Sep 21
Bibliomancer’s Comments: “Get your slimy squid tentacles off my cleaning lady. Domestic servants are hard to find!”
Published 1975
The epic wraparound cover
Bibliomancer’s Comments: “Get your slimy squid tentacles off my cleaning lady. Domestic servants are hard to find!”
Published 1975
The epic wraparound cover
September 21st, 2015 at 10:31 am
Insert obligatory “I’ve seen enough Hentai to know where this is going” joke here.
September 21st, 2015 at 11:06 am
This isn’t cover art. This is a vague fancy. It looks like something an artist threw together waiting for the next bus, singing ‘doo-doo-doo-doo’ under his breath while he worked his crayons.
September 21st, 2015 at 11:07 am
When Mr Tickle goes bad.
September 21st, 2015 at 11:20 am
Mr and Mrs Cormac Mac Art
September 21st, 2015 at 12:26 pm
(in the tradition of) CONAN
(which is) based on the character created by
<THE GUY WHO CREATED CONAN>:
(<gaelic barbarian name>)
<A Vaguely Gaelic, Conanish Book Title>
(by <whoever actually wrote it>)
“I’d like A McRat, please.”
“Would you like A McOrc with that?”
September 21st, 2015 at 12:38 pm
“Never Before Published!”
You realize that you could put that boast on EVERY SINGLE BOOK IN THE UNIVERSE the first time it is published?
Though with a cover like that, the tagline should’ve read “Never Before Fondled By The Clammy Hands Of A Man In A Raincoat Who Smells Real Bad”…
September 21st, 2015 at 12:59 pm
@A.R.Yngve: Could it be an answer to a question of some sort?
Spouse: “When will you stop writing this crap and start spending time with your family?”
Author: “Never before published!”
Spouse: “I guess we’ll have to find the money ourselves so you can get rid this obsession.”
Author: “Guess what’s going on the cover!”
September 21st, 2015 at 12:59 pm
‘Offutt wrote hundreds of pornographic/erotic works under over a dozen different pseudonyms, not all of them identified. Known pseudonyms include John Cleve, J.(John) X. Williams, Jeff Douglas, Turk Winter, Farrah Fawkes, & Baxter Giles.’ wiki
Seems kinda obvious looking at this cover.
http://www.amazon.com/Turk-Winter/e/B00IYD7JA4
I’m afraid to GOOGLE the rest of his pseudonyms.
September 21st, 2015 at 1:22 pm
Thrilling adventures at the dawn of time with Cormac Mac Art and his comrade, Adobe Stock Clip Art.
September 21st, 2015 at 1:27 pm
This looks like a picture of a real event that someone took on their phone, then fiddled with the edit function, before saying ‘ah, f**k it…’
September 21st, 2015 at 1:38 pm
A novel in the tradition of Robert E. Howard’s CONAN!
A cover in the tradition of Frank Frazetta!
Neither holding even a tiny candle to the originals!!
Never again published!
September 21st, 2015 at 1:41 pm
@Noel: er, what sort of ‘real events’ do you go to?
September 21st, 2015 at 1:54 pm
I thought thongs were supposed to be a turn on.
September 21st, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Andrew J Offutt. Putting the ick into the Gaelic.
September 21st, 2015 at 3:02 pm
What Conan covers would look like if they involved real people?
September 21st, 2015 at 3:12 pm
New tag contest – “fake Conan” – submit your nominations!
September 21st, 2015 at 3:33 pm
@Tag Wiz—I guess this qualifies.
September 21st, 2015 at 3:33 pm
Faux-nan, surely?.
September 21st, 2015 at 3:54 pm
It’s sad; Offnutt ridiculed Howard-clone hacks in a short story published a couple of years earlier. He must have had bills to pay. ‘The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle’ (in Joe Haldeman’s collection ‘Cosmic Laughter’) was the first time I came across Howard’s name.
September 21st, 2015 at 5:19 pm
@B. Chiclitz – Ooooh, a 2-fer: fake Conan and fake Edgar Rice Burroughs!
@THX 1138 – Good Show Sir! I guess Offutt was just faux-nanning it in on this one.
September 21st, 2015 at 7:53 pm
Should ‘faux-nan’ be a tag?
September 21st, 2015 at 8:27 pm
It is now! As Blakey off of On the Buses used to say, that’s made my day, that ‘as!
September 21st, 2015 at 9:06 pm
Would Balzan of the Cat People count as a faux-nan? He is certainly a faux-zan!
September 21st, 2015 at 10:16 pm
@DSWBT – I think Balzan is more of a “Tarz-sham” than a “Faux-nan”
September 21st, 2015 at 11:05 pm
Faux-nan there looks more like a shirtless Viking. And don’t get me started on his lady friend.
September 22nd, 2015 at 1:54 am
@Anna T: Look at her right hand, it looks like she’s getting started with Squidward.
September 22nd, 2015 at 3:08 am
@fred(8): “Offutt wrote hundreds of pornographic/erotic works…” – guess that explains Faux-nan’s mighty porn’stache, then.
September 22nd, 2015 at 5:11 am
Faux-zan: “Hey, that water’s cold.”
Faux-nan: “Yeah, and it’s deep too.”
From an early Offutt ms.
September 22nd, 2015 at 7:53 pm
Gonna be honest, I kind of like this. It’s an interesting style. A bit like ‘Frazetta meets van Gogh’.
September 22nd, 2015 at 8:27 pm
@Vyrmis 29: Well, that is why they say “Degustibus non disputandem est.”
And that’s what’s great about GSS!
But, I ask all respectfully, can you really account for that guy’s hyperextended arms by asserting some vision of genius?
And, in terms of the narrative dimension of the painting, if they are both being entrapped by the kraken’s tentacles, why is he aiming the sword at her?
September 25th, 2015 at 12:18 am
“can you really account for that guy’s hyperextended arms by asserting some vision of genius?”
Genius, probably not. But he’s more wiry than some of the oddly glossy, hypertrophied steroid boys you’d see from other covers here, and the scapula and clavicle can be more mobile than than people expect.
http://www.details.com/images/health-fitness/exercise/201408/adonis-belt-workout/3-tighten-your-belt.jpg
http://www.sensational-yoga-poses.com/images/seated-front-fold-4.jpg
And there’s a degree of stylisation in there, already apparent from the choppy-brushstrokes impressionism. (I mean, the artist seems to have placed the insertion point of the brachioradialis distal to the medial epicondyle of the humerus: the fiend!) But that’s still allowed, isn’t it? Looking closer at it, I could make other, less highbrow (or at least less worshipped) comparisons like Kevin O’Neill or Mike McMahon. Similar kind of choppy, angular, not-quite-bothered-about-strict-accuracy approach.
“…why is he aiming the sword at her?”
I honestly can’t see it.
Please don’t think I’ve popped up here just to argue, though. I’ve lurked here for a while (and I’ve known about the weirdness of SF/F covers far longer!) and I know most entries here deserve a point-n-laugh or a facepalm. It’s just that this one strikes a chord, somehow. Worst thing in my eyes is that the artist seems too fond of his desaturated, muddy tones. Looks like ‘bog’ was the medium as well as the setting.
September 25th, 2015 at 12:32 am
‘Observe, wench, how I defeat the cephalopod with my Sensational Yoga Poses!’ ™
September 25th, 2015 at 12:45 am
This is a Spinal Tap album cover. That’s Derek Smalls in the tin hat attacking Colony Sarff and the other two are probably on the back. The ginger girl is probably the latest in a long string of hapless drummers.
September 25th, 2015 at 2:46 am
If you are a bit near-sighted this cover sure looks like it is
CONAN by ROBERT E. HOWARD.
You have to read a lot of disclaimers in small type to discover it is “in the tradition of …” and “based on the character created by …”
No deception intended I am sure.
September 25th, 2015 at 5:28 am
@Vyrmis—cool; fairly stated; as I said . . . .
September 25th, 2015 at 3:21 pm
The poor guy’s been holding that sword there for an eternity just waiting for a ting. Because we all know you can’t take a swing if it ain’t got that ting.
September 25th, 2015 at 4:34 pm
@Francis: Boyle’s Law states that we are required to stab in the face anyone who makes a pun so horrible that we live in envy of it. 🙂
September 26th, 2015 at 2:07 pm
@Vyrmis. But one of his arms is clearly much longer than the other. Meanwhile, her upper and lower portions appear to belong to two different women. I don’t know about “not allowed”, but I’d say it’s a problem…
September 26th, 2015 at 4:30 pm
@RachelJ: maybe the Kraken’s tentacles have squished all of her upper body down into her lower body, like squeezing the air around in a partially deflated balloon. (and yes, I know it doesn’t work like that…)
October 9th, 2015 at 11:40 pm
@ Tat Wood (33): Yes, exactly! I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw this as an album cover with Derek Smalls. Although, since he seems to be the hero, I assumed this was the cover of his solo album.