Is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by the number of recently published African-American novels whose cover art depicts the black characters with some or all of the features missing from their faces, or with their backs turned so that their faces are hidden?

I know that this is not the author's idea: I have it on good authority that few authors--particular if, like many author's reviewed here at Sheba's Journal, they are only on their first or second book--have any control over what kind of graphics will adorn the cover of their novel. I also know that, in the publishing industry, the artist has little input into the nature of that cover art either: I have been told many times by people who work in the publishing industry that it is an offense punishable by death for a graphic artist to actually read the book for which he or she has been commissioned to do the cover illustration, let alone contribute anything of their own real creativity to the design of that cover. The real control over the look of a book's cover is an Art Editor, often in conjunction with that books literary Editor; and in turn, these people are influenced by the Senior Editors in their respective departments, as well as marketing and management.

What could have driven these people to take away our faces, or to reduce them to construction paper caricatures, or conveniently arrange to have them obscured or turned away from a potential viewer? Do they think that black faces are so ugly or disturbing that they will in some way alienate the white book-buying public, or even the managers at major chains like Barnes & Noble, Borders, B. Dalton's, or Walden's?

I'm sorry if all this seems a bit extreme, but my suspicions in this area were recently aroused when I saw what has happened to the cover of Shades of Justice by Linda McKeever Bullord in the four short weeks since it's first printing. To the left, you see the 1st edition cover, the cover that I saw at my local Barnes & Noble and the cover of the book that I borrowed from the library to read. Yet when T.D., my "web-slinger", went looking for a picture of that cover at Amazon.com, the cover to your right is what he found. Suddenly, four attractive, well-dressed, professional looking, and real African-American women had been reduced to construction-paper cut-outs! Press either picture to see a comparison of the old and new cover, and decide for yourself.

It is too early for this to be a mock-up of a paperback edition: the book was just published in August of 1998! And book covers do not get modified in such a radical way for no good reason: the most a publisher will do is affix one of those stickers, like "Oprah's Book Club", "Main Selection of Book-Of-The-Month", or "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture".

Why will they not allow us to have faces?