Aug 20
Art Direction: We’ll draw a couple of male models on the cover with laser guns, cold room jackets and a light halo around their slicked back hair. Just like it will be in the future! Realism my boy, we need to spell this out for the readers. Well, except for the F, we’ll partially cover that later in editing!
Published 1993
August 20th, 2010 at 11:23 am
The non-firing laser guy does have a certain, ‘Uh oh, this is going to be painful’ expression on him.
August 20th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
“We’ll draw a couple of male models on the cover with laser guns, cold room jackets and a light halo around their slicked back hair.”
I think they just stole a still from some made for video scifi movie and didn’t bother to remove the background properly.
August 20th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
@SI – look how he’s clutching his gun to his chest!
“Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance of power between human and alien.”
Overturn the balance of fashion, you mean. These guys look like Fonzie circa 2150.
August 20th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
The painful cover.
August 20th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
those jackets are styling! They’re giving me a Pong/BrickBreaker Homage vibe that I am surprised to find in the 22nd century
also, is it me, or is the front guy is totally Landon Donovan in his 40s?
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:08 am
“Someone” was out to overturn the yada yada? Not these two! Let’s not even talk about the quilted jackets–or the fact that the “illustrator” only one model for both of these jokers. (“I’ll just change the hair and nose a little–no one will notice that it’s the same dude…”)
August 24th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Nice. It says “The Painful Field” and then the arrow behind that is pointing down towards the spot where the illustration would go. I think the illustrator succeeded in making that “field” rather painful to watch.
August 24th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
“Let those aliens, like, totally eat laser death, dude!”
“Rock on!”
August 24th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Niiiice quilted jackets dudes!
And hey isn’t that Mel Gibson and Lee Majors?
I think the artist is the same guy who did the artwork for the Tor mmp of Peter . Hamilton’s Mindstar Rising.
That featured dodgy 80s era disco outfits too . . .
December 20th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
The likeness to Mel Gibson is there, sure, but the artist left out the foaming at the mouth and the cackling laughter…
April 29th, 2014 at 1:36 pm
Slicked-back hair, quilted jackets, tiny guns… Watch out, LADIES.
Also, does the guy in the back’s expression make anyone else think that those star fighters are flying out of his ass?
May 1st, 2014 at 9:36 am
Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance of power between Starbucks and McDonald’s
Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance of power between Mrs. Dimble and Mrs. Horton at the annual Pie Of The Year Contest
Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance of power between gravity and the cosmological constant
Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance of power between soda and Pop Rocks
November 17th, 2022 at 3:12 am
Someone was out to overturn the precarious balance between Roc Books poor attempt at a serious SF cover and those of us who might have overlooked F-impaled Future Fonzie.
(That “someone” being a village of giddy GSS SF nerds, which is always a good time)