Creepy book cover (can you spot why?)

Larger size here. And, Amazon link, if you're so inclined. (Thanks, Joe Sabia, via Reddit)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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CSMcDonald

Wow.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=679549499 Michael Birch
  
  I second that.
kP

This book was published 8 years prior to the shooting rampage.
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  Indeed, and that’s what makes it creepy!
  - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/OKEONAMLFIOS5WI7MPQY6SXBCQ IRMO
    
    Too soon! Too soon!
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Fine.
      
      A family of four walks into a talent agent’s office…
      - retchdog
        
        “that was an… interesting act. what do you call yourselves?”
        
        “the moderators!”
    - roytruax
      
      That works on many levels…
http://zirpu.org allan bailey

the mullet in the window
- dioptase
  
  damn. you beat me to it.
  - http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
    
    “when you see it you will shit bricks”
    - Øyvind
      
      If I had a penny for every time I read that line, and then immediately after didn’t shit a brick, I would…have an awful lot of pennies. It has never delivered on its promise. Never! (And yes, I have always seen “it”)
Maria Pranzo

According to Amazon, published in 1991, eight years before the massacre.
- http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer
  
  Really? $2.95 USD seems really low for 1991.
  - http://www.facebook.com/green.winnebago Josh Gardner
    
    Not for a Scholastic novel. I remember buying Goosebumps books in the early 90s for about the same price.
einsteinatthemall

It’s the same creepy feeling I get when I see lovely shots of the doomed World Trade Center in the pleasant background pans of old TV shows like “Friends” and “Law and Order”
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  I agree!
- http://twitter.com/noMADghost Mark Davis
  
  Go watch “All For The Best” from Godspell. Listen to what they’re singing about and watch it to the end!
  - Mike Harris
    
    Sweet LOUISE, that’s one of the more creepy coincidences …
  - Sue Lochbiler
    
    The last line is always sung by the character Judas. Not so creepy after all. Back to the book, how or why was that photo picked?
- http://burntheflag.ca Jardine
  
  Want to get really creeped out? Watch the first episode of The Lone Gunmen. It aired March 4, 2001 and involves a large passenger plane being remote-controlled and almost hitting the World Trade Center.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkrBCIBpdk
  - retchdog
    
    i dunno, i think this has it beat; some of frothing nutcases on youtube actually take it as serious “evidence” of the illuminati.
    
    steve jackson did 9/11!
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  And Microsoft removed the world trade center from their flight simulator program.
  
  Then there is the Simpsons NYC episode where Homer has to get his car from the WTC.
  - Anne Noise
    
    It’s all coming together…
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  Ever listened to the album Party Music by The Coup?
  This was the original cover, due for release September 2001; thankfully the release got delayed and they had a chance to replace the stock with a new cover.
  - penguinchris
    
    Ever listened to the album Party Music by The Coup?
    
    Something tells me the only people who answer “yes” to that question are well aware of the cover. Further, I guarantee 1000x+ more people have heard about the pulled cover than even got close to listening to it :)
    
    (I’m judging a book by its cover – heh – and don’t know if it’s actually any good, but I suspect not)
    - http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
      
      The beats are average, their lyrics are great. They’ve got a couple of killer tracks: I’d recommend Fat Cats Bigga Fish from Genocide and Juice.
- Donald Petersen
  
  That fall I was working in post production on Will & Grace, and we had to do a bit of nailbiting over what to do about establishing stock shots of the NYC skyline that featured the towers. Should we leave them in? Digitally erase them?
  
  For the most part we just avoided skyline shots for a while, and in finished episodes that were about to air we swapped out the stock shots for other angles. Eventually we resumed using skylines, but with digitally-erased towers, because innocuous sitcom-appropriate skyline shots filmed post-9/11 were hard to come by for a couple years.
  
  I don’t believe the artist who erased the towers for us enjoyed his work at all that day. In any event, it was really strange working on a NYC-set show that had such a pre-9/11 carefree joyfulness to it, and made no mention at all of 9/11 for several months. Comedy required a defter touch than usual for a while there.
- http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop
  
  Or when the WTC is featured in cartoons. One episode of The Real Ghostbusters had Egon fall from the roof of one of the towers (saved by the flying Ecto-2 gyrocopter) and at least one episode of Gargoyles had pivotal scenes take place on the tower roofs too.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=760223394 Peter Swimm

This school is clearly in violation of the 1977 Americans with Disabilities Act.
- http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch
  
  Too much stew from those oysters. For all we can tell, there’s a beautiful ramp on the other side.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/CAXN35FHKUCURQ2KGA62WDKN3U Kevin
    
    So, that means the handicapped are expected to enter from the back? Isn’t that even worse?
    - http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch
      
      From what I can see, there are stairs leading to a platform with an entrance. The stairs are on the left side. The right side cannot be seen. For all we know, the right side may be a ramp, as opposed to stairs, making the building equally accessible.
      - DrKumAndGo
        
        Ohhhhhh, so *this* is the thread where humor goes to die.
      - http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch
        
        No, no, it’s the ‘so-hyper-specific-and-serious-it’s-actually-hilarious thread’ lives. :D
    - Anne Noise
      
      Separate but equal.
      - cdh1971
        
        During my school days, the kids in wheel chairs were further discriminated against by having to use separate drinking fountains and toilets, just like black people in the Jim Crow era!
- chgoliz
  
  So were most of the buildings (in the US) prior to the publication of this book.
  ADA only took effect in older buildings when they were remodeled. Until then, caveat auriga.
  - oasisob1
    
    Oh! I used to drive an Auriga convertible!
crummett

Pink all-caps serifs? Oh, wait, I get it…
- Aram Jahn
  
  Yes, yes! The big pink letters against a blue background. Soooo creepy! Just plain bad aesthetics, and should only be used for mystery novels set in Florida. Oh, and that Columbine thing.
Isaac Marx

Digging the organic chemistry textbook backdrop.
lesmanalim

$2.95 for a trade paperback? Are you the Ghost of Publishing Past?
Bink Binkerson

Just like all the film edits to remove the WTC from the NY skyline, the Orwellian history editors miss a few items.
http://www.facebook.com/hawgey Chris Buentello

It was so close to be even more creepier with A.Bates just an N away from being super duper creepulious.
http://borborygmist.influxofdust.com/ Wayne Dyer

Being from Scholastic Press is also creepy.
bcsizemo

“Just” needs to be removed from the tagline, it flows much better that way.
(And possibly the “will” as well.)
- http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
  
  I think they were going for the high school “OMG if they see me with my Mom at the mall I’ll just die” kind of vibe.
- BarBarSeven
  
  Totally. “Just” needs to be replaced with “totally.”
unit_1421

Another female author humiliated by the reduction of her first name to an initial, because, you know, boys won’t buy books written by girls???
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I have to admit, I was horrified that Jo Rowling had to do that in 1997.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Is that why she did it? I had no idea. Thought maybe she was seeking a mixture of literariness (like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and R.L. Stine. Lol.) and protection of her privacy, like maybe her neighbors wouldn’t immediately realize that ol’ Jo Rowling from down the lane was that Rowling, writing books about witchcraft.
    
    Well, hooray for Bloomsbury for even-more-unwarranted-than-usual sexism. Imagine all the boys who’ve passed up Potter once Rowling’s gender secret was revealed. Think of all the lost revenue!
    
    Dipshits.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling#Name
      - Donald Petersen
        
        Wonder if they’ve learned a lesson from that?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Unlikely.
- bcsizemo
  
  I don’t think I could spend money on a book that looks like it would be the basis of a late night Cinemax movie…
  
  Well there is this prior version:
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082378/
- zarray
  
  Tv Tropes calls that ‘Moustache de Plume’
  
  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoustacheDePlume?from=Main.MustacheDePlume
  
  Excerpt: Inversion: Anne Rice, whose birth name was Howard Allen O’Brien. Though that’s more to do with a wacky name her parents gave her. Although she has also published books under the name A. N. Roquelaure.
sean

I can’t see it! What is it? Is there something in the leaves?
- http://twitter.com/Derek_A_B Derek B
  
  Keep looking, you’ll see the sailboat.
  - Anon_Mahna
    
    You know what? There is NO Easter Bunny! Over there, that’s just a guy in a suit!
    
    ((though it was a geometric pattern actually))
  - http://twitter.com/MadelineAshby Madeline Ashby
    
    It’s a SCHOONER.
- eh1eh
  
  No, apparently it’s the pink font. A real faux pas.
benher

Lack of depth cues in the windows?
Robert Taylor

Wow. Reminds me in the wake of 9/11, I watched an episode of “The Lone Gunmen” – a spinoff from the X-Files – that dealt with almost the exact same plot as played out in real life. Apparently that episode came out six months before the tragedy occurred. I always wondered what the producers/crew and particularly, the writer, thought about that. Must have been a mind-screw.
Ted Lemon

Is the book any good?
pkpk

I probably read this book. I used to love the trashy horror teenage books published by Point.
http://alenonimo.com.br Alenônimo

Will anyone here buy the Mr. Bates books?
jhertzli

Does the Bates Motel have anything to do with this book?