson, or Scarlett Johansson and acting.  If the book had been sold with a belly band, with this line, “If you are looking for a book detailing the design legacy of the past 75 years of Penguin Books, this isn’t the book.” I would have been a bit more prepared.

But anyway, the first entry sets a lively tone.  Gregg Kulick’s cover for 100 Facts About Pandas is exciting, and it is, unusually, much better than the UK cover. Three cheers for Mr. Kulick.  But with so much focus on recent publications (especially from Penguin Graphic Classics series), the book suffers, and though the majority of the rest of these covers were wonderful, they were so new as to be nothing new.  The commentary was dull:  to hear designers talk about design can be exciting, but here, it isn’t. To hear authors either praise or merely accept the designs is even less interesting.

“But wait a bit,” the Penguins cried,
“Let’s just have a chat;
For our designers work real hard,
And our coffers are quite fat!”
“Don’t bother!” said Jeff Waxman.
No one thanked him much for that.

Because good design should be self-evident and self-explanatory, and no one has satisfactorily explained the Penguin Inks series and I doubt anyone could.  Now, these tattoo-styled illustrated covers were billed as a part of the 75th anniversary and in that context they make even less sense.   Graphic Classics is a bit different. It’s cute, I guess, and it was trendy, I suppose, when they started it. The Chris Ware cover for Candide makes a nice poster, a cute poster, but as a cover it grates on me and betrays the tone necessary for good satire.  Tom Gauld’s similar work for The Three Musketeers is a similar betrayal, but of Romanticism. It cheapens the book.  The cover for Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy is earned, if not a favorite of mine. In Penguin 75, Art Spiegelman writes of, “the pulp fiction roots at the bottom of Paul’s elegant metafictions.”  Right. Right! I get it and it’s good.

“It seems a shame,”Jeff Waxman said,
“To play books such a trick,
After you’ve brought them out so far,
And made the buyers pick!”
Penguin said nothing but
“The public is quite thick!”

And thick, indeed, the public must be to buy Penguin’s Inks series.  For whom are they repackaging these books?  With the introduction of Inks, and the earlier advent of “Couture Classics,” I am more and more certain that someone at Penguin is just watching trashy television and that the next design will be Penguin Cakes, with a cake-decoration style cover–followed by The Real Penguinwives of Pervert City.

“I cringe for you,” Jeff Waxman said:
as he dodged designers’ pies
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the highest price,
and looking at their covers
he gagged and crossed his eyes.

All of which isn’t to say I don’t like Penguin covers–because I do, generally.  Or to say that I didn’t enjoy the brief diversion of Penguin 75, however misleading Mr. Buckley’s book may have been. I did enjoy it.  But these series! These Inks and Coutures and Graphics. . .

“O Penguins,” said Jeff Waxman,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall you be publishing more bad covers?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d published (almost) every one.