A friend of mine loaned me a copy of the 1980 war film Sea Wolves recently and I was struck by the cover. Can you spot the incongruency?
Top billing goes to, in order, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore. However, in the illustration, the order is Roger Moore, Gregory Peck and David Niven. Granted, Peck is standing out front, but if you look at the combination of words and pictures, you would think they match up.
I used the term “incongruency,” in the opening paragraph because it’s not really a “mistake,” it’s just a quirk. Obviously, Peck gets top billing and because we read left to right, his name goes to the left. And of course, being the top billing, he stands in front of the other two actors … in this case the center.
It reminds me of the original DVD cover of The Big Lebowski, where the names a pictures don’t seem to match:
I don’t really have an insightful observation about this clash of marketing priorities, but there seems to be something there. Maybe it has to do with our cultural norms of words and pictures. Some sort of battle for supremacy between the printed word and the image. Why can’t we all just get along?
What about you? Have you noticed any similar mismatches?
