Cover Reveal!
Boxcutters, stories by John Chrostek
Okay, in most cases I would caution against having an author design their own cover. It worked for us with White People on Vacation, but Alex Miller had tons of experience as a newspaper designer, and I think there are a lot more instances where it would not work, or could even be a disaster. When we accepted Boxcutters, we don’t know John Chrostek was also a designer. After we picked up that book, scheduled for May of 2025, John sent me a message saying hey I was messing around in photoshop and made this graphic you can use for book club:
And I was like damn, okay, yep we’ll use that. It’s cooler than the one I had made a while back. Later on he made this for us, to make up as a sticker because Sticker Guy had a deal going on with red/yellow, and sadly I didn’t get around to ordering in time (sorry John), but we still have this cool image, and I might still try and get it stickerfied.
When we started talking about the cover I gave my usual spiel: take a look at our other cover and if there’s anything you love we can see about using that designer, but if you have someone in mind you want to work with we can also see what their rates are. But this time I also added that since John had some design chops if he wanted to have a go at a cover he could, and well here’s what he came up with, and I’ll let John explain the rest…
This is John Chrostek talking now:
Been getting increasingly into collage and digital collage since the pandemic, but I’ve been messing around in Photoshop and clipping things out of magazines since I was a kid so it’s really nothing new. My work with Cold Signal (Issue Two coming out soon!) has really attached me to the hip of public domain art and photography. There’s so much incredible work that exists out there by fantastically talented people, living and dead, that’s free and available to participate with. Using it ties your work into the stories and ideas of these artists who made them and their lives and times. I always feel like I’m fucking around in the shadows of giants when I'm creating something and this style is just an extension of that. Just a blip of color on the tapestry looking back at itself.
The stories in Boxcutters jump around from past to present to future, from literary to genre, sci-fi to horror, so making the cover look a bit like a toy box felt right. No matter how weird or miserable I get with my subject matter, I hunt for a way to make it entertaining. The hope is the cover gives you that vibe at first glance and you pick it up off the shelf or off the internet somewhere, maybe even from Malarkey directly as a pre-order right after you read this post!
Special shout-out to my amazing, talented partner Amanda for helping me nail down the cube-perspective typography of the title. I had a clear idea of how I wanted to do it but I just couldn’t get it right until Amanda came in and we figured it out together. It's fun to love somebody you can workshop with.
Publisher’s Note:
Boxcutters will be released on May 20, 2025, by Malarkey Books, and is available for preorder now. Preorders will be signed by the author. Preorders will be filled from a limited run printed with French flaps. French flaps are useful for holding extra blurbs and marketing copy, but with this book we’re using that extra space to include an extra story that won’t appear in any other version of the book.