Hey, remember that link I gave yesterday to a Publishers Weekly article on AfAm lit in today’s marketplace? Well, this is the cover image. I thought you should see it because it’s gotten more than a few people pissed off.

You can read more about it at the link, but basically, the original image is from a book about black imagery in America, taken by a professional photographer, and used by PW with her permission. It’s a striking and remarkable image on its own – but here, on the cover of a major book trade magazine, representing an otherwise excellent article about current AfAm literature, one has to question its appropriateness. PW editor Calvin Reid (a former Glyph Comics Award judge) is quoted in the article at the link above as believing the image was “ironic” and the accompanying copy as “amusing and memorable.”

I dunno. If he honestly didn’t believe that this cover would garner such a negative reaction, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I think he should’ve gotten a second opinion. Why choose an image that is highly evocative of the 70s to represent an article about how AfAm writers want to break free from the stereotypes of the past and reach a wider audience with their work? I would argue that this cover undermines the article it’s supposed to represent. At the very least, this amounts to an error in judgment on Reid’s part which could’ve been easily avoided had he stopped and thought about it for a minute. (And couldn’t they have put the space for the subscriber address someplace where it’s not blocking the face?)