Jul 30
GK’s Art Direction: I need this cover by 5 o’clock! Just go out and take a picture of something!
Published 1969
AHHH! Kill it! Kill it!
Many thanks to GK!
GK’s Art Direction: I need this cover by 5 o’clock! Just go out and take a picture of something!
Published 1969
AHHH! Kill it! Kill it!
Many thanks to GK!
July 30th, 2010 at 9:14 am
I would definitely file that cover under OTHER FANTASIES
July 30th, 2010 at 9:30 am
is that maybe a voodoo doll.
what would anyone have against a parrot?
July 30th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Haha I love this a lot.
@Adam Roberts (if he sees this) Don’t you just wish NMA used this for a cover?
But wow… Che Guevara looks nothing like his pictures!
July 30th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Inexplicably, the new line of Bad Acid Trip Action Man figures wasn’t selling as well as Palitoy had hoped.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Is that a vulture’s head on an action figure?
It’s supposed to be a metaphor about the dehumanizing effect of war, I suppose.
Or… a metaphor about trying to make a book cover on a shoestring budget.
July 30th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Clearly a doll’s uniform, judging from the size of the buttons, which I’m sure makes it more Meaningful or something.
And it looks like a claw, but it’s positioned like a beak… I don’t know. I’m stumped. But if I were sweet Polly Oliver Parrot, I’d dodge the draft, that’s for sure.
July 30th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies!
‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig!
‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!
July 30th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
SI: @Adam Roberts (if he sees this) Don’t you just wish NMA used this for a cover?
God, yes! Not just the green-olive-for-an-eye beaky fowl in a uniform, but the way the first letter of the title looks like it has been chewed by some frenzied reader.
That would be awesome on pretty much any of my novels. I feel confident James Lovegrove feels the same way about his novels.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
haha Actually I was just finishing off NMA today. In the final few pages, even though I don’ t think you intended it, I had the above chicken man in my mind as the narrator.
Hilarious stuff.
Age of Odin? James I don’t think you need to make a new cover anymore. You know you want it!
July 31st, 2010 at 12:36 am
It’s not just the chicken. It’s the way that his open jacket clearly reveals that he’s made of *cardboard*.
I don’t know if they were trying to make some deep and subtle point about the cheapness of life and the certainty that all soldiers will be cowards in the end, or if they were just cheap bastards. I suspect the latter.
This is certainly the only war cover that’s ever made me laugh out loud.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Today’s victory is tomorrow’s defeat sounds like the motto for this year’s Detroit Lions.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:51 pm
“Polly wants a uniform for a doll! Craak!”
Anyone else think using initials when your surname is O’Something is a bad idea?
Well, at least his (her?) name wasn’t Bartholomew..
And what is an “ace double”?
August 1st, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Re: Evad’s comment
Have you tried applying a stun gun to Polly, in a attempt at revival…?
(After all, some models put out 40,000 Volts, as I seem to recall)
As for Anon’s question about “Ace Doubles”, they were a creation of Ace books in the U.S, and were 2 novels published back to back, in one large paperback…
However, to read the books, you had to turn the book upside down to read each novel, as they were printed upside down, relative to each other.
As a result, said “double” had 2 front covers…
August 16th, 2010 at 2:26 am
New posts always get a smile, but I laughed so hard at this one that my neighbours left for Toronto.
May 13th, 2016 at 10:43 am
That’s right! Yesterdays repost gave me an idea (and by that I mean I read Bibliomancer’s comment!) It means I have to do less work!
So this will be here until Monday… and then it will disappear into the archives forever… again!
Let the witty comments begin! And if this is a bad idea, let it never happen again!
May 13th, 2016 at 11:21 am
‘Well, Tattoo, Mr. O’Donnell’s fantasy is to have his book of stories published with a claw-faced soldier doll as the cover art.’
‘Ooo, dat’s nice, Boss!’
May 13th, 2016 at 12:37 pm
After putting army uniforms on dead parrots they decided to make this the final war.
It was just getting silly now.
May 13th, 2016 at 12:49 pm
Denys Fisher experienced great difficulty capturing Tom Baker’s likeness.
May 13th, 2016 at 1:30 pm
Emu’s really let himself go since Rod Hull passed away.
May 13th, 2016 at 1:43 pm
Final WTF
And Other Fantasies
Today’s wiki is tomorrow’s on fleek
May 13th, 2016 at 1:46 pm
@GSS Admin – I’m full of great ideas. How about a Two-fer Tuesday where you post TWO new covers! That way all the great covers you receive won’t get backed up because you are now posting 20% fewer each week. 🙂
May 13th, 2016 at 1:59 pm
If we’re now recycling covers, why not just recycle the comments as well?
Here, I’ll start: Inexplicably, the new line of Bad Acid Trip Action Man figures wasn’t selling as well as Palitoy had hoped.
Now that makes for an easy work day.
May 13th, 2016 at 2:31 pm
Heck, I recycle my comments all the time, I only have about ten jokes. Today’s victory is tomorrow’s victory too, I say.
May 13th, 2016 at 2:56 pm
This book looks like a turkey.
May 13th, 2016 at 3:07 pm
How an unleashed Brando probably would have portrayed Col Kurtz.
May 13th, 2016 at 3:49 pm
@GSS Admin—Dear Good Sirs,
I write as “a friend” to warn you of an incipient power move it appears Bibliomancer is preparing to mount. Looks like a bloody coup to me, as when Irkutsk invades Kamchatka. No doubt inspired by Chinese GSS playing the Great Game.
Signed,
“A Friend”
May 13th, 2016 at 4:32 pm
The Pinky and Perky/ Dad’s Army mash-up was less fun than anyone expected.
May 14th, 2016 at 1:33 am
“Kiss me Hardy.”
May 14th, 2016 at 6:45 am
@THX 1138— 😉
May 14th, 2016 at 11:21 pm
Bagpuss tackles O! what a lovely war!
January 16th, 2017 at 6:28 am
So the cover is the uniform off a 1960’s GI Joe doll, with some bird parts.
It was the final war because Graham Chapman came in and said “Right, stop that, it’s TOO SILLY.”
November 16th, 2019 at 3:30 pm
It’s like when Einstein said he didn’t know how the Third World war would be fought but he knew the Fourth would be fought by parrots.
November 26th, 2019 at 1:37 am
No, that’s world war six. World war four is fought with mutants and world war five by giant ants.
December 9th, 2021 at 4:36 pm
I don’t know it for a fact, but I’m just certain that Baen would never, ever publish anything with the title “FINAL War.”
December 10th, 2021 at 12:03 am
@ARY: Only if they’re going out of business*, and it would be their last book off the presses. A giant anthology of all their worst writers**, blowing shit up while having no proofreading or editing whatsoever.
*A girl can dream.
** That’s most of them.