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Nov 03

One has to keep his tentacles warm with stockings!Click for full UNCENSORED image

Terry’s Art Direction: The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about a cure for cancer is – naked chicks! I want you to put in 4 naked women and have their heads blowing up and an Albino man’s corpse emerging from them. Think you can do that? I know it’s a stretch, but . . .
Published 1976

I give this one Michael Crawford!
Many thanks to Terry!

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 8.86 out of 10)
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28 Responses to “A Cure for Cancer”

  1. cutmanmike Says:

    No wonder they’re taking so long to find one if it looks like this!

  2. SI Says:

    Something I have noticed… nudity nearly always seems to be put in the middle of the cover. Just occurred to me… anyway…

    I have no idea what is going on with this one. Anyone read the book? Does it have a stocking wearing women tentacle monster?

  3. SI Says:

    “Mutant squid creature. It’s the only way to travel around London these days.”

  4. Brian B. Says:

    I suppose this is another attempt at surrealism from an artist who didn’t quite get it that surrealism worked as an artistic movement because it was shocking and thought provoking largely because no one had ever done it before. There is a quote from an art critic–can’t remember his name off hand–but something along the lines of “the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table happened only once”

  5. Justin Leego Says:

    Evil David Bowie is the ultimate Kinder Surprise.

  6. KMont Says:

    I just did a quick glance of the cover at first. Thought the white dude was Will Ferrell….which might actually work, but I realize that was my lack of coffee working on me now.

  7. Evad Says:

    I think the artist’s parole officer should be notified as this cover clearly violates the terms of his release.

  8. Weirdmage Says:

    This actually looks like something Terry Gilliam could have done for Monty Python.

  9. NGpm Says:

    @SI: well, IT sure is right up front and center there ….

    @Weirdmage: now I’m waiting for the giant foot to drop in and squash the thing, or maybe squidzilla there will start dancing the charleston or something.

    Must be hard to by stockings in that particular cut … Frederick’s of Andromeda or Sloggoth’s Secret maybe?

  10. Adam Roberts Says:

    This cover already has enough breasts and thigh, I think. What it needs is more cock.

    I thank you! I’m here all week. Try the veal.

  11. Babbage Says:

    So this cure, it’s in the syringe? Does the apple have cancer?

  12. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “Evil David Bowie is the ultimate Kinder Surprise.”

    -Best comment! 😀

  13. Anrkist Says:

    The cure for cancer is Moorcock?

  14. Brendan Podger Says:

    I am totally not surprised this is a Jerry Cornelius book. As much as I like Michael Moorcock that series was simply too nasty soft porn for my tastes.

  15. A.R.Yngve Says:

    As Art Director for fantastic fiction books, you are faced with a unique publishing dilemma: you must balance the opportunity to show truly unusual and bizarre imagery against the risk of alienating potential readers.

    The solution, as shown above, is often a compromise: Show something ugly and off-putting instead.

  16. GSS ex-noob Says:

    So are these the tentacles the guy from “Sector General” lost?

  17. fred Says:

    Little known fact. Prometheus went back and stole the secret of the garter belt from the gods. Two guesses as to what the eagle eats for that little crime.

  18. Francis Boyle Says:

    This could give some enterprising academic an entire semester’s worth of material for their course on Attitudes to Sex and Gender in the Seventies.

  19. Tor Mented Says:

    @fred: The eagle eats Moorcock?

  20. JuanPaul Says:

    I assume this cure for cancer is in the experimental phase.

  21. Tat Wood Says:

    @Francis Boyle: 70s Britain is the one place where a version with Frank Spencer on the cover would have sold better than one with exposed norks.

  22. THX 1139 Says:

    And it was Michael Crawford’s birthday this week, what a beautiful tribute.

  23. Dave Van Domelen Says:

    Seems pretty on-brand for a Jerry Cornelius story.

  24. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Tat: Sure, you could see exposed norks which looked better than these lots of places, but how often do you get to see Michael Crawford? (I did, once, In Concert, post-Phantom.)

    @Tor: GSS!

  25. Bruce A Munro Says:

    (Pardon me if I steal a couple ideas here. Like Shakespeare, I only steal from the best)

    A cure for cancer was developed as a result of a teleporter accident involving a pole dancer, a body builder-assassin, one of HG Wells’s Martians, and an apple all jacked up on heroin. The resulting monstrosity split open and gave birth to Dark Elf David Bowie, who went to cure cancer and reboot glam rock for the 21st century.

  26. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: And all that was explained in a double-album glam-rock concept album, which went on to *not * win a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, though it did make the ballot, and all the cosplayers dressed up as the characters you could portray in public.

    I can hear the electric guitars now. I could only afford the 2 CD version, not the deluxe heavy vinyl with the fold-out poster.

  27. Tracy Says:

    The man in the orange suit looks more like Neil Young to me. Of course, Neil Young would never have worn an orange suit like that.

    I have hunch this artist was the same one who did the double cover of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

  28. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Tracy: different artists, though this one also did albums.

    Elton’s records wouldn’t have had norks so prominently featured, of course.

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