Dec 02
Scott Comments: Elven stripper riding a giant flying owl-cat steed! Or, tiny Elven stripper riding a normal-sized owl-cat steed? Either way, that’s one terrifying/terrified owl-cat.
Published 1983
Scott Comments: Elven stripper riding a giant flying owl-cat steed! Or, tiny Elven stripper riding a normal-sized owl-cat steed? Either way, that’s one terrifying/terrified owl-cat.
Published 1983
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:58 am
It’s a catbird! I can’t quite figure out where her – ahem – lower body ends and the cat’s head begins. And is she perhaps pulling on a long hair from the cat’s head? No wonder he looks so pained.
Wouldn’t the cat half want to catch the bird half? Poor conflicted animal.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:28 am
This would certainly give any sparrows in the vicinity paws for thought. There’s no escape now!
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:34 am
A New Odyssey Of Love And Rebellion – In A Universe Beyond Imagination!
20th Century Fox Presents
FANTASTIC VOYAGE INTO HERMAN CAIN’S BRAIN
December 2nd, 2011 at 12:28 pm
The Inquestor Trilogy. A trilogy about a person who performs inquests. WHILST WEARING A BIKINI AND RIDING A BATCAT!
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:33 pm
“Oh sweet lord no…. no cardboard box is safe…..”
December 2nd, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Well, it fits to the title somewhat. You would have to be certainly mad to call this a thrown.
December 2nd, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Not practical. What if you are in a high altitude catfight and kitty starts hawking up a ginormous hairball?
December 2nd, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I’m quite curious as to what holds the two halves of her top in place and what that cape is attached to. Perhaps she holds her costume together with the same psychic powers of concentration that allow her to stand on thin air?
December 2nd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
That’s either a cape or wings. Either way it’s *sparkly*
Catbird’s pissed off because although he can now fly with all the birds, he’s got no front paws to disembowel them with.
Having some naked wench (come on, those are just censors ink spots) riding on your neck and pulling your eyebrows out can’t help either.
And that riding position looks terribly painful too. No wonder she’s scowling.
December 2nd, 2011 at 4:49 pm
“I’m afraid some of our readers will be put off by the writer’s foreign-sounding name, so surround with all sorts of other text, in different fonts and colors. That and the elven stripper on the owlcat should be distracting enough.”
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:14 pm
What is she sitting on? It looks like the cat’s external brain. And where are the cat’s ears? And … I thought that was a mesa, but is it the cat’s tail? For that matter, she’s not really sitting at all. She’s standing, or possibly pole dancing, with every muscle clenched. She ought to have an expression like the cat’s to match, a sort of rictus of “yow!” rather than the sulky scowl she’s got.
Some of the dragons and things around here look like they’d be fun to ride, but that woman’s perch looks very hard and very cold.
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:56 pm
If you are attacked by a catbat you can easily nullify the threat by distracting it with a laser pointer
December 4th, 2011 at 9:38 am
A horde of angry old white men anointed Newt to the Presidency and it became…
THE THRONE OF MADNESS
December 5th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
A seat on the catbird? Thurber save us!!!
December 6th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
You just know that owl cat saddle is up so high to show off her straddle to full effect. Not that I’m complaining.
December 7th, 2011 at 8:04 am
What makes this REALLY confusing is that cloak she’s wearing. According to the series, human who belong to the clan of Inquestors wear what are known as Rainbow Cloaks–which are actually robes–as a badge of office. They aren’t tiny or elven or bikini-clad and why on earth one would be riding an owlcat…
…oh, sweet Jesus. Is that thing the artist’s attempt at the sentient chimera Inquestor steed-guards called pteratigers? The ones that, as I recall, were based on WHITE tigers and that very definitely had four legs as well as two wings?
The artist couldn’t have read any portion of the book, because Sucharitkul was very big on describing his world. This looks like the artist got a short description from the publisher:
“It’s about these people who wear rainbow-colored cloaks who ride cats with wings. Just draw that, okay?”
December 9th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
I like how the font of the word “TIMESCAPE” is all watery. It looks like it should be pronounced “Timescaaaaaaape” when reading it.
April 22nd, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Well its a mode of transportation when it wants to be. Mostly it sits around in the sun or chases laser pens.
April 22nd, 2013 at 5:25 pm
“This looks like the artist got a short description from the publisher”
From what I’ve heard about book cover design, the artist was lucky to even get that. And the average author’s involvement is limited to checking that their name is spelled correctly.
November 23rd, 2014 at 12:18 pm
O HAI IZ COMIN IN FER LANDINZ IN UR FACE PLZKTHX
From the choker up, ‘she’ looks a bit like Nick Cave.
January 29th, 2021 at 6:26 am
“In a universe beyond imagination!”
Beyond the imagination of the artist, anyway.
Assuming that’s some sort of mountain peak and not the cat’s tail or a random giant floating poo, it must be huge, since the lower parts would have to be _behind_ those glowing clouds. Or is the artist playing the old “piece together multiple random backgrounds” game?
SS was a pretty fun writer: deserved an artist actually willing to read the book.
January 29th, 2021 at 7:16 am
I think that catbird is being choked to death. Some sort of bit might have helped.
January 29th, 2021 at 7:20 am
I hate to point this out, but when embiggened it appears the catbird has a vagina nose.
January 29th, 2021 at 11:02 am
This raises the question of a reimagining of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.
January 29th, 2021 at 1:47 pm
The cat bird just realized they are heading to the vet.
January 29th, 2021 at 5:29 pm
There wasn’t much else to do on that beautiful pea-green boat.
January 29th, 2021 at 11:21 pm
The artist is Wayne Douglas Barlowe.https://waynebarlowe.com
My guess, based on the young lady’s distinctive but not inimitable riding style, is that the publisher’s direction was “gimme that Chris Achilleos’ Heavy Metal feeling”.
http://chrisachilleos.co.uk/artwork/film-work/heavy-metal/
January 30th, 2021 at 1:01 am
I read this trilogy, but the early 80s is too long ago for me to remember the babe on the catowl. But considering that’s the sort of thing that would stick in your head, maybe it wasn’t in the book?
@Farquharson perhaps sussed it out, by reading the book, which is more than the artist did.
The Inquisitors did have all sorts of powers over gravity and other forces like that, but I don’t think the artist knew that when he drew catowl, stiff woman with no robe, and random floating… oh, damn is that a catowl turd? Look out below!
January 31st, 2021 at 3:46 am
@Tat Wood: “It is a little known fact that the Owl and the Pussycat’s pea-green boat was over forty feet long, each of them weighting as they did close to a metric ton. The runcible spoon alone could decapitate a man.”
January 31st, 2021 at 10:59 pm
@Bruce: this is a book I want to read.