We have here a trio of Honourable Mentions since these are e-books and technically not being photographed sitting in our sweaty hands. But the “publisher” Phoenix Pick informs us that you can own an actual dead-tree book version of the same. The odds are vanishingly small that any book versions of these titles would ever be found in what few book stores still exist. So let’s have our fun with these e-book pix nicked from the Intertubes. I see some vestige of an artist signature on one of these. Go figure. But none of my usual sources gives any hint who they might be. So Unknown Artist Institute it is.
Good Show Sir Comments:
1. He-man and Cat-in-the-Hat take on flaming Gummi-Bear monster.
2. Stop wearing the chamois, son. I’ve got to dry the car.
3. Don’t think you’re setting a foot outside wearing that strapping outfit!
Published 2012
August 30th, 2018 at 10:22 am
Cover Horrors of the UAI Dancing Vengeance Demon Gods.
August 30th, 2018 at 10:31 am
1: The Oily Maniac is used to a variety of greetings.
2: “It’s not my fault I lost the key to the drawbridge!”
3: “Eh? Eh? Knoworrimean?! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink! Say no more, squire!”
August 30th, 2018 at 12:17 pm
The Old Cat-in-the-Hat, Faux-nan and the Tooth Fairy seem to be recurring characters in this series. If only there was some way (besides buying and reading them) to find out!
Maybe some one-off, drive-by commenter will show up and tell us.
August 30th, 2018 at 12:33 pm
Look, I’m not saying you should never use Poser for a cover illustration*, but if you do, you really have no excuse for fucking up the perspective.
*Actually, yes, I am. This thing just needs to die.
August 30th, 2018 at 1:15 pm
Artist person, I would like to introduce you to a concept called “composition”.
August 30th, 2018 at 2:15 pm
Book Four: Bunions of the Dancing Gods
August 30th, 2018 at 2:26 pm
So, do we think fairy-lady from the first cover is a little too on-point wearing that bee-themed outfit, or is she doing it ironically?
August 30th, 2018 at 5:02 pm
Sadly, the original print paperbacks of the Dancing Gods series had Darrell K. Sweet art:
https://www.amazon.com/River-Dancing-Gods-Jack-Chalker/dp/0345345010
August 30th, 2018 at 5:09 pm
Reasonably decent for an elementary school art project.
Not so much for a “professionally” published book cover. Of course, this looks like a vanity publisher, where the art quality fits in perfectly.
August 30th, 2018 at 5:28 pm
@AnnaT – Funny thing is that Jack Chalker doesn’t need a vanity publisher. All of these titles were published years ago by brand-name paperback publishers with terrible, but not amateurish, results. There’s probably more to the story about this “Phoenix Pick” outfit.
August 30th, 2018 at 5:42 pm
Book 2: Hands are hard!
Book 3: This time I’ll hide the hands.
Book 4: Training montage!!!
Book 5: Hells Yeah! I’m so good at drawing hands now, traditional anatomy bores me. This time the hero is getting penis fingers.
August 30th, 2018 at 8:36 pm
@THoltz – Sadly, Darrell K. Sweet has four pages of covers on this “terrible” covers website.
August 30th, 2018 at 11:31 pm
… and if you get the chance
You are the Dancing God, young and buff only drawn slipshod
Dancing God, throwing shapes that are deeply odd (ooh yeah)
You can dance, you can jive, watch where you’re putting that knife
See that guy, what him plod, diggin’ the Dancing God.
August 31st, 2018 at 2:51 am
Oh wow. Chalker deserves so much better than crappy self-published style “art”. These seem to be from low-ranking graduates of the digital school of UAI.
The mouseover texts are superb. The first one was a nice callback. Is the guy on the left of #1 Uncle Sam’s cousin? The one who didn’t get the stars and stripes for his outfit?
Is it wrong of me to think the chap in #3 is marrying the waif b/c she’s quite skinny and has no cleavage and therefore looks not womanly? I’m just saying. Or is he planning to skin her and make her into his next skirt?!
Apparently all these books were parodies of high fantasy, which still doesn’t justify these covers.
@drlemaster (7): Maybe she was a big SNL fan in the 70s.
@Raoul (10): I’m not sure how they’re getting away with this. The originals were only published in the 80s, so they ought to still be copyrighted.
Did his kids authorize these reprints and the god-awful covers? If so, he needs to haunt them forever.
@Tat (13): GSS.
August 31st, 2018 at 6:00 pm
@Raoul: Yeah, you’re right. I have to admit I’d been wondering about that, since I have heard of Chalker and his series. I hope the covers from the official publisher are better than this.
August 31st, 2018 at 10:31 pm
@Anna T: I was forced to Google. This is a reprints house that also publishes some new stuff, mostly schlock. As is possibly appropriate, dig their retro SF webpage:
http://www.phoenixpick.com/index2.htm
and their even more Geocities refugee publisher page:
http://www.arcmanor.com/
(Their bi-monthly magazine was a great favorite of Puppies BTW)
The originals were from Del Rey and had decent covers, even allowing for Mr. Sweet’s artistic stylings. Sorta generic high fantasy of the time.
September 4th, 2018 at 10:22 pm
Well, if anyone was uncertain that Jack Chalker was dead, this should serve as convincing evidence.
October 11th, 2018 at 6:40 am
@Francis Boyle. These don’t look like 3d renders, though, even bad ones*; they look like a collection of unrelated cut-outs that have been roughly assembled into a scene of sorts and clumsily traced over in Photoshop. Which is a common “technique” for amateur web art- a bit unexpected on the cover of a “real” book, however.
*See Attack of the Rockoids for comparison.
October 12th, 2018 at 12:52 am
@RachelJ: Agreed. These don’t look computery at all, except maybe the backgrounds. Not the people, though. It’s definitely bad ‘shoppery; if it was dated earlier, I’d think MSPaint.
The woman sitting down in the second one particularly looks traced. Old guy in #1 might also be a traced Uncle Sam.
October 22nd, 2018 at 3:56 am
#3 looks like a bad medieval premarital counseling session to me….
January 7th, 2019 at 7:33 pm
Poor Jack doesn’t deserve this!
November 15th, 2019 at 10:15 am
What a rotten thing to do to a dead writer.