Hypocritical Greed & Nasty Ideologues

I'm slowly starting to understand What A Carve Up more and more as I look further into the book.  I'm starting to understand the Winshaw family and their values as they display levels of greed. I feel this theme of greed could work in my favour when designing this book cover as I can generalise the characters without focusing too much on a particular character within the book.

This is a quick idea I had which shows a dial with a list of words that I find display the Winshaw family and as in the novel each of the family members meet their doom through their profession. This doesn't give away much other than the possibility of death within the story. 

Existing Book Covers of 'What A Carve Up'

This is a small range of existing book covers for the novel 'What A Carve Up' by Jonathan Coe. I can't say I am a great fan of these book covers as I feel there is much more to the story than what the cover depicts. Shirley Eaten who you can see in two of the covers was an actor from the film in the 1960's. In an interview with Jonathan Coe he says "Shirley became my novel's shorthand for female desirability" I think he is trying to say that this would entice readers by displaying this attractive woman on the cover of the novel. 

Gerald Scarfe Research

                   

                                          Geralde Scarfe, torydactyl                                 Geralde Scarfe, John Major & Thatcher

Gerald Scarfe is a more modern artist that uses social satire in his work and has become very popular with some of his pieces for example the torydactyl that is based on the not so popular public figure Margret Thatcher. He used his work to demonise Thatcher as a long nosed pterodactyl and to portray as an unwelcoming public figure. He was also not afraid to  make his images quite grotesque for example the image of Margaret Thatcher biting off John Major's head who was considered a grey, dull and boring prime minister. 

James Gillray Research

James Gillray, Plumb-pudding

This image is a prime example of social satire from the early 19th century it shows two strong public figures from this era Pitt and Napoleon. Napoleon was a war leader and politician and Pitt was a politician, it shows the two carving up an earth shaped plumb pudding as this dictates what was happening during this era as Napoleon has his eyes fixed on Europe and carves away countries such as Holland and France.  Also with Napoleon carving away using his sword displays his naval supremacy. 

James Gillray, Begging no robbery

This image is also social satire as it shows Pitt the younger who was prime minister during this era and who James Gillray liked to use in his work. He is portrayed as a money grabber and introduced income tax making everyone who works to contribute, this to a lot of people felt like robbery so GIllray has display this as Pitt commiting highway robbery.



"James Gillray was undoubtedly the most famous of all the caricaturists at work during the period with which this blog concerns itself and his caricatures were reproduced extensively throughout his lifetime and beyond."

Penguin Book Cover - What a carve up

In what a carve up Jonathan Coe is able to create this fictitious Winshaw family to portray the impact that strong interest groups had on public media, banking and healthcare during the Margaret Thatcher periods. These characters create a social satire with the book as it is critical of societal flaws. As this is a strong theme throughout the book I'm going to look at artists work that also use social satire and use a witty and sarcastic point of view within the image.

Poster Update : Part 2

I'm happy with how my poster has ended up, the colour scheme is appropriate and can relate to 20th century Sci-fi posters. I have also decided to aim my poster towards a specific area of science and being about space, physics was the most appropriate.

Poster Update