If there is a Harry Potter ‘look,’ it is the one created by MinaLima, the design and illustration team responsible for the Warner Brothers movie-adaptations’ graphic work (the Marauders’ Map!), the first two of the three Fantastic Beasts screenplays, as well as the first three volumes of the illustrated edition set of the seven Hogwarts Saga novels. Studio MinaLima announced via Instagram on 5 August that they would not be designing or illustrating the Goblet of Fire volume in this series.
Scholastic confirmed this via The Rowling Library’s Instagram platform soon thereafter:
Judging from the responses to this news on Instagram, collectors and fans of the series as well as of MinaLima’s artistry are not at all happy with this decision. I scrolled down the first responses to The Rowling Library posting of this news and the reactions were uniformly expressions of disappointment, even disgust with Scholastic.
Why the change? The answer is almost certainly “money.” Either MinaLima asked for more than Scholastic was willing to pay or the books they designed were becoming too expensive to produce, which is to say, “too close to the ceiling price point readers will pay thereby reducing the profit made on each sale” or Scholastic just decided to go with a much less costly partner in this venture. As they have already done in another series —
The third Fantastic Beasts screenplay was designed for Scholastic by Paul Kepple and Alex Bruce at Headcase Design in Philadelphia. While being a very different look than the MinaLima screenplays of Fantastic Beasts and Crimes of Grindelwald (the pages of script were much less ornate and uniform in illustration style), the Headcase Design work on The Secrets of Dumbledore featured many more pictures, artifact depiction, and character sketches. Read about Kepple in ‘Redefining How We Read: 5 Incredible Book Projects From Headcase Design.’ He seems to be a man on a mission to rescue the traditional codex version of books from the murderous Kindle and ebook villain that wants to pull it off its life support.
I do not own any of the MinaLima illustrated Harry Potter editions. The only book they put together which I own is The Case of Beasts, a book designed to look like Newt Scamander’s suitcase (briefcase?). It cost $45 new in 2016 which would be over $60 today. I am suspicious that Headcase Design submitted a Goblet of Fire proposal to Scholastic that simultaneously was wild enough to win over fans of MinaLima while being lower in production cost and with a smaller advance for Kepple and Company.
It is bizarre that Scholastic is running two illustrated versions of the series simultaneously, namely, the one begun by Jim Kay for Bloomsbury that Scholastic publishes as ‘The Illustrated Edition,’ and the one begun with MinaLima they call ‘The MinaLima Edition,’ or at least they did until last week’s announcement. It differs from the Kay series mostly in having “interactive” elements (fold-outs, etc.).
Kay has left the first series for health reasons but had Neil Packer help him with the Phoenix illustrations. That series seems sure to go on. If Kessle’s Headcase Design team can bring in both illustrations and “interactive paper elements” for less money and lower production costs than MinaLima, Scholastic will be able to keep the pledge they made on The Rowling Library to finish that series as well.
I understand the disappointment of fans and collectors on the change in the design team on the “illustrated interactive” series. I understand, too, that Bloomsbury and Scholastic answer less to these customers than they do to their shareholders. I confess to being almost grateful today that I haven’t got the money to buy expensive editions of books I already have; I know I would be lamenting another “broken set” in my Potter collection if I did. I hope that I’m right in guessing that Scholastic has a qualified alternative to MinaLima just off-stage and that Headcase Design or whoever is in harness to take over delights fans and collectors alike.
Just realized no more illustrated Harry Potter books from MinaLima. What a disappointment. That just crosses a publisher off of my list. I don’t need to give Scholastic books my money and I certainly won’t buy books 4-7 with a different illustrator, it’s not a set then is it? Some business bean counter who doesn’t understand the meaning of “set” surely let a lot of people down. In the spirit of Hermione—what an idiot!