May 04
Don’s Art Direction: Decapitated heads on strings gazing soulfully at each other while their occipital regions morph into Wookiees. Oh, and guess you’d better put some flying saucers in there, since they’re in the title of this 1930s pulp novella that we’re trying to pass off as a modern 1970s novel.
Freaky. Thanks to Don!
May 4th, 2010 at 10:31 am
This kinda scares me a little. I’m afraid that little flying saucers will come and get me during the middle of the night and leave with my head.
May 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
SI – That totally happened to my Aunt Lois.
May 4th, 2010 at 11:06 am
The Vexxans have infiltrated human minds. That’s them on the backs of the heads. And they’re pulling our strings. Just like, y’know, puppet masters. Does the artist’s name happen to be something like Derek Literal?
May 4th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Sage> Don’t tell me that. Now I won’t sleep! Though I can’t imagine I’d be alive if they took my head. Unless they were keeping my head alive through Alien science.
In fact, where’s Adam when you need him. Isn’t he the expert on disembodied heads. Or was it disemheaded bodies?
May 4th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I think the tag makes the novel sound so refreshing. “Now they plan to blow everything up”, the Vexxans, its seems arent interested in the minerals of our planet, they just like exploding shit. YEEEEHAW!
@James, lol i can just see the author explaining the intricacies of the plot to the artist, about humans being pulled on strings etc. And all the artist is hearing is “heads attached to stings, being pulled by tiny spaceships”
Is that cover meant to be on earth? Last time i checked, we didnt have 3 moons.
May 4th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Notice before the aliens decided to put on the puppet show, they took bites out of the back of each head. Yummy.
And what on earth (heh, earth) are they flying over? Dunno about you guys, but I’ve never seen a field of white grass surrounded by bare white trees with a pile of white puke in the middle. Of course, the three moons kind of suggest that the saucers might have taken the heads on a little joyride (keelhaul?) through the solar system after they decapitated them.
May 4th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I love this site, but would it be too much trouble to include in the post the date of publication? I would love to know when these were published: are they modern, from the 50s, etc.
Keep up the good work!
May 4th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
“Is that cover meant to be on earth? Last time i checked, we didnt have 3 moons.”
When was the last time you checked, CSA?
‘Vexxans’, eh? Well, they certainly seem to be vexin’ that couple with the hair! O-ho! Oh I’m too droll! No, no, stop!
May 4th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
The big one might not even be a moon. It might be Jupiter, magnified. Do you see what I did there? Adam? Do you see?
May 4th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I was going to say, ‘James’ (I was going to say), ‘James, surely that’s an author name that cries out to be anagrammatised?’ Then I realised what you did. You took an ordinary name, turned it into an absurd anagram, went back in time and insinuated it into the printer’s copy.
May 4th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Yeah, I took In Dead Boner’s name and turned it into Eando Binder.
My guess would be that a married couple co-authored this mighty tome, Mr E and Mrs O Binder. But that’s just a guess.
…and then I Googled the name, and it turns out I’m right. Sort of. In fact the authors are brothers, Earl and Otto. Ain’t the internet a wunnerful thing?
May 4th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I thought Eando Binder was a pseudonym for Philip Roth? If anyone can write a modern 70s novel about disembodied heads and crazy wookie sex, it’s Philip Roth.
May 4th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I hope the publisher’s and author’s reactions to this cover went along the lines of, ‘heads will roll in the Art Department!’
May 4th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Well thats where they got the idea for the talking heads in Mars Attacks. Cover actually looks like fun, but how did it compare to Menace of the Saucers?
May 5th, 2010 at 4:30 am
@CSA: Vexxans – the Duke Boys of the galaxy.
@Jen: You had to say “puppet show”. The decapitated heads are now officially named Gerry & Sylvia.
@dad23g: 1972 for this one. (As noted, the actual story appears to be from several decades earlier.)
May 5th, 2010 at 10:09 am
‘Now they plan to blow everything up’ Is the best shoutline in the world. Ever.
May 5th, 2010 at 10:11 am
‘ . . . up everything’ You’d think I’d quote it accurately given that.
May 5th, 2010 at 10:31 am
“Skwalark, get that inflatable pool up dam it! Jezfizn! For god’s sake how long does it take to blow up a beach ball?!”
May 5th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Simon: of course, that was also the strategic military plan for the US invasion of Iraq.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:23 am
This may even have been where they got the idea from. Pity they didn’t go for the ‘dangling massive heads by their hair’ aspect of the plan.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Also, the person holding this book seems to be purple. Are they are Vexxan? Have we been infiltrated already? Will everything blow up soon?
May 6th, 2010 at 2:44 am
Huh. I’ve seen this cover before, but I never noticed the wookie faces in the backs of the skulls. As Sherlock used to say, “You see, but do not observe.”
“Now they plan to blow up everything”
Perhaps with an Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator?
May 6th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Their faces would be covered with bruises from banging into each other–they’re swinging at the end of hundreds of feet of rope. Unless the rope operators in those saucers are really skilled.
Or are the saucers really tiny (or the heads really huge) and so it’s only a few feet of rope. Hmmm…perspective.
May 8th, 2010 at 12:56 am
No matter how bad you think this cover is, the book is worse.
I wish I could find my copy so I could ceremonially burn it.
May 8th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Love this site, first time posting. Anyway as we are having fun with the tag line of this cover, has anyone noticed the grammatical awkwardness of “Now they PLANNED to blow up everything?” How can one use a pronoun indicating the present moment (right now) but still use a verb in the past tense? This is particularly ironic to me in that the sentence itself is clearly constructed to avoid ending in the preposition “up.” In everyday conversation most of us would of course say “blow everything up.” So clearly the cover designer was paying some attention to grammer, but apparently hadn’t gotten to the chapter on “literary present tense” in his/her English grammar handbook yet.
May 8th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Oops, clearly I meant the preposition “now,” not pronoun. Damn I hate when I get my grammar when while pointing out grammar issues.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:55 am
No better induction to a site full of fond mockery, BB, welcome!
These guys have fantastic hair. For a book that was published in the 70’s it certainly nailed the mid 2000’s post-Rachel look.
November 21st, 2010 at 10:35 pm
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?NGHTFTHSCR1971 lists the cover is by John Cayea
April 10th, 2014 at 2:07 pm
The saucers landed on Earth. The hippies introduced them to their bong. Now they planned to blow up everything.
NIGHT OF THE ENORMOUS RIPS
July 6th, 2015 at 6:06 pm
When I’m having a bad day, this cover never fails to lift my head.
December 22nd, 2015 at 9:46 pm
“Give your hair cosmic lift and strength with Bloreal Active Reactive Enzyme Schmenzyme Shampoo!”
December 24th, 2015 at 12:42 am
Mein Gott! The aliens have allied to Islamic state.
August 13th, 2017 at 5:23 pm
The saucers landed on Earth. The Trumps infiltrated. Now they planned to blow up everything and build a hotel on top.
THE SMALLHANDS