Nov 28

Good Show Sir comments: The Old Man and the Sea
Thanks to Ryan for sending this in!
Published 2012

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Tagged with: Altus Press • bladed weapons • boats • Doc Savage • eyepatch • fire • Joe DeVito • Kenneth Robeson • long haired men • pirates
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November 28th, 2022 at 9:49 am
The Man of Bronze LARPs harder than anyone else alive.
November 28th, 2022 at 11:45 am
The man with the sideways blade.
Back cover.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/313920574806
November 28th, 2022 at 12:16 pm
He looks remarkedly defiant for a man about to be stabbed by his own? hair.
November 28th, 2022 at 1:46 pm
This cover really shows his junk.
November 28th, 2022 at 2:36 pm
Patrick Allen probably did the talking* book version as well as posing for the cover.
Not seeing much Buddhism here, though.
(*Well, all right, shouting.)
November 28th, 2022 at 3:59 pm
His pigtail is adorbs
November 28th, 2022 at 4:44 pm
The Governor will be ready for Michonne this time.
November 28th, 2022 at 5:28 pm
Pull on that pigtail and his head rings.
November 28th, 2022 at 7:23 pm
Dare I suggest a BEHIND YOU! tag as the Dickhead of Bronze is sailing towards a burning junk but doesn’t seem to be aware of it?
November 28th, 2022 at 9:02 pm
Both an ‘S’ ring AND a skull ring. Doc likes bling.
November 28th, 2022 at 10:17 pm
@fred: That eBay seller sure doesn’t care much about well-lit photography. All shades of blue instead of the actual gaudy colors.
@Tor: Rarely has the word “junk” been correctly overused this much to describe a cover.
@Tat: Good observation. I guess he was supposed to be sailing towards it, but Doc was too busy posing to notice the wind. You’d think the pigtail movement would have clued him in, unless he’s lacquered the thing to keep it perky on the high seas. Also you’d think a genius wouldn’t have a long pigtail available to grab in close-quarter combat, but see prev. sentence.
At least the lack of scabbard makes sense; nobody produces one for a sword with a blade so weirdly offset.
Wiki sez this is one of the new ones by some other hack, so the 2012 date is correct.
November 28th, 2022 at 10:41 pm
2012? I know Ken Robeson is a house name rather than an actual author, but perhaps they should retire the pen name: the poor thing is pushing 90, isn’t it?
November 29th, 2022 at 1:01 am
@Tor: GSS! It was a 10 second delay on my part to get the joke because those MC Hammer pants had me confused. Then I realized you were talking about the boat and I was back on the same page with everyone else…
November 29th, 2022 at 2:41 am
I do hope Doc (I’m guessing that’s him on the cover, don’t correct me if I’m wrong) realizes that if he straightens his left wrist, the cutting edge of his shiny, sharp scimitar is going to be pointing directly at his left bicep….
November 29th, 2022 at 5:19 am
Captain Pigtail looks to me a lot like Roger Moore. The Man with the Golden Scimitar? For Your Infernal Eyes -(sorry, Eye) – Only? Buddha-raker?
November 29th, 2022 at 2:58 pm
@JJYoyo: Good eye.
November 29th, 2022 at 3:05 pm
To me, it looks like Nick Nolte swiped the eyepatch from Falcon Eddie.
November 29th, 2022 at 4:03 pm
To me he looks like American film actor Charles McGraw.
November 29th, 2022 at 4:29 pm
He’s clearly Jeff Daniels, and here he’s changed into something less comfortable.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001099/mediaviewer/rm2883411200/
November 29th, 2022 at 4:44 pm
@Fred, I can see where you’re coming from but I stand by my original identfication*…. unless maybe it’s Charles Napier c. 2002 revisiting his ‘Star Trek’ role but – mercifully – dressed like one of the other Space Hippies.
(* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daSqvhEcfDM in the event of another Frankie Goes to Hollywood record, you and your family must hide.)
November 29th, 2022 at 8:10 pm
@JJYoyo: THAT’S the nagging familiarity that I couldn’t quite place.
This cover is campy enough, Moore would have delivered the pretentious OTT dialogue expertly, with bad puns and dad jokes.
A smidge too bull-necked for Sir Rog, though. @fred may be on to something with the McGraw idea. And at least he was working in Doc’s very late era; he could have done it in the 50s as a B-movie.
@Bruce: The phrase “flogging a dead horse” comes to mind. But that seems to be the raison d’etre of the publisher. Old or pseudo-old pulps, now in hardcover. New Wild, as the subtitle says.
Wiki sez the originator, Lester Dent, thought Doc “manifested Christliness”. Sure. We all love those books of the Bible where Jesus and the apostles roamed the world killing tons of people. Plus JC wouldn’t even need a boat!
Also, belated GSS for your comment #1.
Side note: I thought Doc was blond? Is he, in the olde-tymey racist way of pulps, dyeing it here and growing the queue to pass as Chinese? Because, y’know, Chinese people aren’t stupid and wouldn’t really be fooled by that.
November 29th, 2022 at 10:04 pm
@GSSxn, JJYoYo: It took me a bit to see the SirRog connection, even after it was mentioned. It’s the chin, I’d say, that’s Moore-ish.
November 30th, 2022 at 5:24 pm
I was thinking Robert Mitchum (?) as Dr. Evil’s right-hand man.
Did Doc Hulk out? Is that why his orange shirt is split and he’s holding himself so tensely with his veins-a-poppin’ ? (That should be a tag line)
He looks mightly sad and regretful that the other ship caught on fire before he could invade it in a manly-man way. That brown stain in the sea behind the other ship suggests it’s also dumped all its toilet waste behind it.
Artwise, am I the only one who notices the artist must have run out of time to paint the lower third of the cover? It’s way less detailed and crisp than the upper half, and the perspective of the ship’s plank makes no sense.
November 30th, 2022 at 6:59 pm
@Tracy: Doc makes entire ships crap in fear!
Possibly he tore his own shirt to show off his manly manliness. I agree, veins a’poppin’ would be a great tag for this and a lot of the Faux-nan/Tar-sham guys.
The artist spent too much time on Doc’s veins, shirt and jewelry; by the time he got to the bottom he could only do a suggestion of wood and some blurry Hammer pants.
December 1st, 2022 at 3:40 am
Robert Wagner, surely? Or Rob Lowe. Mitchum was long dead by then and would have improved the films no end.
December 1st, 2022 at 7:38 am
Yes, Robert Wagner.
December 3rd, 2022 at 11:18 am
Consider this man’s loneliness. There he stands, all by himself, out on the sea, tense and yet sad. The artist botched the action, but he did capture the tragedy.