You might have seen this book before. Well, it's also now available in a version without links!
When I first started getting into publishing my webcomics into books, starting with the original version of Fountains 'R' Mutt, I planned to have the individual issues be linked. It worked for the issues without covers, but starting with issue 7, the first one of Americus Video with a cover, it was rather difficult to do so.
In fact, as I was creating the first version of Fountains 'R' Mutt and got to that point, I suddenly thought how I would connect future issues of Americus and others with covers. So, I ended up abandoning the concept for future books. To compensate for turning the earlier version of Fountains into an unintentional prototype release of my webcomic books, I created this new version without links, with the original still available for purchase.
For the design of the cover, after giving it some thought, I decided to return to the rental video cover style, similar to the earlier version of Fountains, since it's basically an altered version of the book. I looked to eBay for inspiration and discovered Blockbuster tapes with Blockbuster Favorites labels for the first time and decided to base the cover on them.
For the "Suggested for Mature Readers" label, I discovered another unique element of rental VHS cases. On some Blockbuster tapes, making sense for the more conservative video store, some cases had a label for Youth Restricted Viewing, where the renter must be 17 or older to rent the tape, as seen above on this copy of the NC-17-rated Man Bites Dog. The black cases for Hollywood Video also served as inspiration for the book cover, mainly the slightly off-center title seen on some cases.
The slogan on the back of the cover, "If you're looking for a fantastic movie night, we're certainly an option," was made to be a deliberately underwhelming slogan for the fictional Americus Video video store brand as if it actually existed.
I also got some extra images of old rental VHS cases from eBay that ended up not going into the final cover design, but decided to place here for you to see:
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