Sep 30
Click for full imageMuttley’s Art Direction: A Wizard, right? You know, caped, with magic sparks or something. Big Hair (TM) too.
Published 1986
(Average: 7.23 out of 10)
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Muttley’s Art Direction: A Wizard, right? You know, caped, with magic sparks or something. Big Hair (TM) too.
Published 1986
(Average: 7.23 out of 10)Loading...
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September 30th, 2011 at 9:47 am
QUIZ: Does the book title read
A) EARTISEA Trilogy
B) EARTIUEA Trilogy
C) EARTIULA Trilogy
D) EARTHSLA Trilogy
September 30th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Well done! Let’s give this cover a big hand! Or two.
September 30th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Why is there hair coming out of his palms? OH, I get it. It’s Wolverine!
September 30th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
As the cover shows, only people with abnormally long thumbs can become truly successful wizards.
September 30th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
They also made him Kargish, which is unfortunate given the very first chapter.
Sure, in order to discover that his skin is not light-coloured you have to actually read the book closely enough to realise that the Kargs are considered to look different due to their light skins, or to note that Earthsea itself is more than slightly Polynesian… and reading the book is something publishers have never been good at.
Le Guin has been scathing about this cover in particular (which survived unchanged through many printings):
“The first British Wizard was this pallid, droopy, lily-like guy—I screamed at sight of him.”
September 30th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
I have to say that I don’t recall the novels being that, erm, hair-raising.
September 30th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Gecko fingers!
Did anyone ever do an Earthsea cover with dark-skinned protagonists?
September 30th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Like Alessandra, my first thought was “gecko!” Then I saw the face, and thought for a second that it was Harlan Ellison. Then I saw the BIG hair (that is VERY BIG hair), and now I don’t know what to think. But I understand why Ursula screamed.
September 30th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Even though this is the British Penguin cover (you may well ask, what’s a British Penguin, but I’ll leave that for later), Shawn Ashmore does resemble the blonde-haired white guy with sparks. I don’t know why the cover guy has got a giant hedgehog on the back of his head, though.
I think the cover below is the one that LeGuin was complaining of
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a7/Wizard_earthsea.JPG
The Jonathan Field cover is for the single-volume edition of the Trilogy, much later in publication than the first individual book “A Wizard of Earthsea”
September 30th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Didn’t we already see this cover before?
September 30th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
I don’t think so … Not on this site, anyway. I went through the whole archives a few days ago and I don’t remember this one. It’s a whole new horror.
Poor Ursula le Guin.
September 30th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
I’ve a horrible feeling that the Big Hair/hedgehog is supposed to be the Shadow that is Ged’s worst enemy. Why it’s taken the form of a hairball is anybody’s guess . . .
British Penguins are of course a chocolate biscuit. As opposed to Recent Penguins, an obscure and short-lived (but influential) Liverpool pop group . . .
October 1st, 2011 at 1:35 am
Muttley: oh good god. That’s *appalling*, almost *too* bad for this site. “Drooping” is the word, indeed.
I think the blue monster behind him is supposed to be the Shadow. Not… exactly. And, um, why does he have the Kremlin behind him, exactly?
October 1st, 2011 at 1:37 am
Alessandra: I thought I submitted this cover already, but I couldn’t find it either. But, wow, the one Muttley dug up truly beats it hollow.
October 1st, 2011 at 2:05 am
Yes, Muttley’s is decidedly awful. A sort of Oscar Wilde meets Ozma of Oz art nouveau travesty.
Poor, poor Ursula le Guin.
October 1st, 2011 at 2:42 am
FARTISEA Trilogy. Gotta love ambiguous letters.
October 1st, 2011 at 9:44 pm
@Alessandra: Leo and Diane Dillon did a beautiful and accurate cover for the Science Fiction Book Club’s omnibus edition some years back, which can be seen here. I believe their son was the model for Ged.
October 1st, 2011 at 10:51 pm
Actually I found that copy of the Puffin cover on Wikipedia. Hiding in plain sight, you might say.
Don, the Dillon’s cover is very good, and encapsulates the story very well, I’ve been looking at covers for Keith Roberts supreme AH novel Pavane, and theirs is one of the better ones.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zSMH6b5dlrg/TL0Avv3b6cI/AAAAAAAAAa8/RWBPWwiTR2c/s400/ace+1969.jpg
David O’Connor’s cover for Penguin Classic SF is the best, though.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Re07SGPUL.jpg
Pavane is hard to summarise. Most artists haven’t tried, or been given a good enough brief perhaps. I’d submit one of the covers where the Lady Margaret is a railway locomotive, but don’t own any, I’ve got the Classic SF edition. Hint, for anyone out there with a good bad example?
October 2nd, 2011 at 4:19 am
Glowing treefrog-toes.
October 3rd, 2011 at 4:14 am
Still not the weirdest choice in art on an Earthsea cover.
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2010/08/terremer/
November 7th, 2011 at 10:19 am
This is, I think, the original cover, and the one I remember fondly:
http://pictures.abebooks.com/LUTSCHAK/212453358.jpg
November 7th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Silkenfire, that’s a better one. EARTHSEA: THE NOGGIN THE NOG YEARS.
August 29th, 2014 at 1:36 pm
No, Ged. The dragon is behind you. Ged! Look over THERE, Ged! Oh, please, don’t– THAT WAS MY HAT! That was MY hat you just had an Edisonian disagreement with, and the bloody dragon’s getting away. I don’t want to talk to you right now, Ged. Go away and be pale somewhere else.
February 25th, 2016 at 2:32 pm
@A.R.Yngve: CARTIuFA
May 3rd, 2016 at 2:45 am
After this cover modeling gig, Anthony Hopkins’ career took off.
July 21st, 2017 at 9:26 pm
@Tag Wizard: Where be the “font problems” tag for this one? I mean, just look at at that dead-ugly font and tell me it isn’t yet another part of the many disservices the cover does to the book. If you have to look at it several times to make sure what it says, it’s not a good font.
September 15th, 2020 at 6:46 pm
Ged a hair cut, you hippy!