Dec 01
Click for full imageGreengerg’s Art Direction: Elephants have the natural ability to survive in the vacuum of space. No? Well, draw it that anyway, bub.
Published 1985
Many thanks to Greengerg!
(Average: 5.98 out of 10)
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Greengerg’s Art Direction: Elephants have the natural ability to survive in the vacuum of space. No? Well, draw it that anyway, bub.
Published 1985
Many thanks to Greengerg!
(Average: 5.98 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.01 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.91 out of 10) (8.89 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
December 1st, 2010 at 9:02 am
I bet the whale and the petunia are just behind the elephant…I like it! 🙂
December 1st, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Nelly the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to… the milky way?
This cover is amazing. In public transport just imagine the respect you would earn for reading this. One would need to have an unlit pipe in his/her mouth too!
December 1st, 2010 at 12:09 pm
– Ah, the proverbial elephant in the room. (Said elephant being Robert A. Heinlein… in a Spider Robinson book. Get it?)
December 1st, 2010 at 3:21 pm
The exciting 35th book in the increasingly unreasonably named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy: So Long and Thanks for all the Peanuts.
December 1st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
I don’t usually get wrapped up in the fonts, but that one’s a doozy. It’s almost unreadable. It’s like al-Qaida got hold of Bauhaus and twisted it to their own evil ends.
December 1st, 2010 at 5:34 pm
The “Star Wars” opening crawl would read something like this:
——————
The Search For The New Heinlein, Part XXVII: MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS
It is a dark time for the Galaxy of Heinlein Wannabes and Heinlein Fans.
For the longest time, they have searched far and wide for a new writer who
would be like Robert Heinlein: Creative, through-provoking, original — but
exactly like Heinlein, so they won’t have to be surprised or challenged.
Now, a new contender enters the Galaxy and the fans hold their breath:
Can this be their promised savior? The new would-be-Heinlein approaches…
December 1st, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Where can I get the elephant trunk font?
December 1st, 2010 at 9:57 pm
The Discworld turtle better back up – man overboard!
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:27 am
“The elephant drive is going to go critical! Quick jettison it!”
December 15th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
In space, no one can hear you trumpet.
December 15th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
I’m trying to think of a cover that would make sense for a story about the effects of overreaching copyright/patent terms. Perhaps a library, its doors chained shut, its contents visibly crumbling… it would be a lot more *depressing* than this cover, but then that’s the story for you.
However it would require the artist to actually read the story, which is obviously an intolerable constraint on artistic freedom.
December 15th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
that elephant looks more sleepy than melancholy
December 20th, 2010 at 9:25 am
I don’t think this book sold well in India.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:52 am
“Didn’t Spider Robinson play guitar in the old Toots Sweet band? Guess I’m going back to Harlem:
Johnny…
Harry…
Johnny..
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:58 pm
“…I’d Nominate Spider Robinson as the New Robert Heinlein.”
Having read both authors, I’d have to agree with that statement.
Just not in a good way.
January 27th, 2014 at 8:00 am
Ba-Da-Bum, Stevie!
😉
April 21st, 2015 at 10:58 pm
Working title: Infinite Sadness Castle.
August 14th, 2015 at 7:02 pm
In space, no one can find the pet elephant you accidentally killed.
November 13th, 2016 at 1:11 pm
In his teen years, Dumbo got into much harder substances than watered-down champagne. Pink planets replaced pink elephants.
November 14th, 2016 at 2:58 pm
Remember space travellers, An Elephant is for life, not just for space Christmas!
January 29th, 2022 at 12:11 am
Is there a Space Tarzan?
August 1st, 2022 at 5:54 pm
With fond memories of Sharon, Lois and Bram’s music show for kiddos on TVO:
An elephant went out to space
On Spider Robinson’s book did grace
We’re not sure why this was done
Elly’s bummed and not having fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWv5oGu6ldo
August 2nd, 2022 at 1:18 am
Spider is famously anti-war (that’s why he lived in Canada for decades), sets most of his stories on Earth, and is not into guns, oppression, buzz cuts, or macho-ness, so I wonder why the NYT (notice no writer’s name given) went for the Heinlein comparison.
The elephant is probably melancholy because it spent all those years walking on top of a ball, and now it’s out in space where there’s no friction or gravity and that trick doesn’t work. Its melancholy will end soon from lack of oxygen.
As Nix said way back when, the artist read the title, and only knew that it was SF, thus… this. No excuse for the font, though.
August 2nd, 2022 at 5:06 am
@GSS ex-noob: seems Spider is himself fond of Heinlein, it’s otherwise hard to say why he wrote what amounts to a book-length Heinlein fanfic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Star
August 3rd, 2022 at 12:02 am
Yeah, the Heinlein juveniles (which were, of course, edited so as to have less pontification and more sensawunda) set him on his course. They were pals, but I bet they never talked politics.
That book, like much fanfic, went with just the bare premise and completely ignored the writing style. There’s drugs and cussing and puns!
Got chosen for the job, got paid for it… but the Callahan’s stories are WAY better, and I cried at the last of the Stardance books.
Pretty sure Heinlein wasn’t into recreational pharmaceuticals and compassion for all living things, though. Also Spider is a *great* hugger (with consent), which I doubt RAH was.
August 3rd, 2022 at 1:00 am
@ GSSxN: no snark here: I really love your anecdotes about these SfF greats. Could listen to them all day.