BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Final Potter book jacket unveiled Just seen the cover for the last book and the childrens version reminds me a lot of the Terry Pratchett covers, particularly the early ones.
Yes it does. It could well be, seeing as it's a related genre, that Jason Cockcroft is fan of Josh Kirby and is influenced by his style somewhat. Some of his other work is a little different though: Bloomsbury.com - Children's Authors
It does look a lot more like a Kirby than the previous ones did, I have the rest of the books in "Children's version" and they have been illustrated by various people, Jeckson croft did the last two, and I particularly liked the phoenix one, this one looks rather more "cartoony" than the previous ones, but still, good. I like the other things he has illustrated...
To be honest, I don't really like the new cover. It feels too busy and the characters look too silly. Those were problems I had with Josh Kirby's illustrations too! Still, when you're reading the book you don't have to look at the cover, and it's not exactly going to put me off buying it.
Well Pterry's books are silly. In a very intelligent and fantastic way, but still, I found the Kirby illustrations a lot more fitting than some I have seen since (the Harper Torch editions are just plain ewww !) and enjoyed spotting the characters and situations, although they were far from influencing the mental picture I got by reading the books, which has always been quite different. But I agree, the cover won't stop you reading a book if you already know you want to buy it. It might influence you one way or the other if you didn't know the author...