Jun 14
Stephen Comments: A badly drawn Kevin Keegan with a unicorn’s head on his shield!! A UNICORN’S HEAD! ON KEVIN KEEGAN’S MAGIC SHIELD!Marvellous.
Published 1975
Stephen Comments: A badly drawn Kevin Keegan with a unicorn’s head on his shield!! A UNICORN’S HEAD! ON KEVIN KEEGAN’S MAGIC SHIELD!Marvellous.
Published 1975
June 14th, 2013 at 8:57 am
Isn’t that the guy from Dschinghis Khan?
June 14th, 2013 at 9:26 am
Either the cover artist is someone called Fox, or the artist intended to paint in a fox behind the head of the guy on the left.
The unicorn head looks stuck-on, like a space sheep or a CS Lewis. I think you should cut him out and keep him in reserve for covers requiring more than two cover-ups.
June 14th, 2013 at 9:49 am
“Not a lot known about this artist apart from his signature” says the ISFDB wiki.
But check out the dates on his published art – 1944, 1978, 1979, 2009. Immortal vampire artist?
June 14th, 2013 at 10:10 am
OHHHH interesting…. who is fox… are you Fox?
Well let me go further with the Fox mystery and add historical evidence…
1944 Published June – D Day
1978 No date – We can safely assume the art is referring to – Pope Paul VI , dead at 80
1979 No date – We can safely assume – Margaret Thatcher elected
2009 No date – Swine flu…..
Putting all this clear evidence together it can really only mean one thing. Fox is a time traveller who feeds on human emotions, and electricity. He is an emotic-voltage-time vampire.
Now putting the information through my supercomputers and adapting some mathematical formulas I say his next significant event will be: 1931
We need a time machine!!!
June 14th, 2013 at 10:27 am
I’ve never seen apemen so disappointed that they don’t have a unicorn shield. You can practically hear the “Awww…”
June 14th, 2013 at 10:42 am
By the movement of his cloak I would say the pants-less warrior is employing Fox’s Fearsome Flatulance to stun and stagger his foes. Remember, when outnumbered, the ole Triple F will give you room to maneuver in.
June 14th, 2013 at 11:16 am
Fox was probably 12 when he sent in two sketches to FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES. And a retired hobbyist of 77 when he painted his two interior pieces for WEIRD TALES.
More plausible than an immortal vampire.
June 14th, 2013 at 11:20 am
The identity of the cover artist is part of an elaborate backstory fabricated by Hideo Kojima for Metal Gear Solid V/5: The Phantom Pain / Ground Zeroes / Cardboard Box Simulator 2014
June 14th, 2013 at 12:17 pm
+1 for the expression on the (presumably ex-) unicorn’s face.
June 14th, 2013 at 12:21 pm
@THX: I like your theory. Notice that Kevin isn’t looking at the orcs, he’s looking in front of them.
‘Hallo, boys! What are we all working on over here?’
‘Oh…nothin’, Mr. Keegan.’
‘I can see it’s SOMETHING. Here, let’s step over the horizon and take a look.’
‘O…kay…(d’you suppose he’ll let us hold his shield?!)’
June 14th, 2013 at 1:01 pm
In about half a minute porn-stache warrior is going to be sportin’ a new ape-head helmet to complement his sad unicorn-head shield.
June 14th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Or: Fox is the Luther Blisset of fantasy illustration
June 14th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
@ THX 1138: Poor apemen, they wanted Frank Frazetta to capture their awesomeness and they got ageless wonder Mr. Fox…I would be upset as well.
@ Bibliomancer: While watching the excellent Game of Thrones on HBO i would often sigh to myself, “i wish they had more porn-stache warriors” like on that Roger Zelazny cover.
That unicorn shield is hilarious, you can almost hear the “neighing!”
June 14th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Hm, this is actually the third book in the Amber saga. Really can’t recall the family unicorn’s head being used as a shield. Also, Random never spoke of his short stint in the adult movie industry.
June 14th, 2013 at 3:27 pm
“Sorry you haven’t seen very much of my artwork. I’ve been really busy doing the cover and all the interior illustrations for Harlan Ellison’s Last Dangerous Visions. I’m almost done. Sorry for the delay.” — Fox
June 14th, 2013 at 6:50 pm
He’s wearing Eric’s colors but doesn’t have the beard.
June 14th, 2013 at 7:17 pm
Where’s his left arm?
*looks at unicorn’s expression*
Is that actually a puppet on his shield? Maybe the orcs are thinking, ‘He’s not going to do his Wayland Flowers impression, is he?’
June 15th, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Kevin Keegan? Naa, mate, that’s Derek Dougan.
June 15th, 2013 at 8:39 pm
Whoa… is he carrying the decapitated head of a unicorn on his shield? ‘Cos it sure looks like it died horribly. What a creep!
June 17th, 2013 at 6:07 pm
Does anyone else think that the shield is shaped like California? But with a unicorn-shaped annexation of neighbouring territories.
June 17th, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Having recently read this story, the cover kinda-sorta looks like something that happened in it, but only in a very vague, kinda-sorta way. Although I could be wrong, in that I read it as part of an Amber omnibus and I’m a little unclear as to what happened in which book…However, I’m pretty sure nobody (in any of the books) looked like that guy.
But the unicorn definitely was never used as a shield, especially as this unicorn looks like someone abruptly ripped its head off and decided to use it as a shield while the poor thing is going “What the heck just happened? What in the world are you doing?! Nooooooo!”
June 18th, 2013 at 5:14 am
What is with that horrible blobbish thing clutching the axe? Did “Fox” skip the lesson on “Hands” in Matchbook Cover Art School? Is that the secret to the shield? (“What, you have to draw TWO hands?”)
June 18th, 2013 at 7:01 am
Everyone knows that a unicorn is just a metaphor for… uh… really creepy armor.
June 18th, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Two of the Blutak Apes are gazing upon the mighty warrior with frank admiration and awe. The on on the right seems to be asking to leave, possibly in a voice like Arnold Ridley in ‘Dad’s Army’.
Maybe he’s seen more than is wise up Warrior-dude’s skirt.
June 20th, 2013 at 11:35 am
What are you guys talking about? That’s definitely Frank Zappa.
June 20th, 2013 at 2:35 pm
@Power Hydrant—can’t be, no soul patch. More like a young David Crosby, before the smack and booze and prison time and all took their toll.
June 22nd, 2013 at 3:26 pm
It’s totally Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap.
That is all.
June 23rd, 2013 at 2:50 pm
@27 “It’s totally Derek Smalls from Spinal Tap.”
Correct answer. That unicorn shield is so obviously trying to compensate for something. Or the lack of something.
July 9th, 2013 at 6:56 pm
While on tour of the new neighborhood the ape men were agog at what they saw…
Tour Guide Ape Man: “And over here we have our sacred stones of Glerpklsahf…where a human holding a unicorn’s head is ‘doing his business’.”
Ape Man: “Martha, don’t look.”
Martha (Ape Man Wife): “Look at the size of that dump. Did he eat a whole unicorn?!”
August 20th, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Is that supposed to be Gérard? He’s the only one who I remember ever using an axe, apart from Deirdre.
Lol at the pornstache.
March 24th, 2015 at 10:32 am
Considering the pornstache, I’m wondering what the “Unicorn” refers to..
Wouldn’t want to meet the guy in Damnation Alley!
Even the apes are having doubts. The one on the right: “Umm.. Let’s just go home.”
June 14th, 2015 at 6:32 pm
Apparently things did not end well for the characters from the Acorna series.
June 15th, 2015 at 8:51 am
It’s Donald “Duck” Dunn from THE BLUES BROTHERS!
August 25th, 2015 at 1:53 am
That is a truly magnificent moustache.
Is that shield supposed to be like Athena’s, in that he killed an actual unicorn and stuck its head on his shield? Because unless the unicorns of this universe are evil human-killing monsters, that seems really cruel to a usually benevolent mythical creature.
January 22nd, 2016 at 10:10 am
SCREAM OF THE UNICORN
January 22nd, 2016 at 10:24 am
The long awaited third book of the series. Previously published titles were START SEARCH OF UNICORN and NO SIGN OF THE UNICORN.
March 10th, 2016 at 8:04 am
“Halt, hellspawn! Dost thou seek a fray?”
“Urgh! No, stranger! We on our way to Trump rally!”