Which Narnia Cover is the Best?: Prince Caspian / Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The tournament continues as we matchup the best Chronicles of Narnia covers! Today, we are looking at covers for Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (Thanks for voting, NarniaWebbers!)
Watch the video: https://youtu.be/vVq6FaptcpQ
Remaining schedule:
- March 26 @ 11:00am EST
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- Non-English covers
- April 2 @ 11:00am EST
- Final Four!
Audio only:
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
I think PC and VDT have had the best covers so far. I always thought the 50th Anniversary covers were my favourite, but looking at them closer has challenged that. I love Pauline Baynes’ artwork and overall I like them better than most of the first editions (I love the first three, but it goes downhill after VDT).
I think I liked the “photoshop” covers when I was younger because they looked more like movie posters, but I don’t like them as much any more. They look a little too much like someone’s high school photoshop art project with royalty free images.
The surprise has been the “minimalist” covers. I’ve liked the LB one for quite a while, but the others are starting to really grow on me as well. I think I thought I thought they were boring when I was younger, but I think the simplicity of them captures the storybook quality of the books really well.
The photoshop covers are…interesting. They have this dreamlike quality that I’d likely find cool for some other fantasy stories, but which I don’t consider very Narnian. The descriptions in the books are concrete and solid. They make Narnia feel like a real place, not a dream. I feel like the artwork on the covers should reflect that.
Definitely loving the 5th seat PC cover!
I’ll be honest. I really don’t get why Numbers 8 and 3 made it this far. Not saying they’re terrible or anything. They just strike me as very dull. If either is anyone’s favorite, I’d be happy to read a defense of them. I wish the Chris Van Allsburg cover for Prince Caspian had made it. I don’t know if I’d say that was the best but it was a lot better than 8 or 3 IMO.
Number 1 is a really cool image. Definitely one of the best PC covers. You could argue though that it gives the impression that the story is darker and creepier than it actually is.
I really like Number 7 because the Bacchus and Silenus stuff is my favorite part of Prince Caspian. (I understand that’s a controversial opinion.) That being said, it is kind of weird that it doesn’t feature Prince Caspian at all. I guess that’s a bit of an indictment against the character, that he doesn’t have anything to do with the most memorable part of the book that bears his name.
Number 6 is definitely the most boring of the original covers, along with the Horse and his Boy one.
Number 4 is one of the best Voyage of the Dawn Treader covers.
Number 5 is one of the best covers from that series, but I don’t like it as much as Glumpuddle and Gymfan do because I keep thinking that one of the soldiers in the background is going to kill Caspian while he’s busy blowing the horn. 😉
Number 2 is my favorite Voyage of the Dawn Treader cover, and it isn’t even really a competition. It makes sense that most of them just show the ship at sea. After all, that’s the one constant throughout the book. But it is kind of a generic image. Some of them also feature the sea serpent, which makes them less boring but gives the impression the book is more about action than it is. This is the only cover to convey the dreamy, poetic part of the book. I love the lighting as the ship sails into the sun!
Hard to believe there are only two videos left in this series. I’ve really appreciated how the podcasters have looked at all the covers, considering whether they’d appeal to them if they hadn’t read the books and whether, having read the books, they feel like they do a good job of representing them. They’ve given me a lot to think about.