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Nov 06

Let 'er rip!Click for larger image

Lord Kelvin Comments: Gandalf: “You shall not pass (wind)!”

Published 1973

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 7.67 out of 10)
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40 Responses to “The Black Star”

  1. THX 1139 Says:

    Better out than in.

    Do you think Mr Carter slaved over a book of baby names until he found the ones just right? “Thongor! Your dinner’s ready!”

  2. fred Says:

    Not THE Ronnie James Diodric?

  3. Bruce A Munro Says:

    The Oompa Loompas are revolting!

  4. MakkaPakka Says:

    @THX, or is it a place? (With strict limitations on underwear choices)

  5. Paul Says:

    God those underpants look uncomfortable.

  6. drlemaster Says:

    I like
    Hunk
    Butts, and I cannot lie…

  7. Bibliomancer Says:

    Another all-guy frat hazing party getting out of hand. And now it looks like campus security has showed up.

  8. A.R.Yngve Says:

    This book is quoted extensively in Nick Lowe’s hilarious essay “The Well-Tempered Plot Device”:
    https://news.ansible.uk/plotdev.html

    The prose of THE BLACK STAR reads a little something like this:

    “Niane fled down the jungle path on frantic, stumbling feet. Her gown was torn. Her slim white legs were scratched and bleeding. She panted for breath, young breasts heaving and straining against the fabric of her gown….”

    Well, I never.

  9. Francis Boyle Says:

    Even barbarian Gandalf looks ripped. Well, at least his right leg.

  10. Alice Says:

    At a quick glance Mr Muscles here can be mistaken for the St. Pauli Girl.
    Maybe he’s wearing a wig and posing as one of those Kneeling Women of Gor.

  11. fred Says:

    Either Theoderic is wearing a ballet slipper or Frazetta didn’t bother finishing the foot.

  12. Anna T. Says:

    I kind of like the idea that the one guy is preparing to use his… wind… to launch himself at not-Gandalf.

    Also, I’d like to thank @A.R. Yngve for giving us a sample of how bad this book appears to actually be.

  13. Ray P Says:

    @ARY (Leslie Nielsen voice) Go on

    It looks like a cover for Randall Garrett’s TOO MANY THONGorS.

  14. Francis Boyle Says:

    “Niane, enough with the heaving and straining you’ll injure your young breasts.”

    If I’m ever trapped in this, I hesitate to call it a reality, I’m going to open a sports bra shop.

  15. JuanPaul Says:

    There’s never a bad time for a dramatic hair swish.

  16. Ray P Says:

    In a time when women have burned all their bras, and men wear all the thongs …

  17. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Judging by the way the hair on those Ogres is blowing back, I’d say Gandalf’s command is a bit too late. And Hunkbutt is thinking “Glad I’m upwind from that one!”

  18. Tor Mented Says:

    Back in my day, we had to wear cast-iron jockstraps. None of this sissy Under Armour stuff. Many guys lost a nut to one of those things. But did we complain?

  19. Ray P Says:

    If Frazetta ever painted Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam would be ripped and wearing g-strings and chains. While the book says hobbits are tough as gnarly tree roots, Frazetta would make them look it. Sam would be winner of World’s Strongest Hobbit from lifting fully-laden wheelbarrows over his head while climbing Hobbiton hill.

  20. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @Ray P—He could even put those hairy feet in soft ballet slippers and they’d still look like Hobbit Hunkbutts!

  21. A.R.Yngve Says:

    The title logo contains a hidden “Alcoholics Anonymous” message!

  22. Theobromus Says:

    Just as the decision was about to be made by the judge, an unfortunate scenery collapse interrupted the Cimmerian Male Twerking finals.

  23. JuanPaul Says:

    The blonde guy looks like he is clenching really hard to hold it in. They all must have eaten Gandalf’s Chili of the Secret Flame.

  24. GSS ex-noob Says:

    I thought, “That’s a pretty good Frazetta ripoff, but what about the farting? Frank wouldn’t… oh dear.”

    Was Thongor named for the preferred style of underwear?

    Is Diodoric the blond one? Why does he have (as @Alice said) the body of a steroid freak and the head of the St. Pauli girl? Did he also take her ballet slippers?

    @ARY, Alice: delightful links, thanks!

  25. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Ray P: GSS! A delightful mental image to be sure. Frazetta did actually do some Lord of the Rings illustrations, and Frazetta-ized women and orcs, but alas, no near-nude body builder hobbits.

    https://comicsalliance.com/frank-frazetta-lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-illustrations-art/

    I wonder if Deviantart has a suggestion box?

  26. Ray P Says:

    Strange how Tolkien never mentioned Galadriel walking about topless.

  27. GSS ex-noob Says:

    And everyone walking around bottomless (almost). And Gollum being that jacked.

  28. Verylatetotheparty Says:

    ‘We are doomed. The iron underpants don’t work! His farts can still collapse bridgeeeees…’ (brief silence, several distant thuds)

  29. anon Says:

    Awesome thong fart opened up a new adventure in rich death-odor nectar for wild Jothean drow warriors.
    Back Shartlet
    by Clint Rear

  30. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @anon: One of your best works! It couldn’t describe the cover any more perfectly. GSS!

  31. Bruce A Munro Says:

    Amen. Quality work, @anon.

  32. Tor Mented Says:

    Soon to be a major motion picture that … never got made.
    I was reading on Wikipedia about one of the guys behind the old Amicus Productions movie studio, best known for being the British company that wasn’t Hammer Studios.
    Wikipedia says: “Unable to purchase film rights to Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories, Subotsky instead bought the rights to Lin Carter’s “Thongor” stories in 1976. Subotsky himself adapted Carter’s 1965 novel The Wizard of Lemuria. United Artists agreed to bankroll the project – now called Thongor in the Valley of Demons – in 1978, but subsequently withdrew for unspecified reasons.”

  33. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Tor Mented: I read the first in the “Thongor” series. Never was interested enough to pick up further installments, but I got the impression that Carter was trying to do EXTREME! Conan – “my character is like Conan, but with even better stats!”, you know.

  34. GSS ex-noob Says:

    A peek at the Goodreads listing says this is a novel set in the Thongor universe, but much later, in Atlantis. And there never were any more of this proposed trilogy.

    Other info from that:

    “…stuff just starts happening, then keeps happening, like a DM endlessly rolling on a random encounter table”

    “Double pretentious given other excesses: Excessive Object And Location Capitalization…”

  35. Tat Wood Says:

    @Tor: there were lots of British companies that weren’t Hammer – Rowntree Macintosh, for example. As film companies go, Amicus had jumped ship from the horror stuff around 1973 (they’d been doing those Anthology films) while Hammer flogged the dead horse with increasing desperation (‘Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires’, for example). Amicus hit paydirt with Doug McClure drililng to the North Pole in a balloon and finding Atlantis (or whatever) but stopped after their big hit ‘At the Earth’s Core’ (one of only four Eady Levy films to make a dent at the UK box office) and the team behind them got into financial difficulties and had to make ‘People that Time Forgot’ under the aegis of a different company, sans Subotsky and with his evil twin, Samuel Z Arkoff, running things with Max Rosenberg. So a run of hits that started with ‘It’s Trad, Dad’ ground to a halt. They rallied for ‘The Monster Club’ in 1980 but that was it.

    To be honest, if Milton Subotsky adapted the book it would have had a better plot, a decent part for Peter Cushing and an abrupt slingshot ending.

  36. Tor Mented Says:

    @Tat:
    I looked up Rowntree Macintosh to see what movies they made, so you got me there.
    But I found out that it’s spelled Mackintosh, so we’re even.
    Let’s not forget Tigon British Film Productions, another “that’s not Hammer” studio that made some excellent films, including “Witchfinder General” and “The Blood on Satan’s Claw.” And then there’s the very obscure GIB Films. They made a seldom-seen version of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” released in 1950. It’s on YouTube and worth a look if you like old-school, b&w, German Expressionism-inspired films.

  37. Tor Mented Says:

    @Bruce: I primarily remember Carter from his disappointing Conan pastiches, though I guess we all owe him a debt of gratitude for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.
    I’d also like to say GSS to @Anon.

  38. Tat Wood Says:

    @Tor (36): I knew that (after growing up on Toffo, Rolo and Smarties) but the software didn’t and ‘fixed’ it.

    Tigon were also culpable of ‘Blood Beast Terror’ and Norman Wisdom’s attempt at a hippy sex-comedy, ‘What’s Good for the Goose’ (directed and co-written by a pushy youngster called Menachim Golan) but British film finance and distribution in the 60s and 70s was a mess and one that even a former Prime Minister couldn’t sort out. There’s a regular pattern of films abruptly going to locations where the revenue’s been kept by the local government so they get ‘free’ facilities paid for by profits from earlier films by that company – British Lion did a lot of this, hence ‘Who?’ being in effect two different films, one starring Elliott Gould and another starring Trevor Howard, both part-filmed in Eastern Europe.

    The GIB ‘Usher’ has been restored by the BFI, which is like a film getting an OBE.

  39. Tor Mented Says:

    I think Peter Cushing said that “Blood Beast Terror” was the worst film he ever did.
    Nice to see the GIB “Usher” getting some attention. I watched it again just last week.

  40. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Ah, this old movie discussion brings back more favorite memories of my brother and I ensconced on the couch watching “Creature Features”. We used to cheer and applaud wildly when the words “Samuel Z. Arkoff” appeared on the massive 25-in RCA. My mother just sighed and brought in the milk and chocolate chip cookies.

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