I created a cover for what I think could be a very compelling noir pulp fiction novel about a woman in the early twentieth century taking revenge on a series of past acquaintances scattered in different cities across the U.S. who she feels are responsible for the tragedy of her daughter’s death. Will the authorities catch up to her before she reaches them all, or will she be able to…………. Cut and Run?

The background image is a city alley from Unsplash.com. In Krita I placed the silhouette of a woman above it in a separate layer, cut away some excess, and used the color balancer to give the whole image this orange tint-it had been black and white. I had to add the text in Microsoft Paint because Krita wouldn’t let the text be big enough. I placed a black box for the title to sit on so it stood out enough from the background to be legible and chose an old-timey font for the text. My biggest inspirations for the cover were This Gun for Hire by Graham Greene and In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.

The prompt

Ok, I’m really happy with how this turned out. I love those cheap, predictable-as-all-get-out mysteries and action books, so I was immediately drawn to the prompt. Also I love this outfit and maybe I wanted to show it off?

This may or may not be inspired by the cover that is the thumbnail for the assignment. My friend took this photo of me on the steps of Monroe Hall. I made a cigarette out of an index card since I’m too young to get a real one but they look cool and old-fashioned. I put the photo in Canva and used the Windel effect to make it look like paint. I also straightened up the photo a little and added black bars on the top and side. I made up the title and author, I don’t know if they exist or not but I’m assuming not. The title was a phrase people say, but it’s also got “death,” and honestly, that seems like it’s the two requirements for the title based on all the examples I’ve found. The name just sounded like a fifties author. I’m really proud of how it turned out, it looks really cool and I feel really cool both from making it and from the photo.

Lukas had been so bored for the last couple days. Mack’s gang hadn’t been as active as they had been the previous weeks and there were no other notes detailing new missions. So, what could he do? The local bookstore was open and he decided he would read some book from the 1940s. Maybe he would become better acquainted with the time period he has thrust into. He explored the store. He picked up a book with a wine glass and plates on the cover. It was called “Dinner Party at Six”.
…Back of Book Summary…
Five Stranger are invited to a dinner party that will change their lives forever. The party ensues and characters start dying. They’re all strangers with secrets that will be revealed in this thrilling tales of who done it?
…End of Book Summary…
He stared at the book for a few seconds. It seemed to be interesting. It reminded him of the detective work he was doing. He decided to pick it up. It was only twenty five cents. What could go wrong?

Background
This assignment was the Noir/ Pulp Book Cover assignment that is 3 points. I wanted to make something that had to do with the Dinner Party at Six radio show that my group produced. My character was the butler and I wanted to tie things together with the butler version of Lukas and the future detective version of Lukas. This is the first part of another assignments I did that can be found here.

The last assignment I did this week was the noir/pulp book cover. This assignment was worth 3 stars, and its instructions can be found here.

For my book cover, I again used my character, Billy “Saw” Steel, as inspiration. This book would detail his story, and how he lives a vigilante lifestyle in the tough streets of Detroit. The picture that I found for this cover is actually perfect, because it is actually a picture of Detroit. The only drawback is that the man appears to be wearing a hoodie sweatshirt, which were probably not around in Saw’s time. Well here is my book cover, let me know what you think of it!