Publishers are always looking to refresh the backlist of authors and sell more copies. In the 70’s the beautiful painted book covers went out of fashion and photo covers came into vogue. The UK publisher Fontana had paperback rights to many of the well known thriller writers of the time like Desmond Bagley, Alastair Maclean, Hammond Innes, Helen MacInnes and Eric Ambler. I would imagine that if you’re a successful writer the occasional wonky cover art comes with the territory but these covers in particular were very, very odd. Broken Covers is an occasional series looking at some of these covers.

The tech world is always coming up with some new crazy thing and this year it’s AI and “deep fake” technology. One of the most recent entries into this world is MyHeritage.com with an application that allows you to “animate” old photos. Now you can see those grandparents you never met move their head in those old pictures and look around! Now they’re winking!

I immediately took this opportunity to do something weird. What would some of those wacky old photo covers look animated? Below is the answer. Be prepared to laugh! Be prepared to cry! Be prepared to look away in horror!

Finally we can see what’s going on in the mind of playful princesses beyond murder.

He looks even more scared in motion!

Is that a book model or David Cassidy?

He’s so, so dreamy! *sigh*

The Horror! The Horror!!!!

A special request from novelist and spy fan extraordinaire, Mike Ripley.

I think she’s regretting getting involved with this guy…

If you have any wish list for further “live” photo covers, please chime in below in the comments!