Aug 19
Click for full imageDavid Comments: I wonder what kind of reception he gets with that helmet.
Published 1973
Half dog, half tree?
Many thanks to David!
(Average: 5.79 out of 10)
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David Comments: I wonder what kind of reception he gets with that helmet.
Published 1973
Half dog, half tree?
Many thanks to David!
(Average: 5.79 out of 10)Loading...
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August 19th, 2010 at 9:55 am
“Born of a treacherous love union”
Now that’s the title of my next album 😀 And when I say next, I mean first.
I do think this is awesome though. I like to think he has been posing like that for several hours.
August 19th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Those bloody love unicorns!
August 19th, 2010 at 11:31 am
He will most likely get a scornful reception:
“Ha! Look at stupid Hrolf, stopped in the doorway again because he forgot to take off his helmet…”
Alternate caption #1:
“By Odin’s eye, I’ll give that longboat five more minutes to arrive, then I’m going home…”
Alternate caption #2:
“AAARRGH!! Cursed axe got stuck in my thigh again!!”
August 19th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
“Spencer, I want a manly Viking type on that cover!”
“Yes, Boss!”
“With an axe! And a shield! And a fur wrap, held on by a manly belt!”
“Done and done, Boss!”
“And one o’ them big Viking helmets, with horns out to here!”
“…here, Boss?”
“No, out to HERE! And a wolf staring out toward the reader, with his haunches stuck in a piece of driftwood.”
“…drift…wood…Fine, fine, Boss, I think we can do this. You want a dramatic location, Boss?”
“Yes! I want a scrap of grassy land between a rocky talus slope and the pounding waves of the great salty sea!”
“Hm, well, it’s a tall order, Boss. But I’ll make it work.”
“Good man, Spencer. And I want it all together in as little space as possible. Maybe, so I can cover it up with my thumb.”
“…I’m just making a short trip to the off-license again, Boss.”
August 19th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Here’s a gag that never gets old. Just run up to Hrolf and tap the tip of his helmet. It rolls right off his head. Just don’t hit it from behind – he hates it when the nose guard jabs his face.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
My initial impression is that Hrolf was sitting in a huge woven basket-chair that was coming apart. Then I thought, “No, that can’t be right. It’s his hair. Huge and dreadlocked, it swirls around him like a cape.” But then it appears that he’s also wearing it. Although I would think that a cloak made of coarse rope would chafe incredibly.
And anyway I can’t imagine anyway he could anatomically be in that position unless he’s seated. Which brings us back to the basket chair.
What gives?!?
August 19th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
With a slip of the axe and additional arm weight, he is just asking for his leg to be chopped off.
August 19th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I can just envision one horn full of mead and another full of fruit.
Perhaps the helmet is only a little bucket type helm and the horns are really attached to his head?
August 19th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
@Sophaloaf
if the axe slips the other way, that wolf is on its way to Valhalla
August 19th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
“I’ll just lean back here on this…damn! There goes my cloak. Well, I’ll just twist around like the chiropractor showed me. How did this stray fox/micro-lupine get here? Oh well. Just a few more inches…” *splash!*
August 19th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
“Thrud, is that you…?”.
(Sorry, but I could’nt resist inserting a gratitious Thrud The Barbarian reference here, given the outregous helmet design…).
August 19th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
That’s a very short handle on that axe. Did he steal it from some midget …umm.. dwarf, I mean?
OTOH he has a huge shield
…and a huge foot..?
August 19th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I wonder if this is an example of what my friend Tim used to call “fur jockstrap novels”
August 20th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Real Vikings could rarely afford horns on their helmets — much less impractical, show-offy big ones like that…
So Hrolf was clearly an upper-class twit Viking.
August 20th, 2010 at 10:00 am
he must be a nice barbarian, cos the puppy seems to like him
August 20th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
I don’t know I kind of like this one. It is nice to see a model whose body looks more like a real person rather than a chistle-cut steriod popper…People are going to think I’m into bears now aren’t they?
August 20th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
He hasn’t missed many meals, has he?
August 24th, 2010 at 8:45 am
@Brian
“Dad, could you come here and model for me for a minute! No need to put your shirt on.”
August 7th, 2011 at 7:44 am
Also Darrell K. Sweet.
August 26th, 2022 at 5:38 pm
Hrolf must spend a lot of time in a canoe, because surely in that pose he is rowing, right?
August 26th, 2022 at 6:07 pm
Looking at this cover I think foot stomping wasn’t allowed in Viking fights, which I am sure was meticulously researched for 100% historical accuracy.
August 26th, 2022 at 6:14 pm
I’ve never heard a hat called a saga before. Is that some sort of viking thing?
August 26th, 2022 at 6:24 pm
A treacherous union of human/Bigfoot hybrid and grizzly bear?
I think the art is successful in that I can almost smell this guy. OTOH that doesn’t sell me on the book.
August 26th, 2022 at 7:22 pm
Conan the Beer Barreller.
August 26th, 2022 at 11:20 pm
I own this (in a different cover where anatomy isn’t confusing) and it is indeed a Ripping Yarn, full of all the Viking barbarian swashbuckling you can handle. Poul knew his Scandi stuff (his parents emigrated from Denmark, where he lived as a kid)..
It’s a glorious mashup of almost all the sagas and legends. In which nobody is dumb enough to put their axe on their knee, nor do I recall any half-dog, half-driftwood critters.
Poul would have been excellent sitting by the fire in a longhouse hall, drinking med and declaming sagas. He was pretty damn good with a bottle of beer in your average hotel room..
August 26th, 2022 at 11:39 pm
19th century romantic nationalist painters would be embarrassed by that hat.
GSS ex-noob: perhaps the dog is half Timber Wolf.
August 27th, 2022 at 5:35 am
@Bruce: LOL and GSS!
I bet this picture is just Hrolf and his dog-thing posing for a bitchin’ scene, and most of the time he wears a normal helmet and doesn’t put an ax like that. The expression you see on his face could easily be “Are we done with this yet?”
August 27th, 2022 at 1:24 pm
By Kraki, that’s an interesting cover…. 😉
August 28th, 2022 at 3:19 am
Hey, what’s that on Hrolf’s left upper arm? It looks like a really fancy case so he can carry his cellphone when he’s out looting and pillaging. Keeps it out of range of the Timber Wolf, as well.
August 28th, 2022 at 5:53 pm
To think that someone somewhere at the publisher had to have said “Release the Kraki!” at some point…