The sixth new Harry Potter cover by Kazu Kibuishi was revealed today at Comic-Con International in San Diego. David Saylor (Vice President, Creative Director, Scholastic) unveiled the cover, which shows Harry and Dumbledore standing on a rock, near the entrance to a particular cave.
The cover for book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, apparently didn’t have an official unveiling because fans found it online earlier this month. I missed it, but that’s life with a newborn for you. The new cover shows Harry and his pals leaving Hogwarts on the thestrals.
I’ve heard that the seventh and final cover will be revealed on July 31, Harry’s birthday, so keep your eyes peeled!
In case you missed the previous covers, here they are: Books 1 & 2, Book 3, Book 4.
I must have missed the announcement of why this was done… anniversary? Reprinting in a different format? Why were different covers commissioned?
What the heck? I mean, great artwork and all, but how dare they!
This year will be the 15th anniversary of the first book (in the US), and Scholastic decided to create new covers to celebrate. (See the post about Books 1 & 2 for a little more.) If you think about it, most books that are around for that long tend to get new covers. We own something like five different versions of A Wrinkle in Time (my wife’s favorite) because it can be a lot of fun to see how various artists interpret the characters in the story.
The other piece of it is that after 15 years, you’ve got a new generation of kids who are just now old enough for Harry Potter—putting a new cover on it is a worthwhile update because it gets this series in front of them looking, well, new.
I know fans are divided on this. I love the Mary Grand Pre’s covers, but I’m also a big fan of Kibuishi so we’ll probably get a set with the new covers, too. And for those who think that Grand Pre’s are sacrosanct, remember that those weren’t the “originals” either.