Feb 22
Click for full imagePhil’s Art Direction: Look, no one will guess that this book is about futuristic police, unless you paint POLICE onto the side of that hovership. While you’re at it, give that policeman an unusually large face. I hear that’s how policemen will look centuries hence.
Published 1976
(Average: 5.79 out of 10)
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February 22nd, 2012 at 9:12 am
Liking the Bugsy Malone splurge gun. Splurge pistol?
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:47 am
504 IN PROGRESS…HOTDOGS ATTACKING PASSERSBY ON 53RD AND 3RD…OFFICER ON SCENE RESPONDING WITH EEZYCHEEZ…REQUESTING BACKUP UNITS WITH CHILI CON CARNE…
Unfortunately, the officer never heard their arrival, as most of his lateral and posterior skull had been removed to fit him for the helmet.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:15 pm
“I may have squeezed my head into my helmet. But you are going to help me get it out again! Or else!”
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I’m not sure what use a vacuum-sealed helmet might be, unless the inflated head effect is a trend in the future.
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Ahh, the policeman has been crying. That explains the puffy face.
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:38 pm
I’ve always admired Dick’s use of ambiguous words. If I could be bothered, I would deliberately mis-pronounce TEERS as TARES, and mis-pronounce SED as SYEED (as in the middle eastern name).
If I could be bothered.
February 22nd, 2012 at 6:08 pm
What is a Maine state cop doing in NY city?
February 22nd, 2012 at 7:15 pm
I know the whole bacon thing has kind of gotten out of hand on the internet, and yet, I must point it out. That gun is shooting out a slab of crispy bacon.
February 22nd, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Fred: clearly in the future NYC will be part of Maine. Or vice versa. Something to do with rising sea levels, global warming, credit crunch… that sort of thing.
February 22nd, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Oh, and the World Trade Center will be re-built. Apparently.
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:45 pm
“What are you firing at?”
“Say what?”
“I said, what are you firing at?”
“Come again?”
“I said, what are you firing at!?”
“What?”
February 23rd, 2012 at 2:12 am
I dunno. If it weren’t for the bacon coming out of the cop’s gun and the obvious helicopters whose rotors and skids have been airbrushed away, this would just be an ordinary late twentieth century cop-in-front-of-modern-city-architecture painting.
Surely Philip K. Dick deserves something more gonzo.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Just a theory mind you, but what if his head’s normal size and the face shield has a magnifying effect?
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Ah, but Alessandra you have to put this cover in its context. 1976, Horselover Fats is still alive, famously obtuse, and none of his books have been made into movies yet. Panther is a UK publisher: we were quite lucky to get this published at all (yes, it’s on my shelves). Blade Runner is still six years in the future
February 24th, 2012 at 10:02 am
That’s totally a coffee stain. Although I may not be seeing bacon because I hate bacon, and may have forgotten what it looks like. If it is a coffee stain, here’s hoping it’s real.
Those hands look 3d, like they’re sitting on top of the actual paper cover.
And carrying on from what NGpm said, maybe there’s nothing under there. Maybe it’s a screen.
February 26th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six rashers or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Danish Unsmoked, the most powerful pork based handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
March 13th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
@Smith, I was kind of thinking the same thing, but I would add to the end of your sentence:
“Go ahead, flow my tears.”
March 23rd, 2012 at 5:56 pm
He looks a little like Kevin Spacey. No?
March 23rd, 2012 at 6:33 pm
He looks a little like Kevin Spacey, yes!
March 25th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
We meet again, Gunner Cade!
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2011/09/gunner-cade/
March 27th, 2012 at 4:56 am
@UNSG: Exactly what I was thinking. I could see a story where the cops all have the same projected face (slightly grizzled and weary, but by no means evil despite the killer bacon they’re shooting at you) on the visors of their helmets.
And I have done nowhere NEAR the number of drugs that PKD did.
June 11th, 2012 at 5:03 am
I don’t think his face is big – it just looks that way due to the magnification of his prescription helmet glass.
Future HR laws mean even the police can’t discriminate on poor eyesight.
June 19th, 2014 at 1:29 pm
…so I kicked him in the nuts.
June 25th, 2014 at 8:34 pm
The magnifying helmet is a great help when shaving in space.
I don’t care if he’s firing bacon or coffee or what, he’s not going to hit anything with that kind of a trajectory. The rifling on that barrel leaves a lot to be desired.
Of course, knowing this will go into the “moderation” zone, why am I bothering to write anything? It’s just cuz I, well, miss you all, sniff . . .
September 7th, 2015 at 10:34 am
Flow, my tears. The policeman said “[gun discharging]”. I mean, it was a traffic stop and he didn’t even bother to walk to the driver.
February 24th, 2016 at 5:46 pm
That’s an Ontario police shield painted on his mini-helmet. So the gun fires Canadian bacon.
February 24th, 2016 at 5:53 pm
@Tat Wood—that must be why, although he can’t actually hit anything with it, he somehow still feels himself superior to Americans.
February 24th, 2016 at 6:24 pm
@BC: latitudinally, he may be!
February 24th, 2016 at 9:22 pm
@Dead StuffWBT—yes, that’s true. I forgot my old philosophy lesson: “Ah, Sahib, from that point, it’s just Canadians all the way up.”
April 12th, 2019 at 7:03 am
@18, 19: Now it’s 2019 and Kevin Spacey fires back at his accusers.
April 12th, 2019 at 12:09 pm
The advertising dirigible from Blade Runner photobombs the cover.
April 12th, 2019 at 1:45 pm
Funny that his face hasn’t shrunk after all these years.
April 12th, 2019 at 3:54 pm
So to summarise the last seven years’ cogitations: Dick decrees it’s Kevin’s bacon.
April 13th, 2019 at 2:23 am
Is it bacon, or some sort of cheese product he’s spraying out of the gun?
Maybe it’s a remote control policeman and that’s actually a screen showing the face of the guy controlling it, like those old Spider-Slayer robots?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hzMNf4ObtOM/UOgJO7k1PjI/AAAAAAAAi2I/3yZeCwMSBpg/s1600/spider1.PNG
April 14th, 2019 at 5:33 am
@Bruce: I think it’s spray cheez. Could be imitation-bacon-flavored spray cheez, though.
The Wikipedia article on Easy Cheese goes into far too much detail, all full of physics.
April 15th, 2019 at 10:04 am
“There’s NOTHING funny about silly string, perp!”