Apr 25
Click for full imageJaouad Comments: I have no mouth, but I have a double chin & a sousaphone ear with tiny people creeping out of it & a plum floating above my eye & something which looks vaguely like a grape in my other eye & two tiny legs and and… I MUST SCREAM!
Published 1974
(Average: 8.26 out of 10)
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April 25th, 2012 at 10:40 am
“I have no shame and we must scream”?
April 25th, 2012 at 11:01 am
“THERE’S AN APPLE ON MY HEAD!!!! Oh man… I’ve been waiting for years to get a mouth just to scream that.”
April 25th, 2012 at 11:33 am
When Botox Goes Wrong.
April 25th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I’m at a loss for words.
April 25th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
At least he’s a good listener…
April 25th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
My art direction: “Okay, for this cover, obviously you have to paint a guy with no mouth.”
“Can he have tiny legs?”
“Sure, whatever.”
“How about a megaphone ear? With tiny naked women coming out of it?”
“Look, go buck wild if you want to. Just make sure he has no mouth and he looks vaguely uncomfortable about it. OK?”
“Sweet!”
April 25th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Hmm. I’m a bit conflicted with this one, which I was already familiar with. My knee-jerk reaction is “ear- trumpet!” “One-eyed head!” “Tiny legs!”
But it’s actually beautifully executed and its surrealism ties in well with the thematics of the title story of this collection.
For belly-laughs, I would still turn to the Pan edition of THE BEAST THAT SHOUTED LOVE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD.
April 25th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Vaguely spoilery while not the slightest bit appropriate to the story. Wow. That’s good going there.
April 25th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Still, it won the Hugo Award in 1968 and is one of my favorite science fiction stories
April 25th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
@Phil: I had some doubts myself at first, but in the end the (to my mind) faux-Daliesque pretensions of this illustration became too annoying to let pass.
April 25th, 2012 at 7:50 pm
I think I’m gonna hurl…out my ear
April 25th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
A title that well-nigh demands bad cover art to illustrate it.
April 25th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Murun Buchstansangur regretted eating that cheese he found under the sink…
April 26th, 2012 at 9:14 am
What 80 years of cellphone use will do to you.
April 26th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
To be fair, Harlan Ellison’s work ought to be illustrated symbolically — a literal depiction of what’s happening in a story would kind of ruin it.
And it ought to look disturbing, too, given how disturbing his stories are (“Jefty is Five” chilled me at a fairly young age).
So … maybe this is appropriate?
April 27th, 2012 at 10:06 am
I think this will be similar to how I will feel later tonight after the pub.
“I can’t find my bus pass & I must travel!”
April 29th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
is that a pair of balls where his chin should be?
May 24th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
It looks like he indeed has a mouth. It was just slapped sideways.
May 28th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
I’m mostly annoyed by the way that they have spread the title over four lines, with “I” all by itself on line 1.
May 29th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Leo Dillon died just a few days ago, according to Tor.com. RIP.
June 1st, 2012 at 2:57 pm
I missed the Leo Dillon part, since this is not typical of his work.
Leo and Diane Dillon were a husband and wife collaborative team of illustrators, and they did some of the best fantasy, science fiction, and children’s book covers of the last half-century, including one of the nicest Earthsea covers:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/8f/b4/c1f6b340dca0f79965a75010.L.jpg
for Ursula K. LeGuin, who got some real bad’uns:
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2011/09/earthsea-trilogy/
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2011/11/a-wizard-of-earthsea/
The Dillons were personal friends of Harlan Ellison, so I can only conclude that this is the cover Ellison truly wanted. I find it disturbing, but it’s certainly appropriate for Ellison’s work.
June 2nd, 2012 at 5:32 pm
That IS a nice Earthsea cover, with an actual dark-skinned Ged, too.
October 18th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
You read the book! Now play the game!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/245390/
Which came out a while ago. I think I would prefer to play Monkey island again though.
July 20th, 2015 at 7:15 pm
I see someone has been to see Dr. Jaffe..
August 25th, 2015 at 3:07 am
I suppose an actual depiction of just what happens to the narrator of the story that leaves him mouthless would be hideously spoilery. It still does not excuse this odd sculpture thing.
And what’s with the random orange?
November 15th, 2015 at 9:05 pm
HARLAN ELLISON Seven, or maybe Eight, times winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards
I HAVE NO MATH AND I MUST SCREAM
HARLAN ELLISON Seven times winner of the Haagen and Dazs Awards
I HAVE NO MOUTH AND ICE CREAM
October 22nd, 2020 at 6:28 am
The artist made quite a Bosch out of this cover.