Friday Face-Off is an idea originally thought up by Books By Proxy which I stole from the fantastic The Tattooed Book Geek. The idea originally was to compare UK and US covers based on an assigned theme each week and choose the winning cover. I will be twisting it slightly: not specifically US and UK covers, just different editions.

This week’s theme is a cover featuring a soldier: “No soldier outlives a thousand chances.”

This week I found Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier.

Cover A:

Cover B:

Cover C:

Cover D:

Cover E:

Cover F:

Cover G:

Cover H:

Cover I:

And the winner is… COVER B!

Most of these covers are very reminiscent of the First and Second World War propaganda material that sprang up all over Europe, which drew me to them all. But B possessed a little something else for me. For some reason it reminded me of old cartoons I vaguely remember such as Mr Benn!

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my winner, or does one of the others work better for you? Let me know in the comments!

Next week I will be looking for a cover featuring food: “The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.”