In The News
German "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" Cover Art Chosen
Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsPublishers Carlsen-Verlag have revealed the cover art for the German editions of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The contest for fans to vote their choice of covers, which we told you about last month, has now ended and the winning cover revealed on the publishers website. You can see the chosen cover art right here in the upper left-hand corner along with an alternative cover featured on the bottom right-hand side of the page. Nearly 290,000 fans voted for this cover which will be seen on the German editions of the seventh Harry Potter book when it is released on October 27th.
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That cover looks terrible, looks like a preschool kid did it in art class. I am ashamed to be German.

The Forest Again! The cover looks okay…somewhat elementary, but okay.

I think these covers are from the “What were they thinking” school of art.
Honestly…what’s up with those glasses? I can forgive any artist for their “style” but it seems to me that the German publisher is saying “You vant to read this joosey story, ya? First you must get past the hidious cover!! Wahahahaha!”

Okay I am looking at it again…why are there two Harry’s? It may bring confusion to some readers. The alternate cover seems strange in that the “Death Eaters” are fire dragons / people. So Confusing…

They always have an overlay of Harry on the front … don’t ask me why. The alternate cover is showing the escape from the Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement …

Oh I see now…I thought both covers were depicting the Forest. Why would they choose that scene to be “important” to the story? I am glad they chose the Voldy/Harry scene.

To me this artwork looks like Voldemort and Harry are having a lovely little chat around a camp fire while a lot of people look on – strange choice!

I actually love both those covers. The forest one is great because it’s the pivotal moment in the story… and the Room of Requirement one is great because it isn’t. It’s not Harry’s sacrifice or the showdown – it’s just one of those wonderful moments that make us love JKR.
Besides I recognized both those scenes just from glancing at the covers… where as with the American cover of DH (which is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong) it took me forever to figure out the ‘auditorium’ setting.


German version of covers freak me out a bit. I can’t really look at Harry. I honestly think the US covers are the best, the covers are just so constant and have this very intriguing style.

Ha. Harry and Voldy are camping together! I remember that scene in the book. So touching the way they finally bonded over smores… :)

I’m not German, but I voted for this cover because it looked the better of the two, to me. But that’s not saying much, because it’s a really ugly cover, lol.

I really like both of them, the style in the German covers has always been a great one.
I hate it how some of you can be so mean about these covers. This pretty much always happens when a cover is released that is not for US/UK. You know these things mean a lot to us. I remember when the Finnish cover for the Half-Blood Prince was released and everyone was like “What an ugly cover, I’d be ashamed to be Finnish! How can you read that?”. I really felt bad about that, because those covers are the ones I’ve grown up with and those are the images I have about the characters. Please be more considerate when talking about these things.

I like that they say “JOANNE K. ROWLING” instead of J.K.

I think the scenes depicted on the two book covers were essential to the story. However, the forest scene cover is a little dull; it reminds me of a campsite even more so that Voldemort looks like he could be roasting marshmallows, the way his wand is held near the fire. It would be better if the artist showed Voldemort and Harry more close-up. The reason I prefer the fire escape scene cover is because it is more exciting and adventurous and makes me think more of mortal peril which is fitting, since the title contains the word “death.”

the chosen cover (which i voted for) might not be that beautiful work of art like the US cover, but you gotta give it to them, it is much more accurate. US cover was really deceiving. “wandless magic”? oy, i tell ya.. :)

I didn’t like either of them so I never voted. The RoR one was too busy and the other one didn’t look sinister enough for me. Plus I’m just not a fan of style of art in general. Oh well. Not my country, so I guess my opinion doesn’t matter anyway.

I’m with Alayna. The “Joanne” lept off the page at me and I thought, “Aha! Apparently the German publishers don’t think boys will have a problem reading something written by a woman!” (the reason she was asked to write as “J.K.” in the UK and US)

I´ve always liked the German cover art – well, up to 4 anyways… The first 4 weren´t naturalistic either but they really did work out on postmodern level. But the sixth one is just bad. Sorry. I am German and I still think it stinks. Like, drawing a bazillon details that just so don´t sum up to anything.

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Leaky Poll
Moving the HBP film to July 2009 is:
- Completely unforgivable34 (45%)
- Annoying, but I'll get over it27 (36%)
- Not something I care about.3 (4%)
- Cool; who wants to go to the movies in the winter anyway?1 (1%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 until next year.3 (4%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 because now I'm skipping this movie!4 (5%)
- I've made a Facebook group, started a protest, called my local councilman, staged a sit-in, started a boycott, and organized a million-fan march because we won't stand for the - wait, what was this about again?2 (2%)
That was the one I voted for!- the other one was too busy