Oct 12
Click for larger imageBibliomancer Comments: Painted by Unhuman Hands.
Published 1960
(Average: 7.50 out of 10)
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Bibliomancer Comments: Painted by Unhuman Hands.
Published 1960
(Average: 7.50 out of 10)Loading...
(10.00 out of 10) (9.27 out of 10) (9.21 out of 10) (9.03 out of 10) (9.00 out of 10) (9.00 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.96 out of 10) (8.95 out of 10) (8.95 out of 10)
October 12th, 2020 at 10:49 am
Chewed by unhuman teeth.
The Herald-Tribune couldn’t come up with a better adverb or phrase than ‘promptly’?
October 12th, 2020 at 11:18 am
OK: an astronaut is being chased back to his ship by a crowd of outraged nudists, two men are stuck in a giant ball of space-nougat, a badly drawn giant with a cat-o-nine-tails is trying to reassure the shadowy audience in front, who are no doubt starting to grumble and ask for their money back. (He is unaware of the stick-man about to stab him in the leg.) Meanwhile, Cecil the Space-Sick Space Serpent watches it all in wonderment.
October 12th, 2020 at 2:48 pm
The golfer’s a nice touch. “A good cover spoiled” – Mark Twain (probably).
October 12th, 2020 at 4:02 pm
This is like Zooey Deschanel on acid but she’s just acting – badly.
October 12th, 2020 at 4:21 pm
With this cover illustration, this book will be Untouched by Human Hands.
October 12th, 2020 at 4:53 pm
That drinking fountain is a nice addition to the cover. Presumably at some point it at least will be touched by human hands.
October 12th, 2020 at 5:25 pm
The cover artist Robert Blanchard was defiantly going through his “googly eyes” period. Here’s his other GSS cover: https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=9083
October 12th, 2020 at 5:35 pm
@daard23—Blanchard’s towering genius was the inspiration for an entire school of googly-eyed covers, most notably this legendary example.
October 12th, 2020 at 10:34 pm
Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, the unauthorized biography.
October 12th, 2020 at 10:55 pm
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
A tale of a rocketship
Its crew ran from the nudists
To start their fateful trip.
The weather started getting rough
The rocketship was tossed.
If not for a nugget of space nougat
Two members would be lost.
Two members would be lost.
The ship’s aground on a shore someplace
Untouched by human hands.
With Gill Dragon
A whipper, too.
A tiny man with a knife.
A bright sunrise
And googly eyes.
Robert Sheckley is da man.
October 13th, 2020 at 12:06 am
Bravo, @Tor Mented
October 13th, 2020 at 12:26 am
Never have title and art meshed so perfectly. Art guarantees title; title reflects art.
It’s a wonder Sheckley promptly became first rank with covers like this.
Guy on the right always forgets leg day.
The man-being-chased-to-rocket-by-crowd is tolerable, but so overwhelmed by the sheer gobsmacking badness of the rest of the cover.
@Bruce: Cecil deserves better than this.
@BC: Maybe it’s the giant ceremonial drinking fountain of the outraged crowd, who are angry at the astronaut profaning it. Or it’s their sacred hot tub, and they’re angry at him profaning it (with clothes on — bad for the filter).
@Tor: GSS!
October 13th, 2020 at 6:21 am
It’s a ball made out of Mike Pence’s hair.
October 14th, 2020 at 1:10 am
@JP: Best watch out for flies, then.
November 2nd, 2020 at 2:11 am
There was a style of science fiction book cover illustration back in the late 1950s, early 1960s, very graphic, almost abstract, surrealist-influenced, aiming for an eerie, otherworldly take on postwar American abstraction.
This is not that.
It is, however, reminiscent of the art Barbara Remington made about a decade later for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where she famously had no access to the books beforehand and yet still produced something far better and more artistic than this.
Either that or one of the many illustrated children’s books of science floating around at the time.
November 2nd, 2020 at 2:56 am
@Alessandra Kelley: I had some of those Remington covers!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/fc/b8/e5fcb8cce27513354ed0e10d1e3a3939.jpg
http://img0.etsystatic.com/015/1/7055521/il_570xN.409276284_n17r.jpg
A lot of charm, as you said.
November 2nd, 2020 at 6:00 am
Those Remingtons are some of the best covers of Tolkien.