Friday Face-Off: Mice
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘it might have been’…”
~ a cover featuring MICE
Mogsy’s Pick:
The Green Mile by Stephen King
The moment I saw the topic for this week, my first thought was MR. JINGLES! Who could forget the little brown mouse from both the book and the movie adaptation who made his home on the death row block of Cold Mountain Penitentiary, also known as “The Green Mile”? Originally published in six serialized parts before being republished as a single volume, the novel even has an installment called “The Mouse on the Mile”.
Disappointingly, I found far fewer covers featuring Mr. Jingles than expected, likely because publishers thought an electric chair made for more ominous, compelling imagery. There are too many covers for this book to showcase them all here, but I gathered what interesting ones I could find to compare and contrast.
The Green Mile
From left to right, top to bottom: Penguin Signet (1996) – Orion (2009) – Plume (1996) – Scribner (2000) – Orion (1999) – Pocket Books (1999a) – Pocket Books (1999b)
French (1997) – Spanish (2013) – German (2011)
Winner:
No one cover really stands out to be me this week, to be honest. But as you can see, certain themes and layouts are repeatedly used in a many of these designs, and the Spanish edition looks as if it’s making an attempt to take all these elements and mash it into one. Of all the “vanishing point” covers featuring the cell block, this is the most aesthetically pleasing to me, and I love that it incorporates Mr. Jingles (if you look really closely).
What do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
I loved Mr Jingles! The version I read was the blue cover with the electric chair. I like the yellow one with the car and the tower best but I agree there should’ve been more mouse!
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Definitely! Funny enough, I came across a lot of reader created covers on pinterest and deviantart whicih featured Mr. Jingles – lots of people feel the same as we do! 🙂
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They all suck, well except for the one you chose
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Yeah, truth be told I don’t love any of them. I thought the one I featured was the most appealing.
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Great pick. I really don’t love any of them, but you did pick the best of the bunch.
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Yeah, such a pity that for such an amazing book, none of the covers stand out. But then it’s King, and I doubt his books need great covers for people to pick them up 😛
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One of my favorite King stories! I do like the one you picked, and I like the green Plume cover as well.
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Yes, I loved this! One of my favorite King books as well 🙂
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As far as the required mice are concerned, the 2009 Orion cover is the one that stands out, although I have to admit that between the colors and the way the mouse is pictured, I can’t shake a faint shudder of disquiet… 🙂
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Yeah, I love the “mouse” covers, but that particular one doesn’t exactly make Mr. Jingles look like cute and cuddly. It’s the silhouette of those creepy mice feet and the sickly green color, methinks!
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Agreed with you! Although I like the car as a period clue in the pocket books ed, your choice definitely wins the most points for aesthetics. Plus, Mr. Jingles makes his appearance! Lol. I haven’t read/seen The Green Mile before (I’m woefully under-read, as far as Stephen King goes, gah!), but I know animals like shelter cats can make a huge quality of life difference for prison inmates.
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The movie was amazing! Definitely read the book if you can, but if you ever get the chance to catch the film, I highly recommend it too 🙂 One of the handful of King adaptations that I actually thought really loyal to the source material, and it was just a very good, very emotional movie overall.
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Absolutely love the Orion (2009) cover, both for topping the mouse category and as one of my favourites out of all the covers. I find that shade of green very eye catching! I think you probably chose right though! I love that dark and eerie perspective. It makes the book seem far more ominous! 😀
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It does give you a sense of foreboding!
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Pingback: The Friday Face-Off: Of All The Words of Mice and Men – Books by Proxy
Oooh! I really want to read the Green Mile myself and I agree with your choice!
Here’s my Friday Face Off:
https://rabbitearsblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/the-friday-face-off-1-mice/
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It’s a great book! I hope you get a chance to check it out 🙂
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Awesome!
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Oh Mr. Jingles. I forgot all about him. I like the cover you picked as well for the best, but something about the Orion one is also speaking to me. The German one seems to fit the covers I’m seeing on a lot of reissues here in the US now. I don’t think I’ve read this one. I remember buying the serials as they came out, and I also remember one of my dogs eating two of them. Maybe I need to buy another copy. Now you got me thinking.
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I was going through my older books in boxes and I actually found the complete box set of novellas my husband had gotten way back when. It even came with a screensaver on a floppy disk, lol.
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I think I like the Penguin and Orion ones, and then the French version as well. I seem to gravitate to the covers with the mouse and the green covers too. I’ve never read it…
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The Orion cover seems to be getting a lot of love this week! I agree, it’s one of the more eye catching ones.
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Oh man, I was expecting some mice on the covers. ;D I like the final choice! La Milla Verda has the most flattering cover – or Orion 1999. Great post, Mogsy!
Have a wonderful weekend. =)
Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!
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Not enough mice on the covers, if you ask me! I had thought I would find a lot more with Mr. Jingles 😀
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Such a great story. I’m inclined to go with your choice too. It’s the one that stood out for me the most although the one with the electric chairs did give me the chills.
Lynn 😀
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Yeah, I can understand why so many publishers went with the imagery of the electric chair. There were a lot more covers like that, but after a while they all just ended up looking too similar so I skipped a bunch 🙂
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I was originally going to say Pocket Book’s 1999b cover, which is a stunning one, IMO. But then I took a second look at the Spanish one and noticed a tiny Mr. Jingles, and decided to call it a tie. 🙂
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Yep, I knew any winner I picked had to include Mr. Jingles, it just had to! 🙂
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