Paul Buckley is Art Director at Penguin Books, a publisher known for iconic design (and Art Directors), and he recently started a Flickr page featuring a small sampling of his work. Buckley is also the guy who managed to spearhead all those amazing classics-of-literature-covered-by-cartoonists. It may seem obvious– Chris Ware doing the cover art to Candide, Jason doing Dharma Bums, Charles Burns on The Jungle, and so many more– but getting all that through the marketing teams and other red tape at an enormous publishing house isn't just brilliant, it's tenacious.
Looks like the hits just keep coming with the biggest no-brainer of all (Tony Millionaire covering Moby Dick) plus Ho Che Anderson, Jeffrey Brown, etc.
Perhaps our next online poll ought to ask for suggestions on future Penguin Classics. My vote: Bil Keane doing Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal."
UPDATE: I have to learn not to make these sloppy blog posts. I've made a lengthy note in the comments on why, as a book designer, I consider this feat noteworthy.
More importantly, Paul Buckley has pointed out that Helen Yentus was his partner on the original round of these covers. One of the great things Yentus pulls off is making novel covers that read as complete images, a perfect hybrid of typography and image. So it makes sense she would be involved here.