Savage Chickens: A Survival Kit for Life in the Coop

BOOK UPDATE: Here’s the cover of the Savage Chickens book, Savage Chickens: A Survival Kit for Life in the Coop, which will be published by Perigee Books in March 2011!

Creating the cover was a lot of fun for me. I worked with the awesome Nellys Li, a senior designer from Penguin USA’s Putnam Art Department in NYC. We came up with a bunch of ideas. I mailed Nellys some sketches on sticky notes and she took photos of them in office settings, but that didn’t quite look right so we tried some hand-drawn covers instead. Along the way, we got valuable input from my editor, the publisher, and the sales team. Nellys combined elements from a couple of my drawings to create the final cover above.

Here are a couple of black-and-white sketches of other cover ideas that we considered:

Savage Chickens early book cover design

Another early cover design

Here’s more information about the book. And you can get book updates and a daily chicken by email — just sign up for my mailing list.

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18 Responses to Savage Chickens: The Book Cover

  1. laanba says:

    Hooray! I’m excited about this book.

  2. Jude says:

    I love the cover. Now to get a decent job so I can purchase multiple copies of the book…

  3. Silviu says:

    Woo hoo!!

    Can’t wait! 😀

  4. steve says:

    great! I like the one with little squares. good to see the iMug making an appearance.

    Gonna pre-order today!

    : )

  5. Klaus says:

    Great, am looking forward to this!
    Already found it on amazon, and put it on my wishlist, so I won’t forget 😉

  6. Gemma says:

    Very happy for you. Glad that the chickens are making it big 🙂 You deserve 3 cheers for making my morning every day! Hooray Hooray Hooray

  7. Anuj says:

    Some more details???
    Where can i preorder from??
    How many pages???
    Will it include all the cartoons ever posted??
    Price???

    btw, if you want me to make you a flash game about savage chickens, i would be willing to do it for free, just email me 😀

  8. Sam Juan says:

    Oh man. I can’t wait. I hope it comes out in the exact middle of March. That way it can be a great birthday gift!! (Hint, hint, to anyone who knows me! :-))

  9. Jo Anne says:

    Hi Doug,
    Just wanted to say that I think your work is brilliant and I am so pleased to hear that you are getting a book deal. I will definately be getting copies for me and all my friends. Wishing you all the best of luck and success, Jo Anne

  10. Al says:

    I love the site and read your daily strip religiously. However I have to say I’m slightly disappointed with the proposed book cover. It looks too Dilbert-esque. Perhaps it’s the publisher’s desire to attract the right crowd but personally I consider Savage Chicken to be far more imaginative than Dilbert.

  11. Ann S (WhizGidget) says:

    Prod is on the cover! YAY!!! I’m thrilled that you’re getting a book deal. This is a fabulous cartoon, and I really hope the book takes off.

  12. Doug says:

    Thanks everybody! It’s really great to hear that you’re all excited about the book!

    @Anuj – thanks for the offer – and you can find out more about the book here on the Book page and at your favourite bookstore (here it is on Amazon)

    @Al – glad to hear you’re enjoying the cartoons! I should’ve mentioned that this book focuses on work-related cartoons, so that might be where the Dilbert comparison comes from. I hope to tackle different themes in future books, such as Psychology and Movies and more!

    @Ann S.: Thanks Ann! And yes, PROD3000 shows up quite a bit in the book!

  13. kristina says:

    This will be on my birthday list as well!

    The cover is great, but I do prefer the B&W with multiple stickies of the day to day grind… perhaps in re-print?

  14. JILL says:

    Congratulations Doug!! I love your site and read it everyday. I hope you sell a truckload! Good luck!

  15. Luwano says:

    I already pre-ordered it when you told us about the book last time. Any chance for an autographed one? I pre-ordered at amazon.com, but I could still cancel it, if there’s a chance for a hand-signed version somehow.

  16. Ellie says:

    Ilike the second cover. Looks like my life these days. Can’t wait till it comes out.

  17. pierre says:

    je vous lis tous les jours depuis la france, c’est un super cartoon fin et divertissant…

    très bon sens de l’humour
    vivement le livre…

    longue vie aux chickens
    great job !

  18. Jota says:

    Is there a way to get it on Argentina?.
    I love you man 😀

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