Jul 11
Tom Noir Comments: If there is one thing aliens love, it’s cowboys. If there is a second thing, it’s ferrets.
Published 1978
Tom Noir Comments: If there is one thing aliens love, it’s cowboys. If there is a second thing, it’s ferrets.
Published 1978
July 11th, 2017 at 11:42 am
Stoat fellow!
July 11th, 2017 at 11:43 am
Am I the only one who looks at the cover and thinks, ‘Three points of balance for safety!’, and cringes?
July 11th, 2017 at 12:14 pm
I always liked the Johnny Cash version of “Ghost Otter In The Sky”.
July 11th, 2017 at 12:36 pm
I sure wouldn’t want to be downstream of THAT river.
July 11th, 2017 at 12:55 pm
Let us have a moment’s silence to mark the passing of an era. After so many years as the reigning champion in the prestigious “Total Disconnect Between Title, Blurb and Artwork” category, Cats Have No Lord has finally been beaten at its own game by newcomer “Alien Art”. Truly an historic day in the world of terrible covers!
@Tom Noir and Dead Stuff. Know your mustelids, people! That’s an otter!
July 11th, 2017 at 1:25 pm
Oops. Is there any way I can weasel out of this one??
July 11th, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Is it me, or has it just got otter in here?
July 11th, 2017 at 1:51 pm
Those ginormous glowing mushrooms otter be of the magical variety.
July 11th, 2017 at 2:06 pm
Otter than the the giant otter, I don’t find much wrong with this cover.
July 11th, 2017 at 2:22 pm
It’s a mistake: this picture was intended to go on the front of Arthur C Clarke’s book ‘The Otter Side of the Sky;
July 11th, 2017 at 2:47 pm
Back cover.
https://swapmeet.net.au/uploaded/6916/p1a7h540s4dta17oi16rplhf37o5.JPG
Newer edition cover and separate art.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2b/ba/1c/2bba1cb87497ef0d17fe9deea144058b.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/fe/5c/75/fe5c75b11a03d21f2a408a2301fc88fa.jpg
July 11th, 2017 at 7:04 pm
David Bowman has changed. The typeface would normally appear on the marquee of a seventies roller derby.
July 11th, 2017 at 7:58 pm
Not so much “Alien Art” as “Awesome-Airbrushed-on-the-Side-of-My-Van Art”.
July 11th, 2017 at 8:16 pm
‘Only one thing could save them’. I count two things in this picture.
So either Lonesome Luke is going to take on a kaiju otter at high noon or the people of Luminous Mushroom City have sent for a space-otter to rid them of an infestation of country and western.
I favour the latter option: especially if two six-inch-high nightclub singers are belting out ‘Otter-raa-ah, Otter-rah’ from inside a tiny gold coach.
July 11th, 2017 at 8:39 pm
If it’s the story I think it is, the giant otter-person artist does play a pivotal role, and there are cowboy types. But it makes for a stupid cover.
@fred: I was hearing the Vaughn Monroe version, but you can’t go wrong with Johnny Cash.
@Tat Wood: I would watch that movie.
————————
I’ve some news from one of GSS’ favorite publishers, BAEN!gunfire
To quote from the estimable File 770:
The collaboration by Larry Correia and John Ringo titled Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge came out this month, unfortunately, on the spine it read: βLarry Correia β Monster Hunter Nemesis.β
1. That author combo and title are as Baen-y as you can get; a team-up of the originator of Sad Puppies and Oh John Ringo No.
2. Covers of formulaic series all look alike?
3. Keeping up the standards of Baen covers, I see.
The whole print run is being pulped and redone, which seems cruel to the trees.
July 11th, 2017 at 8:44 pm
@JuanPaul – The art isn’t poorly executed. It’s more that it depicts a number of elements that have no obvious connection to each other.
Imagine if I made a cover that showed a firefighter standing on a mountain with a giant iguana in the sky and the title was “Toothache.” You’d be confused, no matter how competently rendered the iguana was.
July 11th, 2017 at 9:09 pm
@TN I would assume the iguana had a toothache and the firefighter was going to help him by using his fire hose as a water pick.
July 11th, 2017 at 9:11 pm
@JP: Can we get the tiny nightclub singers to belt out “I-gua-nah, I-guah-nah”?
July 11th, 2017 at 10:01 pm
@Tom: I am imagining you doing just such a thing, by the light of the moon through a Paris tenement’s skylight…giggling fiercely as you do so. π
July 12th, 2017 at 12:10 am
You all got it wrong. The guy in the cowboy hat is named Art. And he is the alien.
Alien Art. It all makes sense now.
…except for that wolverine …
July 12th, 2017 at 1:05 am
“So we meet again, my old nemesis Terry Nutkins, only it is I who now have the upper hand! Er, so to speak.”
July 12th, 2017 at 1:48 am
Hm. My Β£3 to Good Show Sir After Dark got me exactly the same picture, but with BRAZZERS in the corner.
Edit: Goodness, what do you suppose the one thing that could save them could be???
July 12th, 2017 at 4:03 am
@DSWBT: alright you got me.
I created most of the covers I’ve been submitting myself under a variety of elaborate pseudonyms.
I’m especially proud of this one.
July 12th, 2017 at 12:18 pm
We love you just the way you are, Tom! π
July 12th, 2017 at 8:34 pm
Bow down to your otter god!
July 15th, 2017 at 6:57 pm
Original title: Alien Rat–but then the cover artist drew a giant otter,so they changed it.
July 20th, 2017 at 8:48 pm
It’s Alien Art Garfunkel singing “Bright Eyes” as the Otter of Death comes to escort the Cowboy’s soul to the Happy Hunting Ground.
July 26th, 2017 at 10:27 pm
As the otters in this book are giant and intelligent (doing the titular art), I’d like to request a tag we haven’t seen enough of: “Otter people”.
(as seen here http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=8462)
July 26th, 2017 at 10:40 pm
Does the otter have a rocket flying out of his butt?
July 27th, 2017 at 1:18 am
Look into the eyes of this giant otter,filled with sadness.May be he cried the whole night and filled the river with Tears.
July 28th, 2017 at 1:48 am
@DSWBT: I think you’re correct. No wonder it looks a bit morose.
Also, cowboy there with just a rifle has no chance of saving Mushroom City from a gigantic mustelid what can loom up in the air and fire rectum rockets.
July 28th, 2017 at 12:03 pm
Ah, so that’s an Art-er, is it?
…
I’ll just get my hat …