These Books Do Not Exist and Never Did

September 8, 2020 3:18 PM

Songs by David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads & More Re-Imagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers by MeFi favorite Todd Alcott

On Alcott's Etsy site you can buy them as posters ... so many reimagined p(o/ul)p novels, including
This Must Be the Place
Comfortably Numb
London Calling
Femme Fatale
Sheena is a Punk Rocker
Heart-Shaped Box
Whip It
Darling Nikki
Burning Down the House

and many, many more.

posted by chavenet (22 comments total)

Those are unexpectedly fantastic. Thanks!
posted by Thorzdad at 3:28 PM on September 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

[fry-take-my-money.gif]
posted by hanov3r at 3:41 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

These are fantastic but goddammit i did not need to know they were available as posters . . .
posted by soundguy99 at 3:45 PM on September 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

The Suffragette City print's been sitting in my Etsy cart for ages. I should make a move on it.
posted by rewil at 4:48 PM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

These are awesome! Dylan's Shelter From the Storm had me convulsing!
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:11 PM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

The model for some of these covers is the mother of one of my best friends.
posted by slkinsey at 5:26 PM on September 8, 2020 [7 favorites]

Some of these are great for how on-point they are in a fun way, while others are more like continuations of the original sentiment.
posted by traveler_ at 5:29 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the Etsy link. These are just so great. Clearly, they're what my walls have been missing. (Life on Mars, Teenage Riot, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea)

Also, the Teenage Riot poster uses the original cover of The Outsiders, like I had as a kid—complete with pen lines in the title and white creases in the cover from bending it while reading it over and over and over again. Wow, that's a memory!
posted by heyho at 5:38 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

These are great. I have more stuff to put on my walls than I have wall space right now, but if I had more room I'd buy one or two of these. Very clever and very fun! Thanks for posting them!
posted by hippybear at 5:40 PM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Some of these have great features for those in the know. "Watching the Detectives" is published by MacManus Mysteries, and the mailing label on "Closer to God."
posted by slkinsey at 5:45 PM on September 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

A missed opportunity to do Thunder Road as a lesbian pulp paperback, as it should be.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:01 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

The David Bowie/XMen version of "Heroes" is my favorite, but I love them all.
posted by mogget at 7:01 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

I love this sort of thing

Now let’s see them in styles like Penguin, Pelican, Signet, New Directions...
posted by Caxton1476 at 10:29 PM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’ve maintained for a long time now that Only the Good Die Young is about lesbians, with the narrator being more butch and Virginia and her nice white confirmation dress as a femme. Clearly I will have to save up some money to have Todd Alcott commit my head-canon to paper.
posted by ActionPopulated at 11:13 PM on September 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Oh my god the choice of image for Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now is hilarious.
posted by a car full of lions at 1:41 AM on September 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

This Must Be the Place is going to make a swell anniversary present. Thanks for this post!
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:35 AM on September 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

you're all wrong, the best one is definitely Jocko Homo

but seriously, these are all great
posted by namewithoutwords at 10:13 AM on September 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Terrific pulp fiction book cover mash-ups, and beyond:

Beatles "Good Morning Good Morning" / Kellogg's Corn Flakes*
Leonard Cohen "Bird on the Wire" / Nature Guide Book
Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" song & album tribute / classic postcard
Led Zeppelin "Dazed and Confused" / Italian exploitation Movie Poster
Talking Heads "Psycho Killer" / Cahiers du Cinema Magazine

*Seconding slkinsey's comment about the details: China Girl, by David Bowie with James Osterberg; Dazed and Confused credits Jake Holmes; Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ at 50: How a Corn Flakes Ad Inspired ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ (Rolling Stone, May 30, 2017) “It was about his boring life at the time,” Paul McCartney later said of song that summed up John Lennon’s domestic ennui; etc.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:37 AM on September 9, 2020

There are some clever ones in here, but I wish they were credited. The non-text art on many of these is pretty lightly edited. Pulp covers didn't appear out of the pop culture ether - they were made by artists, many of whom are known. Even where the original artist isn't known, this artist obviously knows what the source material is and could credit it. Making close derivatives of old art for commercial gain without so much as tipping one's hat to the artists whose work you've borrowed is kind of low.
posted by vathek at 4:27 PM on September 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

+1 on the details. I'd noticed a couple in passing but will do a real time test on this one: Killing in the Name has a serial number from Rage Against the Machine Books: 110292

Let's just see what happened on that day...oh, the song was released that day (US format: 2nd November, not 11th February).

I was expecting it to be the start of the Rodney King riots, but good enough.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:09 PM on September 9, 2020

> This Must Be the Place is going to make a swell anniversary present. Thanks for this post!

I have this poster hanging in my office. It's swell.
posted by DigDoug at 8:03 AM on September 11, 2020

Speaking of This Must Be the Place and book covers…
posted by mbrubeck at 3:58 PM on September 12, 2020 [1 favorite]