IVIV cover, front matter, back matter

[Mark Kohut]

Only to add to these fine words that Mr & Mrs Pynchon probably had 'jacket approval', virtual or contractual no matter who came up with the neon.

But di'tn someone find the site for the original artist and his pic and it is already neonish..?

--- On Tue, 8/25/09, Doug Millison <DOUGMILLISON at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Doug Millison <DOUGMILLISON at comcast.net>
> Subject: IVIV cover, front matter, back matter
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 12:31 PM
> Picking it up to re-read Ch 1, noting
> how well the dust jacket illustration pegs the novel in the
> detective noir category, and thinking the author himself
> probably specificed the pink and green neon
> typography.  It would be interesting to know if it was
> his idea to make it neon, although that could easily have
> been the book jacket designer's move, given that it's a
> standard element in mystery book cover illustrations. 
> Somebody mentioned the car looks like a rocket.  "Dying
> to Surf" and "R.I.P." suggest and end to the hoped-for
> "Eternal Summer" on this beach.
> 
> Following the book jacket, the rich colors of the cover
> illo fade to black then pink, then stark black and white,
> then gray: the repeated gray of the three title page
> variants - I don't know what else to call the page that
> precedes Also by Thomas Pynchon, or the gray page with the
> novel's title that faces the back of the page with the May
> '68 graffito.
> 
> These gray pages I hesitate to call a "red flag" but the
> repetition once, twice, a third time, does seem to call
> attention to itself, as a design statement if nothing
> else.  But I think there may be something, too, in this
> transition from the high-contrast bold colors of the cover
> to this wash of gray where the story begins.
> 
> No corresponding gray page(s) at the end of the novel. Just
> a few blanks of this pretty paper, then the black/white,
> pink, and glowing beach sunset colors of the illustration on
> the back of the dustjacket, sun below the horizon, night
> falling.
>