Mar 04
Good Show Sir Comments: Super-duper-human
Thanks to Ryan for sending this in!
Published 1971
(Average: 8.00 out of 10)
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Good Show Sir Comments: Super-duper-human
Thanks to Ryan for sending this in!
Published 1971
(Average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.02 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.89 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
March 4th, 2024 at 8:53 am
“Sorry, for 75 cents you’re going to have to assemble the monster yourself.”
March 4th, 2024 at 12:23 pm
Sticker vs Man!
Undecipherable code
by a previous owner
March 4th, 2024 at 2:33 pm
Looks as though Tucker Carlson’s about to get a big surprise during his latest red-light-on-my-balls session.
March 4th, 2024 at 4:35 pm
Looks like the bird-guy is trying to add a question mark to the book title, but it fell apart at the last second.
March 4th, 2024 at 5:05 pm
It’s Charlie Drake under that mask and he’s practicing on an Action Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRniKsa5kls and a slightly stranger re-appropriated version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw1kqNTSdxI
March 4th, 2024 at 5:44 pm
Don’t you hate those dreams where you have to battle an ancient Aztec god and suddenly realize you’re in your underwear?
March 4th, 2024 at 6:35 pm
You just know Tucker would be aghast at the homo-erotic symbolism on this cover.
March 4th, 2024 at 11:19 pm
Megaubersuperhuman!
GSS for the mouseover text.
This has that illogical yet muddy daftness we speciali(s/z)e in here.
I’m not ruling out the “random stuff from the kids’ toy box” method either: a weird mask, a loose arm, a random curvy thing, a watercolor painting blob, and a GI Joe or Tarzan action figure.
@fred: It’s Library of Congress code; PS is American literature. I’ve no idea of the meaning of the rest, (some kind of subclasses) nor why it’s got a reference MO (for “more”) at the end instead of VA for Van Vogt.
Also I’ve no idea why a mass-market SF paperback book has an LoC number since it’s for research and higher education libraries. I do remember spinner racks of paperbacks in my junior college and university library, so I guess that’s it. Doesn’t seem to have circulated much, it’s in pretty good shape for a 50 year old MMPB. Give me Dewey Decimal any day, though.
But Tucker might really dig this picture. Muscles are so MANLY, don’tcha know. It continually amazes me how much the uber-male look and clothing admired by incels, toxic masculinity, and fascists is so unbelievably homoerotic.
@Bruce: That’s the worst.
March 5th, 2024 at 5:45 am
Photomontaxecoatl, Aztec god of collage.
March 5th, 2024 at 7:01 am
I think that “Aztec god” is crosseyed.
March 5th, 2024 at 7:02 am
Might need a “weird hips” tag.
March 5th, 2024 at 10:49 am
@GSS ex-noob
I’m thinking that Vogt is prominent enough in a certain strand of American thought to garner some interest from academics though it seems in this case the interest wasn’t sustained.
March 5th, 2024 at 3:38 pm
Didn’t take long for swim team members to notice that the new coach was a bit odd.
March 5th, 2024 at 11:23 pm
And just how is one supposed to look that collage of a dude up on Tikipedia?
March 6th, 2024 at 1:57 am
@FB: Yes, but although the format seems to be LoC, the last two letters seem wrong.
College libraries do have some less-serious books for the students to peruse in their down time, but this sort often ends up in a different section. Possibly someone who was tagging books at the time really liked van Vogt, and at a later date, the book was weeded by someone who wondered why an old MMPB by an obscure-to-most writer was in the academic stacks, and in such relatively good condition that almost no one had ever checked it out.
Or perhaps someone took it out of the library in the 70s, never returned it, and they or their heirs were cleaning out the house recently.
What, if any, the cover may have to do with the short stories within, will remain a mystery. Maybe the UAI grad drew the superhuman (not a swimmer, @Emster — too bulky) and then at the last minute had to splodge in something “more than”.
@Bruce: Excellent! GSS!
March 6th, 2024 at 4:15 am
If Tar-Sham looks like Tucker, then the Mesoamerican mask with the Polynesian fish hook looks more and more like Putin. Also, the artist seems to have given Putin the body of one of Larry Niven’s Moties. The whole picture comes across as the weirdest version of Moana I can imagine.
@Bruce #9: GSS!
@Leak: ditto!
@GSSxN: Thanks for elucidating LoC code!
March 6th, 2024 at 6:23 pm
@GSSxn: that was the only team I could think of where it’s not creepy to be casually standing on a platform in a Speedo… Also, my small town swim team would let anyone (who paid the membership fee) join, so even those of us who weren’t built like lanky inverted triangles and would never (ever) qualify for Provincials got to experience the joy of tight, wet Lycra and chlorine damaged hair.
March 6th, 2024 at 11:25 pm
@Emster: Wasn’t it so fun to come out of the pool and locker room when it was hovering around 0 F?! Then your chlorine damaged hair could also be hat hair from the toque. I can never forget the “shlork” sound the wet Lycra made when you pulled it off. Once I went to a nudist camp as a friend’s guest, and the pool was delightful! Because you didn’t have anything to get welded into your butt crack! No shlork. No slimy petroleum-derived fabric clinging to your tender bits.
Anyway, I had him figured for a body builder, which is also where you have to stand in Speedos or smaller. They weren’t as grotesque back then as they are now. Still, he’s got no chance against that thing behind him, which has both the size and the weapon advantage. If it doesn’t topple over since it never does leg* day.
@JJYoyo: You’re welcome. I laughed at “the weirdest version of Moana”.
* I do think it has only one.
March 7th, 2024 at 2:50 am
@GSS ex-noob: maybe it’s got a body and legs in that blurry brown area (it’s leaning over to the right a bit in preparation for bisecting the bodybuilder) and that bird foot is actually a lower right arm?
(Or it could be a “Gods can ignore gravity” situation)
March 7th, 2024 at 5:08 am
@Bruce: I’m thinking the “ignore gravity” part.
March 20th, 2024 at 11:44 am
Imagine Theodore Sturgeon seeing that title and rolling his eyes…