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Feb 18

Dada? Nyet nyet!Click for larger image

Gwynyth Comments: “Time to Marie Kondo the hell out of this place”.

Published 1981

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: 5.67 out of 10)
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25 Responses to “Brave Old World”

  1. THX 1139 Says:

    “Sure, let the kids have their party, you said – and NOW LOOK!”

  2. fred Says:

    I say there is no such thing as too much verdigris,

  3. Francis Boyle Says:

    Yesterday the woman was a plant. Today she’s a random piece of rubbish. It’s almost enough to make me nostalgic for an honest, sexist T&A fantasy heroine with big boobs and a stupid pout.

  4. Ryan Says:

    It all started when Empidoceles and Clymestre argued about whose turn it was to clean the sink at the Temple of Mithras, but things escalated, and thirty years later here we are.

  5. JuanPaul Says:

    I’m not getting a warm vibe from the latest additions to la Sagrada Familia.

  6. Tat Wood Says:

    All this week, people have been saying ‘it’s not the same without Mardi Gras’ but where do people keep that stuff the other 364 days?

    At least on Boxing Day you get to regift.

  7. Bibliomancer Says:

    Don’t you hate it when college kids throw a lease-breaking party

  8. Tor Mented Says:

    I admire the artist’s ability to create texture. But the more I look at this, the less I understand what’s going on.

  9. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Max Ernst called. He wants his imagery and technique back.

  10. Bruce Munro Says:

    @B. Chiclitz: out behind Max’s house,the garbage dump of poorly realized and discarded artistic concepts, gently steaming like a manure pile in the sun.

    (One man’s trash is another man’s cover art…treasure?)

  11. Tracy Says:

    Some people bronze their baby shoes. Others their trash pile.

  12. fred Says:

    What you get when you choose the wrong beast of burden to carry a howdah.

  13. Bruce A Munro Says:

    From the SF online encyclopedia: Cette Chère Humanité (1976; trans by Steve Cox as Brave Old World 1981), which won the 1977 Prix Apollo (see Awards), examines the effects of lifespan extension (through the Invention of “slow-time”) upon an EEC isolated for decades behind an artificial barrier.

    Which explains absolutely nothing about the cover, save for the pun in the English title.

  14. Griz Says:

    Its like Hieronymus Bosch but with less symbology. Or talent.

  15. GSS ex-noob Says:

    What is this I don’t even.

    @Bruce: Could it be — and I realize this is may be a shocking speculation — that the UAI cover was randomly slapped on an unrelated novel?

    @FB: There’s a pair of boobs over to the right, but I suppose you might have gone blind from the festival-o-tarnished crap before getting that far.

  16. Raoul Says:

    O Brave Old World
    That has such WTF in it

  17. A.R. Yngve Says:

    It’s the commercial aspect of this cover that puzzles me…

    If publishers wanted *selling* covers at a very low price, then there’s a huuuge backlist of cheesy-but-slick 19th century paintings they could use instead of disturbing, highbrow Surrealist art.

    Again the big question arises: Do skiffy publishers struggle with self-loathing issues?
    :-S

  18. GSS ex-noob Says:

    And in 1981, no less. Post-disco, early Reagan/Thatcher… this was NOT the aesthetic that sold then. I can hear 1981 me saying “Wow, that’s ugly”.

    Maybe the artist only was told the middle word of the title.

  19. 1Thunderfire Says:

    I’m sad I lack the ability to comprehend this.

  20. Joachim Boaz Says:

    Hey look, a scan of my personal copy! One of you must be frequenting my site and snatching my scans.

    I adore this cover. It’s Max Ernst at his best…. as for the book, it’s a pile of crap.

    Emm, guys, the art is Europe after the Rain (1940-1942). Obviously the publisher just slapped a famous Max Ernst painting on the book. The artist was also dead by 1981…

  21. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Europe After The Acid Rain, more like!

    Looks like both BC and I called it — and Ernst is credited in the tags by TagW.

  22. Joachim Boaz Says:

    @GSS ex-noob — yeah, but you wrote this incomprehensible comment if you knew who Ernst was and that he didn’t actually make SF covers vs. publishers used his work: “Maybe the artist only was told the middle word of the title”

    And yeah, I obviously know. The person who submitted the cover took it from my site where I write about such things.

  23. GSS ex-noob Says:

    As a famous rooster once said, “That’s a joke, son.”

    We have a specific sense of humour here on GSS, which the casual visitor may fail to understand. It’s 70% in-jokes, 15% Monty Python, 5% Doctor Who, and 10% topical. (And an extra 1% SARNATH)

    We’re all completely aware that SF publishers re-use either unrelated art works, or an SF/F cover is commissioned and then use it again on works for which it is completely unsuited (often in another country). The commentariat prides themselves on finding these connections.

    Seeing as Max Ernst was credited right up top, my comment was a joke and therefore hardly “incomprehensible”.

    As to whether it was taken from your site or not, GSS has no control over that. You’d have to track down the anonymous submitter and take it up with them. They’re not a regular, so they probably haven’t seen your complaint.

    And they wouldn’t care, because people who swipe others’ images don’t. I just read an article about how this problem is endemic to tattoo artists as well.

  24. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Because I frequently post on the fly, impulsively, reactively, spontaneously, and in a hurry (admin can attest to the sheer number of times I’ve misspelled my own name or email address), I sometimes miss stuff. I did not see the “Ernst” in the tagged list. I just saw the cover, saw Ernst obviously all over it, and assumed some cheesy artist had ripped him off. I didn’t know this specific painting until now, my bad. But now that I’ve looked at it, I note that this is only half the painting, which really needs the other half. I also note that there’s not really any point in posting here until one has grasped the alchemical humor formula clearly laid out by GSSxn. Dada for now.

  25. JJYoyo Says:

    Europe After the Copyright Expires”

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