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Dec 02

Screw ridding dragons...Click for full image

Scott Comments: Elven stripper riding a giant flying owl-cat steed! Or, tiny Elven stripper riding a normal-sized owl-cat steed? Either way, that’s one terrifying/terrified owl-cat.
Published 1983

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: 7.76 out of 10)
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30 Responses to “The Throne of Madness”

  1. Phil Says:

    It’s a catbird! I can’t quite figure out where her – ahem – lower body ends and the cat’s head begins. And is she perhaps pulling on a long hair from the cat’s head? No wonder he looks so pained.

    Wouldn’t the cat half want to catch the bird half? Poor conflicted animal.

  2. THX 1138 Says:

    This would certainly give any sparrows in the vicinity paws for thought. There’s no escape now!

  3. A.R.Yngve Says:

    A New Odyssey Of Love And Rebellion – In A Universe Beyond Imagination!
    20th Century Fox Presents
    FANTASTIC VOYAGE INTO HERMAN CAIN’S BRAIN

  4. Adam Roberts Says:

    The Inquestor Trilogy. A trilogy about a person who performs inquests. WHILST WEARING A BIKINI AND RIDING A BATCAT!

  5. SI Says:

    “Oh sweet lord no…. no cardboard box is safe…..”

  6. AceofSpace Says:

    Well, it fits to the title somewhat. You would have to be certainly mad to call this a thrown.

  7. fred Says:

    Not practical. What if you are in a high altitude catfight and kitty starts hawking up a ginormous hairball?

  8. Tom Noir Says:

    I’m quite curious as to what holds the two halves of her top in place and what that cape is attached to. Perhaps she holds her costume together with the same psychic powers of concentration that allow her to stand on thin air?

  9. Muttley Says:

    That’s either a cape or wings. Either way it’s *sparkly*

    Catbird’s pissed off because although he can now fly with all the birds, he’s got no front paws to disembowel them with.

    Having some naked wench (come on, those are just censors ink spots) riding on your neck and pulling your eyebrows out can’t help either.

    And that riding position looks terribly painful too. No wonder she’s scowling.

  10. drlemaster Says:

    “I’m afraid some of our readers will be put off by the writer’s foreign-sounding name, so surround with all sorts of other text, in different fonts and colors. That and the elven stripper on the owlcat should be distracting enough.”

  11. Alessandra Kelley Says:

    What is she sitting on? It looks like the cat’s external brain. And where are the cat’s ears? And … I thought that was a mesa, but is it the cat’s tail? For that matter, she’s not really sitting at all. She’s standing, or possibly pole dancing, with every muscle clenched. She ought to have an expression like the cat’s to match, a sort of rictus of “yow!” rather than the sulky scowl she’s got.

    Some of the dragons and things around here look like they’d be fun to ride, but that woman’s perch looks very hard and very cold.

  12. Evad Says:

    If you are attacked by a catbat you can easily nullify the threat by distracting it with a laser pointer

  13. A.R.Yngve Says:

    A horde of angry old white men anointed Newt to the Presidency and it became…
    THE THRONE OF MADNESS

  14. Victor Casados Says:

    A seat on the catbird? Thurber save us!!!

  15. Yoss Says:

    You just know that owl cat saddle is up so high to show off her straddle to full effect. Not that I’m complaining.

  16. Farquarson Says:

    What makes this REALLY confusing is that cloak she’s wearing. According to the series, human who belong to the clan of Inquestors wear what are known as Rainbow Cloaks–which are actually robes–as a badge of office. They aren’t tiny or elven or bikini-clad and why on earth one would be riding an owlcat…

    …oh, sweet Jesus. Is that thing the artist’s attempt at the sentient chimera Inquestor steed-guards called pteratigers? The ones that, as I recall, were based on WHITE tigers and that very definitely had four legs as well as two wings?

    The artist couldn’t have read any portion of the book, because Sucharitkul was very big on describing his world. This looks like the artist got a short description from the publisher:

    “It’s about these people who wear rainbow-colored cloaks who ride cats with wings. Just draw that, okay?”

  17. Anti-Sceptic Says:

    I like how the font of the word “TIMESCAPE” is all watery. It looks like it should be pronounced “Timescaaaaaaape” when reading it.

  18. SI Says:

    Well its a mode of transportation when it wants to be. Mostly it sits around in the sun or chases laser pens.

  19. David Cowie Says:

    “This looks like the artist got a short description from the publisher”
    From what I’ve heard about book cover design, the artist was lucky to even get that. And the average author’s involvement is limited to checking that their name is spelled correctly.

  20. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    O HAI IZ COMIN IN FER LANDINZ IN UR FACE PLZKTHX

    From the choker up, ‘she’ looks a bit like Nick Cave.

  21. Bruce A Munro Says:

    “In a universe beyond imagination!”

    Beyond the imagination of the artist, anyway.

    Assuming that’s some sort of mountain peak and not the cat’s tail or a random giant floating poo, it must be huge, since the lower parts would have to be _behind_ those glowing clouds. Or is the artist playing the old “piece together multiple random backgrounds” game?

    SS was a pretty fun writer: deserved an artist actually willing to read the book.

  22. B. Chiclitz Says:

    I think that catbird is being choked to death. Some sort of bit might have helped.

  23. B. Chiclitz Says:

    I hate to point this out, but when embiggened it appears the catbird has a vagina nose.

  24. fred Says:

    This raises the question of a reimagining of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.

  25. JuanPaul Says:

    The cat bird just realized they are heading to the vet.

  26. Tat Wood Says:

    There wasn’t much else to do on that beautiful pea-green boat.

  27. Halfbad Says:

    The artist is Wayne Douglas Barlowe.https://waynebarlowe.com
    My guess, based on the young lady’s distinctive but not inimitable riding style, is that the publisher’s direction was “gimme that Chris Achilleos’ Heavy Metal feeling”.
    http://chrisachilleos.co.uk/artwork/film-work/heavy-metal/

  28. GSS ex-noob Says:

    I read this trilogy, but the early 80s is too long ago for me to remember the babe on the catowl. But considering that’s the sort of thing that would stick in your head, maybe it wasn’t in the book?

    @Farquharson perhaps sussed it out, by reading the book, which is more than the artist did.

    The Inquisitors did have all sorts of powers over gravity and other forces like that, but I don’t think the artist knew that when he drew catowl, stiff woman with no robe, and random floating… oh, damn is that a catowl turd? Look out below!

  29. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Tat Wood: “It is a little known fact that the Owl and the Pussycat’s pea-green boat was over forty feet long, each of them weighting as they did close to a metric ton. The runcible spoon alone could decapitate a man.”

  30. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: this is a book I want to read.

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