Oct 20
GK’s Art Direction: What do you mean you quit! You’re fired! I’ll have someone else finish the picture!
Published 1975
Many thanks to GK!
GK’s Art Direction: What do you mean you quit! You’re fired! I’ll have someone else finish the picture!
Published 1975
Many thanks to GK!
October 20th, 2010 at 9:30 am
No no no, it’s not an unfinished picture — it’s a metaphor, see, a visualizing the terror of Martian dust getting into the space suits and lander craft, causing tiny astronauts to crawl out of your space suit…
Pshaw, who am I kidding?
October 20th, 2010 at 9:35 am
I like that cover. I expect the book is crap, though.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Yeah. I mean, ‘not counted’ on dust and loneliness? Obviously an idiot plot, given that we’re many years from Mars and are already studying the problem (well, the latter problem: the former was a worry for a while but no more) and writing books like, well, this one.
Is there a term for books the mere existence of which forces them to have idiot plots?
October 20th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Nix> The twilight effect?
I like this one too. The font strangely reminding me of a secondary school science text book.
But what oh what could the metaphor be? Inside the mind of a space man he dreams of being.. a space man struggling for air?
October 20th, 2010 at 10:11 am
“Send help! Giant space helmet is eating me!”
October 20th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Translated from the German? Zee German?
October 20th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
One of the characters is called The German.
Wait… this is totally Leaving Las Vegas in space, isn’t it?
October 20th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Leave it alone, I like this cover.
Except for the font, which immediately transports me back to the 70s. Timeslip, The Tomorrow People, Magpie, science programmes narrated by Geoffrey Wheeler, Look-In (the Junior TV Times)…
OK, OK, the cover’s a wreck!
October 20th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
*I* didn’t count on the Mars Red Dust looking so much like red moss
October 20th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
The font is classic Awful Seventies, isn’t it? It’s like something you’d see printed on your cheques, only they’re expecting an actual human to read it.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Anthea Bell is best known for co-translating the Asterix books into English, so I’m assuming there are some hilarious puns effortlessly brought over from the German in this one.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
That Font MaKes me crazy. Is it available for Mac OS??
October 22nd, 2010 at 3:31 pm
This site would be a lot better if you occasionally showed covers that you like. It is easy to poke fun at dated styles, but unless you commit to what you like, you are just carping.
October 22nd, 2010 at 7:47 pm
But Fred, we don’t like these covers – we LOVE them. Hence the highest accolade being the rating of “Good Show, Sir!”
October 25th, 2013 at 8:42 pm
TING PLZ KTHX
[edit: Ting’d – TW]
October 27th, 2013 at 3:10 am
‘The Earth Is Near:Autobiography of a Toddler.’
August 25th, 2015 at 4:34 am
I see a tag missing.
Given the likely influence of LSD on the artist, I think we all know which one . . .
May 5th, 2019 at 5:28 am
The odd thing is, the author is a noted astronomical artist. This cover isn’t by him, though. It’s Charles Lilly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lud%C4%9Bk_Pe%C5%A1ek
Pesek did a cover for this http://www.ludekpesek.ch/ludek_pesek_fiction.php but it’s rather less memorable.