The covers for Snow Crash are terrific! YT looks just like I always imagined she would. I wish the American release had the same spark to it...

-Morgan

I'm moderately alarmed by YT's lips, but Hiro looks cool.
Also Kivrin is pretty faithful, on the Doomsday Book covers. I wonder if the Italianoid bird-mask has some sort of plague significance I don't understand.

Yeah, _Snow Crash_ definitely got the most serious (and, to my mind, effective) mangafication treatment. Cryptonomicon and Diamond Age just turned out scary, though, eg:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4150114048/nosword-22/
http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/4152083859/nosword-22/

The Italianoid bird-mask: I know! I was staring at it, thinking, "Hmm, I know that's something I've seen before.. maybe it's Kabuki or Noh or... oh. I saw it in _Neon Genesis Evangelion_." But maybe NGE ripped it off from an older Japanese source.

I thought the character was 'Pulchinello' or something, but googling comes up with nothing resembling Kivrin's frightening little plague-crow. There's these: http://www.jimtardio.com/venice-masks-big.html
http://www.veniceshop.it/doc/maskere/capitano.htm
but no one admits to their names.
They do totally look like Sachiel's head(s) though. Beh. Maybe just arbitrary 'playacting' iconography? Also: Aagh, Laura Palmer! http://www.rhiannon.ie/images/Redhoodkiss0562.jpg

Hey, a Google image search for "pulchinello" turns up some stuff. Thanks! None of it is quite as stylised (or white), though. Maybe it's just general plaguey, masquey iconography as you say. (Or maybe the illustrator was totally ripping off CLAMP.)

Whoa - so is it just a translation, or an actual manga version of Snow Crash? Because that would be awesome!

It's just a translation. A manga version would be kind of neat, though. (Also, I wonder how the translator dealt with Sushi K.)

Interestingly, although it seems we all love the way Snow Crash looks, the top amazon.co.jp user review (at the moment) basically says "I hate the cartoony cover, it makes the book look so juvenile". Tooootally different perspectives, clearly. Maybe the US and Japanese publishers should just switch cover designers and make everyone happy.

thanks for the clarification. I really though they were manga that I tried to hunt them on some used manga sites. lol. would be awesome to get a manga version or even an anime version of that, preferably made by production ig or madhouse for quality tv series.

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