Left: Rock Bottom, Michael Shilling (2009)
Right: Misery Loves Comedy, Ivan Brunetti (2007)
I don't mean to necessarily suggest the above is a swipe — I think it could be entirely coincidental. But I was just struck by not only the design similarities (down to the sans serif fonts), but the similarly nihilistic titles the designs serve. Did the tone of each title drive the design to similar, bleak places independent of the other, or did the designer of Rock Bottom look to Misery for similarly bleak inspiration? And what was Ivan riffing on when he designed his book? I have no answers, I just saw the cover to Rock Bottom at LitMob and immediately asked myself these questions. There's probably some famous art manifesto from the 1930s that has this same design that is obvious to everyone but me.