How a scientist wrote a book on graphics: Some things never change

Buried in the back of Starlog magazine #133, you’ll find one of my earlier appearances in print. And what am I doing? 

Complaining about graphics.

Some things never change.

A letter given the title “Beasty covers” by the editors reads in part:

… Let’s take the first thing that anyone sees of a new issue: the cover. They are getting progressively more cluttered with copy, which is getting obtrusive. The cover layout is unattractive and confusing because of the excessive amount of copy. However, the recent Ron Perlman cover was very nice (even if it also suffered from being too crowded). It's the sort of cover that the magazine used to have more of.

For context, this was the cover I liked:

I guess if things had been different, the Better Posters blog could have been the Better Covers blog.

(I also complain about Doctor Who not getting enough attention. Fortunately, that is less of a problem now.)