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{{real world}}
{{real world}}
'''Black Sheep''' was the company that produced all of the BBC's novel covers throughout the [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures]] and the [[BBC Past Doctor Adventures]] ranges. They also produced covers for a majority of the BBC's later [[BBC Video]] releases.
'''Black Sheep''' was the company that produced all of the BBC's novel covers throughout the [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures]] and the [[BBC Past Doctor Adventures]] ranges. They also produced covers for a majority of the BBC's later [[BBC Video]] releases.


Black Sheep have in the past been critisesed for their lack of quality control and attention to detail, by authors and artists alike.
According to Mark Clapham, [[BBC Books]] had informed him that "under no circumstances was any author ever, ever allowed to contribute ideas to the cover."<ref name="GOClapham">{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Mark Clapham|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne.com|quote=I wasn't actually told that by Black Sheep, but by someone at BBC Books. It was made acutely clear to me that under no circumstances was any author ever, ever allowed to contribute ideas to the cover. About a month later, one of my fellow authors blithely forwarded around the draft cover he had prepared for his own book, which Black Sheep had followed to the letter. [...] The final 'boyband' cover of Hope was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village. The latter was especially unfortunate considering the events of the time, but neither bore any resemblance to the Anton Furst-esque city in the book. In the end the Towers of Disco on the finished cover are about as good as we were ever going to get. At least they looked vaguely urban.}}</ref> [[File:Synthespians mock cover.jpg|thumb|100px|''Synthespians™'' mock cover]]However, other authors such as [[Craig Hinton]] successfully submitted mock-covers to Black Sheep, such as his mock cover for ''Synthespians™'', whose initial print run had to be pulped. This was down to Black Sheep's carelessness with images and copyright. Hinton had worked with a fan James Gent who had mocked up a cover for Black Sheep to reference. Based on Hinton's idea of "I asked for [[Spearhead from Space (TV story)|Spearhead from Space]] meets Dynasty" Gent used actual Dynasty images for the mockup. However Black Sheep interpreted this directly and created an cover using images from Dynasty again, breaching several different copyrights. After this another cover was approved, but after the first print run had to be pulped due to the mirrored female Autons.<ref name="GOHinton">{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Craig Hinton|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne |quote=I've had two dreadful experiences with Black Sheep. On both occasions, the company actually * forgot* to do the covers till the very last minute, meaning that they were rushed. The Quantum Archangel's cover does have all the elements I asked for (apart from Bonnie Langford), but despite sending reference material and a detailed description, it's still a mess, especially the mutilated genital region of what passes for the Archangel herself (which should have looked like Phoenix from the X-Men, to be honest).}}</ref> <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.millenniumeffect.co.uk/lit/synthespians.php |title=Synthespians|date of source=|website name=Millennium Effect|accessdate=3rd December 2012}}</ref>
<blockquote>''Bad choice of colours and photos (with inconsistant resolution) cobbled together in a haphazard composition. It seems to me entirely accidental that some covers work because they rarely have any focus. The simpler ones like [[Drift]] are better but generally they are pretty careless affairs. And of course many of the same photos are used ad naseum. They pretty much all look like roughs you'd pass over to an illustrator. <br>Some basic common sense seems to be missing too, trees are shown on the cover of [[The Tenth Planet]] - a story set in [[Antarctica]], and there are four aliens shown on [[the Ambassadors of Death]], though that's only one of said covers numerous problems.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14301&highlight=Black+Sheep GallifreyOne.com Forum - 'PDA alternate cover', membership required to ezyboards](Quote by [[Daryl Joyce]] a freelance artist whose work has featured in [[Doctor Who Magazine]], [[Big Finish]] and the [[BBC]] website.)</ref> </blockquote>
[[File:Dying in the Sun.jpg|thumb|100px|''Dying in the Sun'' cover.]]
 
The BBC's position on authors submitting ideas appeared to have developed as the range did as in [[2001]] according to [[Jon de Burgh Miller]] for ''[[Dying in the Sun (novel)|Dying in the Sun]]'' he was asked by [[Sarah Lavelle]] (who was copy editing the book) at the BBC what he wanted on the cover. He sent her a package containing a sketch of what the cover should be in pencils and crayons, along with a text description of what he was aiming for, plus a couple of photos from LA to illustrate the street scene. Lavelle passed them on to Black Sheep who followed the suggestion closely, but, as de Burgh Miller describes "with so little creativity that the original cover was legendarily awful (it had a Muppet on the front)" He recalled he "wrote back and said it wasn't good enough" and then he "did a detailed breakdown of what I wanted changed, and the next draft that came back was the final one - I loved it, it was perfect. They'd even scanned a palm tree from one of my holiday snaps."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Jon de Burgh Miller|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=|quote=For 'Dying in the Sun' I think I was asked by Sarah Lavelle (who was copy editing the book) at the BBC what I wanted on the cover. I sent her a package containing a sketch of what the cover should be in pencils and crayons, a text description of what I was aiming for, plus a couple of photos from LA to illustrate the street scene. Sarah passed them on to Black Sheep who followed the suggestion closely, but with so little creativity that the original cover was legendarily awful (it had a Muppet on the front) - one of these days I must scan it and put it online, as only about ten people have ever seen it but it deserves a wider audience.}}</ref>
==Individual author experience with Black Sheep==
== Designs ==
 
For much of the [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novels the covers had a central circular motif beginning with the first novel in the series ''[[The Eight Doctors (novel)|The Eight Doctors]]'' novel which had the circular [[Seal of Rassilon]] on the cover. With this design motif in mind for his first novel ''[[Dominion (novel)|Dominion]]'' author [[Nick Walters]] "suggested to Black Sheep the image of “a wormhole in the midst of a Swedish forest”".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Nick Walters|date of source=|format=|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne.com|quote=Dominion, my first Doctor Who novel, and my first experience with Black Sheep. Back in the early days of the EDAs there was a circular motif going on, instigated by the Seal of Rassilon on the cover of The Eight Doctors, and with this in mind I suggested to Black Sheep the image of “a wormhole in the midst of a Swedish forest”, which is more or less what I got.}}</ref>
===[[Craig Hinton]]===
== Criticism ==
<blockquote>''I've had two dreadful experiences with Black Sheep. On both occasions, the company actually *forgot* to do the covers till the very last minute, meaning that they were rushed. [[The Quantum Archangel]]'s cover does have all the elements I asked for (apart from Bonnie Langford), but despite sending reference material and a detailed description, it's still a mess, especially the mutilated genital region of what passes for the Archangel herself (which should have looked like Phoenix from the X-Men, to be honest).
Black Sheep have in the past been criticised for their lack of quality control and attention to detail, by authors and artists alike.
I was happy with the original version of the [[Synthespians™]] cover: I asked for [[Spearhead from Space]] meets Dynasty, and that's exactly what I got. James Gent of this parish was good enough to Photoshop a mock-up of the cover which was sent to Black Sheep for reference. However, they neglected to check with the photo agency that they could manipulate that image, so the entire first print run was pulped. The replacement isn't unbearably hideous, but it's not a patch on the original, which itself isn't a patch on James' version.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Craig Hinton]])</ref> </blockquote>
[[File:The Tenth Planet VHS Australian cover.jpg|thumb|120px|right|''[[The Tenth Planet (TV story)|The Tenth Planet]]'' video cover, with trees]]
 
Some observers such as freelance artist [[Daryl Joyce]] have observed that many of the covers showed "Bad choice of colours and photos (with inconsistant resolution)", whilst other covers displayed a lack of common sense of knowledge of the story such as the VHS release of ''[[The Tenth Planet (TV story)|The Tenth Planet]]'' which had trees on the cover, despite the story taking place in [[Antarctica]]. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14301&highlight=Black+Sheep|title=PDA alternate cover|accessdate=|author=Daryl Joyce|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne |quote=Bad choice of colours and photos (with inconsistant resolution) cobbled together in a haphazard composition. It seems to me entirely accidental that some covers work because they rarely have any focus. The simpler ones like Drift are better but generally they are pretty careless affairs. And of course many of the same photos are used ad naseum.}}</ref>
===[[Dale Smith]]===
== Authors' opinions ==
<blockquote>''I was very happy with [[Heritage]], although it's interesting reading what Craig has to say because Heritage was also a last minute rush job because the company forgot about it. If there'd been more time I would've asked them to change the Sarlac to a cave-in like I suggested, but that's an old story.
Several authors have in the past expressed their opinions and criticisims of Black Sheep's work, many did so on the now defunct and inaccessible GallifreyOne forums.
 
Another old story belongs to the lovely Mark Clapham. So the story goes, he suggested a cover for [[Hope]] that was a single silver fist, similar to the cover for The Dark Knight Strikes Back but quite a while before that comic was even a glint in Frank Miller's eye. He was told by Black Sheep that the authors don't get to make suggestions for the covers of Dr Who books, and so got the Hope cover that we all know and . . . erm, recognise.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Dale Smith]])</ref> </blockquote>
 
===[[Jonathan Morris]]===
<blockquote>''I've been very happy with each of my covers. Maybe I'm lucky.<br>For '[[Festival of Death|Festy]]' I dimly recall asking for something in black, with Tom and Lalla looking moody and with a skull-faced angel doing something exultationy. I also asked for an iguana wearing sunglasses but, alas, poor Hoopy did not make the grade. Nevertheless it was stunning and fabulous.<br> For '[[Anachrophobia|Anachy]]' I mocked-up a rough idea of what I wanted, by photoshopping a Magritte, and the finished article was similar but not quite as copyright-infringing. Originally the clock was a little too big and the tie was blue with white clouds (very Magritte, but not very sinister). Still have these about somewhere. <br> For '[[The Tomorrow Windows|Windy]]' I just sent them the paragraphs from the book describing the Church of the Holy Prophet Moop. And it turned out rather more beautiful than I had imagined it.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Jonathan Morris]])</ref></blockquote>
 
===[[Mark Clapham]]===
'''''This quote is also in response to Dale Smith's response'''''
<blockquote>''I wasn't actually told that by Black Sheep, but by someone at [[BBC Books]]. It was made acutely clear to me that under no circumstances was any author ever, ever allowed to contribute ideas to the cover.<br>About a month later, one of my fellow authors blithely forwarded around the draft cover he had prepared for his own book, which Black Sheep had followed to the letter. Desperately idealistic readers may wish to put this down to a sudden change in policy, rather than there being one rule for some authors and a different one for others! If so, the Clapham Landmark Acquisition Company would like to offer you the chance to buy London Bridge - all enquiries and cheques to the name below, folks.<br>The final 'boyband' cover of '[[Hope]]' was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village. The latter was especially unfortunate considering the events of the time, but neither bore any resemblance to the Anton Furst-esque city in the book. In the end the Towers of Disco on the finished cover are about as good as we were ever going to get. At least they looked vaguely urban.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Mark Clapham]])</ref></blockquote>


===[[Nick Walters]]===
=== Craig Hinton ===
<blockquote>''[[Dominion]], my first Doctor Who novel, and my first experience with Black Sheep. Back in the early days of the EDAs there was a circular motif going on, instigated by the [[Seal of Rassilon]] on the cover of The Eight Doctors, and with this in mind I suggested to Black Sheep the image of “a wormhole in the midst of a Swedish forest”, which is more or less what I got. <br>For [[The Fall of Yquatine]] I had a specific idea, which I have stated here a couple of times – silver, dart-like spaceships zooming into the sky above the horizon of a planet. But what Black Sheep came up with was horrible – and when I asked them to change it, all they did was change the colour of the cloud around the ship. In the end I gave up. <br> So I was determined that [[Superior Beings]] would get a better cover. What I ended up with was perfect – I wanted to evoke the James Herbert novels I read when I was a kid. And it does! Those eyes follow you around the room – brr! But it has to be said, their first version was absolutely and utterly *****ing abysmal, shocking, horrible, you wouldn’t have thought a professional design company could come up with something so *****. It was only after I put this to them, not in those terms of course!, that they came up with the goods, and admirably too. <br> Reckless Engineering they got dead right first time, it’s a fantastic cover and my favourite. <br> So, in conclusion, er, they’re largely good. I suppose it depends who they’ve got working for them at the time. I think maybe they let the tea boy have a go sometimes.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Nick Walters]])</ref></blockquote>
In the case of [[Craig Hinton]] works that had covers by Black Sheep; ''[[The Quantum Archangel (novel)|The Quantum Archangel]]'' and ''[[Synthespians™ (novel)|Synthespians™]]'' he stated that the company ''forgot'' to do the covers and so both were done at the last minute. This led to mixed results with ''The Quantum Archangel'' containing all the elements he requested (minus Mel on the cover) and that the Archangel should have looked like which "Phoenix from the X-Men".<ref name="GOHinton" />


===[[Jon de Burgh Miller]]r===
=== Mark Clapham ===
<blockquote>''For '[[Dying in the Sun]]' I think I was asked by [[Sarah Lavelle]] (who was copy editing the book) at the BBC what I wanted on the cover. I sent her a package containing a sketch of what the cover should be in pencils and crayons, a text description of what I was aiming for, plus a couple of photos from LA to illustrate the street scene. Sarah passed them on to Black Sheep who followed the suggestion closely, but with so little creativity that the original cover was legendarily awful (it had a Muppet on the front) - one of these days I must scan it and put it online, as only about ten people have ever seen it but it deserves a wider audience.<br>I wrote back and said it wasn't good enough and did a detailed breakdown of what I wanted changed, and the next draft that came back was the final one - I loved it, it was perfect. They'd even scanned a palm tree from one of my holiday snaps.''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Jon de Burgh Miller]])</ref></blockquote>
[[File:Hope.jpg|thumb|100px|''[[Hope (novel)|Hope]]'' 'boyband' cover]]
According to author [[Mark Clapham]] "The final 'boyband' cover of ''[[Hope (novel)|Hope]]'' was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village. The latter was especially unfortunate considering the events of the time, but neither bore any resemblance to the Anton Furst-esque city in the book. In the end the Towers of Disco on the finished cover are about as good as we were ever going to get. At least they looked vaguely urban."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Mark Clapham|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne|quote=The final 'boyband' cover of Hope'' was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village.}}</ref>
=== Jonathan Morris ===
[[Jonathan Morris]] has said that he'd "been very happy with each of my covers. Maybe I'm lucky. For '[[Festival of Death (novel)|Festy]]' I dimly recall asking for something in black, with [[Tom Baker|Tom]] and [[Lalla Ward|Lalla]] looking moody and with a skull-faced angel doing something exultationy. I also asked for an iguana wearing sunglasses but, alas, poor Hoopy did not make the grade. Nevertheless it was stunning and fabulous. For '[[Anachrophobia (novel)|Anachy]]' I mocked-up a rough idea of what I wanted, by photoshopping a Magritte, and the finished article was similar but not quite as copyright-infringing. Originally the clock was a little too big and the tie was blue with white clouds (very Magritte, but not very sinister). Still have these about somewhere. For '[[The Tomorrow Windows (novel)|Windy]]' I just sent them the paragraphs from the book describing the Church of the Holy Prophet Moop. And it turned out rather more beautiful than I had imagined it."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Jonathan Morris|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne|quote=I've been very happy with each of my covers. Maybe I'm lucky. For 'Festy' I dimly recall asking for something in black, with Tom and Lalla looking moody and with a skull-faced angel doing something exultationy. I also asked for an iguana wearing sunglasses but, alas, poor Hoopy did not make the grade. Nevertheless it was stunning and fabulous. For 'Anachy' I mocked-up a rough idea of what I wanted, by photoshopping a Magritte, and the finished article was similar but not quite as copyright-infringing. Originally the clock was a little too big and the tie was blue with white clouds (very Magritte, but not very sinister). Still have these about somewhere. For 'Windy' I just sent them the paragraphs from the book describing the Church of the Holy Prophet Moop. And it turned out rather more beautiful than I had imagined it}}</ref>


===[[Martin Day]]===
=== Martin Day ===
<blockquote>''With [[The Devil Goblins from Neptune|Devil Goblins]] we just provided the BBC - and thus Black Sheep - with Paul Griffin's artwork, and they, er, did what you see... I don't think the clash of styles (black ink illustration, photograph of Pertwee's face) really works. Hollow Men is much better: we sent chunks of prose description of the scarecrows through to the beeb, and thus to Colin Howard, and I really like what we ended up with, although again - because we were adamant that we wanted a scarecrow on the front - you do have a bit of a clash of styles.<br>For [[Bunker Soldiers]] I asked a good friend of mine, John Williams, to come up with something. He produced a vista of the Mongol army advancing, which - on the back cover - had become an alien army, as viewed from the warped perspective of the eponymous 'bunker soldier'. This was probably a bit esoteric for the beeb/Black Sheep (and, to be fair, there's very little alien stuff in Bunker Soldiers), so they took the basic idea of John's forground image, and so we ended up with a picture of a Mongol soldier's skin breaking up to reveal something alien underneath (nothing like my description from the book, but hey ho), with the Mongol army marching towards the spine of the book in the background. I think this is one of my favourite covers - it's quite striking - but I had a devil of a job getting them to put a Mongol on the front. Again, buried in my Web site, you'll see the earlier versions, where he's quite obviously an Inuit in a duffle coat! I then had to provide extra factual/pictorial details, and we got a helmet of sorts, and then finally they stuck a plume in the top.<br>I haven't got a clue what I asked for for [[The Sleep of Reason|Sleep of Reason]]: probably just a graveyard, or a mausoleum, or a statue, or a ghostly dog. I found this the hardest to think about - it's much less 'concrete' than my other books, I feel - and the request for ideas came quite late in the day, if I recall correctly. I was broadly happy with what Black Sheep came up with - though the creature is obvioiusly just a wolf, and I'm not sure about the snarl - though Justin asked for one of the dogs to be removed (although there are two creatures in the dream sequence near the beginning, in the book itself there's only really one, albeit exisiting in subtly different forms in the two time zones).''<ref>[http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998 GallifreyOne.com Forum ' A Question for any Who authors.'] ([[Martin Day]])</ref></blockquote>
[[File:Bunker_Soldiers.jpg|thumb|100px|right|''[[Bunker Soldiers (novel)|Bunker Soldiers]]'' cover]]
According to Martin Day for ''[[The Devil Goblins from Neptune (novel)|The Devil Goblins from Neptune]]'' "we just provided the BBC - and thus Black Sheep - with [[Paul Griffin]]'s artwork, and they, er, did what you see... I don't think the clash of styles (black ink illustration, photograph of Pertwee's face) really works. [[The Hollow Men (novel)|Hollow Men]] is much better: we sent chunks of prose description of the scarecrows through to the beeb, and thus to [[Colin Howard]], and I really like what we ended up with, although again - because we were adamant that we wanted a scarecrow on the front - you do have a bit of a clash of styles. For [[Bunker Soldiers (novel)|Bunker Soldiers]] I asked a good friend of mine, John Williams, to come up with something. He produced a vista of the Mongol army advancing, which - on the back cover - had become an alien army, as viewed from the warped perspective of the eponymous 'bunker soldier'. This was probably a bit esoteric for the beeb/Black Sheep (and, to be fair, there's very little alien stuff in Bunker Soldiers), so they took the basic idea of John's foreground image, and so we ended up with a picture of a Mongol soldier's skin breaking up to reveal something alien underneath (nothing like my description from the book, but hey ho), with the Mongol army marching towards the spine of the book in the background. I think this is one of my favourite covers - it's quite striking - but I had a devil of a job getting them to put a Mongol on the front."''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=300998&highlight=Dead+Sheep#post300998|title=A Question for any Who authors.|accessdate=|author=Martin Day|date of source=|format=Forum|website name=GallifreyOne.com Forum|publisher=GallifreyOne|quote=With Devil Goblins we just provided the BBC - and thus Black Sheep - with Paul Griffin's artwork, and they, er, did what you see... I don't think the clash of styles (black ink illustration, photograph of Pertwee's face) really works. Hollow Men is much better: we sent chunks of prose description of the scarecrows through to the beeb, and thus to Colin Howard, and I really like what we ended up with, although again - because we were adamant that we wanted a scarecrow on the front - you do have a bit of a clash of styles.}}</ref>


==Footnotes==
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
{{reflist}}


[[Category:Real World artists]]
[[Category:Real world artists]]

Latest revision as of 16:07, 25 September 2024

RealWorld.png

Black Sheep was the company that produced all of the BBC's novel covers throughout the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and the BBC Past Doctor Adventures ranges. They also produced covers for a majority of the BBC's later BBC Video releases.

According to Mark Clapham, BBC Books had informed him that "under no circumstances was any author ever, ever allowed to contribute ideas to the cover."[1]

Synthespians™ mock cover

However, other authors such as Craig Hinton successfully submitted mock-covers to Black Sheep, such as his mock cover for Synthespians™, whose initial print run had to be pulped. This was down to Black Sheep's carelessness with images and copyright. Hinton had worked with a fan James Gent who had mocked up a cover for Black Sheep to reference. Based on Hinton's idea of "I asked for Spearhead from Space meets Dynasty" Gent used actual Dynasty images for the mockup. However Black Sheep interpreted this directly and created an cover using images from Dynasty again, breaching several different copyrights. After this another cover was approved, but after the first print run had to be pulped due to the mirrored female Autons.[2] [3]

Dying in the Sun cover.

The BBC's position on authors submitting ideas appeared to have developed as the range did as in 2001 according to Jon de Burgh Miller for Dying in the Sun he was asked by Sarah Lavelle (who was copy editing the book) at the BBC what he wanted on the cover. He sent her a package containing a sketch of what the cover should be in pencils and crayons, along with a text description of what he was aiming for, plus a couple of photos from LA to illustrate the street scene. Lavelle passed them on to Black Sheep who followed the suggestion closely, but, as de Burgh Miller describes "with so little creativity that the original cover was legendarily awful (it had a Muppet on the front)" He recalled he "wrote back and said it wasn't good enough" and then he "did a detailed breakdown of what I wanted changed, and the next draft that came back was the final one - I loved it, it was perfect. They'd even scanned a palm tree from one of my holiday snaps."[4]

Designs[[edit] | [edit source]]

For much of the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels the covers had a central circular motif beginning with the first novel in the series The Eight Doctors novel which had the circular Seal of Rassilon on the cover. With this design motif in mind for his first novel Dominion author Nick Walters "suggested to Black Sheep the image of “a wormhole in the midst of a Swedish forest”".[5]

Criticism[[edit] | [edit source]]

Black Sheep have in the past been criticised for their lack of quality control and attention to detail, by authors and artists alike.

The Tenth Planet video cover, with trees

Some observers such as freelance artist Daryl Joyce have observed that many of the covers showed "Bad choice of colours and photos (with inconsistant resolution)", whilst other covers displayed a lack of common sense of knowledge of the story such as the VHS release of The Tenth Planet which had trees on the cover, despite the story taking place in Antarctica. [6]

Authors' opinions[[edit] | [edit source]]

Several authors have in the past expressed their opinions and criticisims of Black Sheep's work, many did so on the now defunct and inaccessible GallifreyOne forums.

Craig Hinton[[edit] | [edit source]]

In the case of Craig Hinton works that had covers by Black Sheep; The Quantum Archangel and Synthespians™ he stated that the company forgot to do the covers and so both were done at the last minute. This led to mixed results with The Quantum Archangel containing all the elements he requested (minus Mel on the cover) and that the Archangel should have looked like which "Phoenix from the X-Men".[2]

Mark Clapham[[edit] | [edit source]]

Hope 'boyband' cover

According to author Mark Clapham "The final 'boyband' cover of Hope was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village. The latter was especially unfortunate considering the events of the time, but neither bore any resemblance to the Anton Furst-esque city in the book. In the end the Towers of Disco on the finished cover are about as good as we were ever going to get. At least they looked vaguely urban."[7]

Jonathan Morris[[edit] | [edit source]]

Jonathan Morris has said that he'd "been very happy with each of my covers. Maybe I'm lucky. For 'Festy' I dimly recall asking for something in black, with Tom and Lalla looking moody and with a skull-faced angel doing something exultationy. I also asked for an iguana wearing sunglasses but, alas, poor Hoopy did not make the grade. Nevertheless it was stunning and fabulous. For 'Anachy' I mocked-up a rough idea of what I wanted, by photoshopping a Magritte, and the finished article was similar but not quite as copyright-infringing. Originally the clock was a little too big and the tie was blue with white clouds (very Magritte, but not very sinister). Still have these about somewhere. For 'Windy' I just sent them the paragraphs from the book describing the Church of the Holy Prophet Moop. And it turned out rather more beautiful than I had imagined it."[8]

Martin Day[[edit] | [edit source]]

Bunker Soldiers cover

According to Martin Day for The Devil Goblins from Neptune "we just provided the BBC - and thus Black Sheep - with Paul Griffin's artwork, and they, er, did what you see... I don't think the clash of styles (black ink illustration, photograph of Pertwee's face) really works. Hollow Men is much better: we sent chunks of prose description of the scarecrows through to the beeb, and thus to Colin Howard, and I really like what we ended up with, although again - because we were adamant that we wanted a scarecrow on the front - you do have a bit of a clash of styles. For Bunker Soldiers I asked a good friend of mine, John Williams, to come up with something. He produced a vista of the Mongol army advancing, which - on the back cover - had become an alien army, as viewed from the warped perspective of the eponymous 'bunker soldier'. This was probably a bit esoteric for the beeb/Black Sheep (and, to be fair, there's very little alien stuff in Bunker Soldiers), so they took the basic idea of John's foreground image, and so we ended up with a picture of a Mongol soldier's skin breaking up to reveal something alien underneath (nothing like my description from the book, but hey ho), with the Mongol army marching towards the spine of the book in the background. I think this is one of my favourite covers - it's quite striking - but I had a devil of a job getting them to put a Mongol on the front."[9]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ Mark Clapham. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne.com. “I wasn't actually told that by Black Sheep, but by someone at BBC Books. It was made acutely clear to me that under no circumstances was any author ever, ever allowed to contribute ideas to the cover. About a month later, one of my fellow authors blithely forwarded around the draft cover he had prepared for his own book, which Black Sheep had followed to the letter. [...] The final 'boyband' cover of Hope was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village. The latter was especially unfortunate considering the events of the time, but neither bore any resemblance to the Anton Furst-esque city in the book. In the end the Towers of Disco on the finished cover are about as good as we were ever going to get. At least they looked vaguely urban.”
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Craig Hinton. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne. “I've had two dreadful experiences with Black Sheep. On both occasions, the company actually * forgot* to do the covers till the very last minute, meaning that they were rushed. The Quantum Archangel's cover does have all the elements I asked for (apart from Bonnie Langford), but despite sending reference material and a detailed description, it's still a mess, especially the mutilated genital region of what passes for the Archangel herself (which should have looked like Phoenix from the X-Men, to be honest).”
  3. ↑ Synthespians. Millennium Effect. Retrieved on 3rd December 2012.
  4. ↑ Jon de Burgh Miller. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. “For 'Dying in the Sun' I think I was asked by Sarah Lavelle (who was copy editing the book) at the BBC what I wanted on the cover. I sent her a package containing a sketch of what the cover should be in pencils and crayons, a text description of what I was aiming for, plus a couple of photos from LA to illustrate the street scene. Sarah passed them on to Black Sheep who followed the suggestion closely, but with so little creativity that the original cover was legendarily awful (it had a Muppet on the front) - one of these days I must scan it and put it online, as only about ten people have ever seen it but it deserves a wider audience.”
  5. ↑ Nick Walters. A Question for any Who authors.. GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne.com. “Dominion, my first Doctor Who novel, and my first experience with Black Sheep. Back in the early days of the EDAs there was a circular motif going on, instigated by the Seal of Rassilon on the cover of The Eight Doctors, and with this in mind I suggested to Black Sheep the image of “a wormhole in the midst of a Swedish forest”, which is more or less what I got.”
  6. ↑ Daryl Joyce. PDA alternate cover (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne. “Bad choice of colours and photos (with inconsistant resolution) cobbled together in a haphazard composition. It seems to me entirely accidental that some covers work because they rarely have any focus. The simpler ones like Drift are better but generally they are pretty careless affairs. And of course many of the same photos are used ad naseum.”
  7. ↑ Mark Clapham. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne. “The final 'boyband' cover of Hope was actually arrived at through a process of knocking back the draft covers a couple of times. The fey young lads at the front were in the cover from the beginning, but I got two original variants of the landscape - one which looked like 'Emmerdale', with farm buildings and such, and another which bore an unfortunate resemblance to an Afghan village.”
  8. ↑ Jonathan Morris. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne. “I've been very happy with each of my covers. Maybe I'm lucky. For 'Festy' I dimly recall asking for something in black, with Tom and Lalla looking moody and with a skull-faced angel doing something exultationy. I also asked for an iguana wearing sunglasses but, alas, poor Hoopy did not make the grade. Nevertheless it was stunning and fabulous. For 'Anachy' I mocked-up a rough idea of what I wanted, by photoshopping a Magritte, and the finished article was similar but not quite as copyright-infringing. Originally the clock was a little too big and the tie was blue with white clouds (very Magritte, but not very sinister). Still have these about somewhere. For 'Windy' I just sent them the paragraphs from the book describing the Church of the Holy Prophet Moop. And it turned out rather more beautiful than I had imagined it”
  9. ↑ Martin Day. A Question for any Who authors. (Forum). GallifreyOne.com Forum. GallifreyOne. “With Devil Goblins we just provided the BBC - and thus Black Sheep - with Paul Griffin's artwork, and they, er, did what you see... I don't think the clash of styles (black ink illustration, photograph of Pertwee's face) really works. Hollow Men is much better: we sent chunks of prose description of the scarecrows through to the beeb, and thus to Colin Howard, and I really like what we ended up with, although again - because we were adamant that we wanted a scarecrow on the front - you do have a bit of a clash of styles.”
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