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Jan 23

Photobombing Dragon!Click for full image

Raoul Comments: Hey Tag Wizard! Do you think there are “anatomical issues” with Stumpy, the One-Legged Sidekick?
Published 2007

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: 8.39 out of 10)
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39 Responses to “Your Dream, Our Fantasy”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    Bad Christ! I’m assuming this dream of mine was a nightmare, one of those “sit bolt upright in bed staring straight ahead” things?

  2. Bibliomancer Says:

    I believe your unknown artist is Cecilia Giménez

  3. fred Says:

    Do dragons dream of tasty snacks?

  4. Ray P Says:

    Join Plaid Cymru today!

  5. Tat Wood Says:

    The Welsh Tourist Board rejected both this artwork and the slogan ‘It must be something in the water’.

  6. Tom Noir Says:

    Dude in front is looking pretty smug for a half melted action figure.

  7. A.R.Yngve Says:

    There’s a fine line between vague and creepy… and that title stands on it like a circus artist on a wire.

  8. Anna T. Says:

    I think whoever drew this cover failed to pass their high school art class. This is just plain bad.

  9. Scott B Says:

    So is Stumpy supposed to be some sort of dwarf/hobbit/two-thirds-scale-human? At first I thought he was just five feet behind the other two and there was a bad perspective problem with black-robe’s arm, but that seems a little too much to be true.

  10. B. Chiclitz Says:

    This cover starts to fall together for me if I imagine Stumpy, not as a one-legged sidekick, but as a one-legged ventriloquist’s dummy, somehow impaled on melt-face’s arm. Then my imagination has something to go on, as I realize further, from the rendering of the mouths, that he’s not the ventriloquist, she is. Now the question is: what’s the dummy actually saying?

  11. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    It’s just a jump to the left
    And stagger back to the right
    You put your hands on your hip
    And pull your knee in tight
    But it’s the bloody dragon
    With the damaged brain…

  12. Raoul Says:

    Upon closer examination I believe Stumpy is being depicted as walking and his right leg is behind his left leg as he strides forward. So add a “perspective problem” tag to this hot mess.

  13. Bibliomancer Says:

    I tried to Google “Brad Crist” and it came back with “Do you mean Bread Crust ?”

  14. Alice Says:

    Let’s Meet the Author

  15. Bibliomancer Says:

    @Alice – It’s autobiographical. Stumpy is suffering from bi-pedal disorder.

  16. Tat Wood Says:

    @Alice: I read that when I was trying to find a name for the artist and decided not to use a lot of the smart-alec comments I had planned about the author.

    Unless he painted this.

    But a story about being stuck inside D&D might work: sort of like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov5EeeL2U1E (See, the artwork COULD have been worse)

  17. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @Tat Wood—kudos for sensibility, but honestly, just to critique the writing, I think Stumpy wrote that “Meet the Author” blurb. It is quite badly written. Hope the novel had an “editor.”

  18. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @B’mancer: did the search for Bread Crust turn up anything substantive about the artist?

  19. Tat Wood Says:

    @B.Chiclitz: from their website, Trafford appears to be a fairly no-frills self-publishing imprint, specialising in books for schoolkids. Editors, beta-readers and in-house artists seem to count as ‘frills’.

  20. Ray P Says:

    Lets do the gimp walk again? Red dragon looks traced off the cover of the first edition AD&D Monster Manual.

  21. Tom Hering Says:

    The authorized sequel to Yeast Lords aka Brutus and Baalzak.

  22. JuanPaul Says:

    This would make a killer tattoo.

  23. Ray P Says:

    Someone’s nads have definitely gone.

  24. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @RayP: your dream, our fantasy. 😛

  25. GSS noob Says:

    Okay, first off, I don’t understand the title at all — mightn’t it work better the other way around?

    Secondly, before someone huffs in here, we’re not making fun of the author (it’s good to hear he’s recovering), but the artist, who presumably has no excuse for this.

    Is Stumpy leaning on Black Robe’s arm to keep from falling over? (He does have two legs, as @Raoul said — perspective problems)

    On the positive side: the dragon’s well-enough done that we know what it is, the mountains and clouds are naive but workmanlike, the woman’s completely covered and doesn’t have giant bazooms, there are no explosions, and the font is neither horrific nor blending into the background.

    So, considering the money put into this one, plus no years of art school, this is actually less terrible per dollar than anything BAEN!

  26. HappyBookworm Says:

    @GSS noob – I also would never tear down someone and their struggles; I think we all agree on that.

    I still have to wonder if the guy on the right is a prisoner…he seems to have his hands tied behind him.

    Speaking of which…given that no one in this trio seems aware of the dragon zeroing in on the group, perhaps we should warn them with a nice “BEHIND YOU!” What do you think, Tag Wizard?

  27. Tag Wizard Says:

    @HBW – I can’t figure out if Hoodie is behind Stumpy or even if the dragon is in the background or foreground. Oh hell. Something’s got to be behind something here. Maybe all four are BEHIND YOU!

  28. GSS noob Says:

    I’m relatively certain the dragon is behind the others. And at least the woman’s staff and hand are behind Hoodie.

    Stumpy, I dunno — he may be from another universe which has different laws of perspective than we do. Maybe he’s very short and standing on a large rock next to Hoodie, or maybe Hoodie’s face is like that from being so close to a violation of the laws of physics.

  29. Francis Boyle Says:

    The Ghost of Frank Herbert was eternally grateful that they left his name of the novelization of the the Dune film.

  30. Michael Toland Says:

    I’d love to have a snappy comment, but sweet jeebus – that’s simply the worst art I’ve seen on anything in a long time. Must have been a small publishing house with Cousin Merle as the in-house artist.

  31. JRDelirio Says:

    Someone should have told them you do not HAVE to have a full pictorial cover. OTOH who knows what a mess they would have made of something abstract or of poster fonts.

  32. RachelJ Says:

    @GSS noob.
    Secondly, before someone huffs in here, we’re not making fun of the author (it’s good to hear he’s recovering), but the artist, who presumably has no excuse for this.
    I hate to break this to you, but the odds that they’re one and the same are pretty darned good…

    On the positive side: the dragon’s well-enough done that we know what it is, the mountains and clouds are naive but workmanlike, the woman’s completely covered and doesn’t have giant bazooms, there are no explosions, and the font is neither horrific nor blending into the background.

    So, considering the money put into this one, plus no years of art school, this is actually less terrible per dollar than anything BAEN!

    Blasphemy! BAEN is most of the reason this site exists!

  33. GSS noob Says:

    @Rachel J: Oh, I’m as in favor of BAEN! covers being displayed here as the next gal — all the stuff I submitted a month ago was BAEN!

    I’m just saying, whoever did this cover had a much better cost/GSS-worthy ratio than BAEN! does. They spent a lot less and still managed to make it here. And they did it with more original stuff; that woman appears to be over 21.

    By the way, in my head, I hear it as:

    BAEN! explosion sound

  34. Tag Wizard Says:

    I tasked our crack GSS staff to come up with the actual cover artist for Your Dream, Our Fantasy. Based on photographic evidence of the credits for the book, he appears to be Ken Streiff, life long friend of author Brad Crist. This cover art shall no longer be buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Artist.

  35. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @TW: Ta! The URL in the credits is still active and Mr. Streiff is not only a continuing but improving artist. Fight, Ken! For everlasting peace!

  36. Ray P Says:

    Tomb of horrors more like. It should be an Alan Smithee production.

  37. Tom Noir Says:

    @dswbt: improving, maybe, but I think he needs to stay away from human faces.

  38. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Okay, Ken’s doing well with scenery and buildings and other inanimate objects, but he still can’t paint people’s faces worth a darn. The one titled “Brothers” is just about as horrific with the faces as this is.

    Stick to still lifes and landscapes, Ken.

  39. Devotion Says:

    She is more fantasy than reality, appears he is thinking about her. He should concentrate on his beautiful/precious real life. The question is why she is in his mind?

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