Sketchy Potter

I think I’m most fond of the American covers. I don’t know if it’s because they are what I’m used to seeing and therefore just feel right, or if they best capture the feeling of the story; magical, but not too child like, dark but not horrifying. Because my cover choice isn’t the most exciting, I would still like to talk about how entertaining I found the German covers.

I think they are just hysterical. I love how Harry develops dread locks over the years; they definitely left that part out in the American versions. I also love how he’s always in the bottom right corner looking super sketchy. If I didn’t know what the series was about, I’d think Harry was the antagonist in some of them. I like how the German covers eventually started using the American-style title with the lightning bolt letters. I don’t know if it’s because they realized that their typography for the first three books only made the covers look even worse, or if they realized that the lightening letters were immediately recognizable around the world as Harry Potter. Either way, the illustrations stayed pretty bad.