Sep 27
Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: It’ll be just like our D&D game we played last night… except John from Accounting can be the hunk attacking a skeleton… and Dianne the Receptionist can be the sword-wielding damsel in a cape!
Published 2000
September 27th, 2013 at 10:10 am
I Have No Lower Jaw And I Must…
Oh, there’s my lower jaw, suspended in mid-air due to the sheer force of my argument. Could you chaps give me a mo, so I can… there, all fixed now. Where were we?
September 27th, 2013 at 11:03 am
Ba ba ba ba, buh ba ba ba ba, buh ba ba ba ba, buh ba ba-ba ba ba bad.
September 27th, 2013 at 11:48 am
Presumably this image is supposed to capture the action just after the sublime point of impact: the skeleton’s detached skull tumbling through the air, the warrior’s axe at the end of its arc.
But wait!
Why is our resident hunk holding that axe as though it is something distasteful that he might have to drop at any moment? And why does it look like he’s winding up to deliver a strike rather than finishing one? Surely he could not have administered the, er, killing blow.
So it must be the woman who has done it! But clearly she is supposed to be behind the man. Even assuming that the rest of that sword is unnaturally long, it’s hard to see how she could have chopped the skeleton’s head off without also damaging her guy friend.
So if neither of these people has decapitated the skeleton, who is responsible? My money is on the invisible giant standing in front of the woman and to the man’s left. As evidence, note the way his fart is ruffling the woman’s hair like a passing breeze. Our hero’s epic side-part is, of course, left intact.
September 27th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
Can these two be our old friends Hawk and Fisher? http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2010/03/hawk-fisher
September 27th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Perhaps the answer, Tom N, is that you — the viewer — are the invisible giant, and have just wrenched poor Skully Pop’s head clean off. Or not quite so cleanly, as it turns out.
Beyond The Blue Moon: My Struggles As A Chiropractor
September 27th, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Ray Harryhausen has a lot to answer for. I’ve never quite understood what holds fighting skellingtons together. Do they still have all their tendons and ligaments, despite the loss of all skin, viscera and musculature?
The head bone WAS connected to the/
Neck bone… tra-la-la
September 27th, 2013 at 12:56 pm
@RachelJ: It could be!
September 27th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“I’ll show you, Good Show Sir, what a real SKULLS A-POPPIN looks like!”
September 27th, 2013 at 2:17 pm
@TomNoir: No one has actually hit the skeleton. The skeleton itself, having pondered the same questions as Phil, has come to realize the impossible nature of it’s existence thus negating the Animate Physiological Improbability spell that held it together.
When I first looked at this I thought the woman had a skeletal lower body, both legs and a tail. What do you call something like that?
September 27th, 2013 at 3:24 pm
@FöM: ‘Not Getting Past Second Base’.
September 27th, 2013 at 4:57 pm
I think FoM is on the right track in concluding that no one has actually struck the skeleton. My theory: the skeleton just looked at these two clowns and laughed his head off (those do look like laugh wrinkles around his eye sockets).
September 27th, 2013 at 4:59 pm
John Barrowman and Chesney Hawkes – together at last!
September 27th, 2013 at 7:36 pm
Whatever Blue Moon is, it must be pretty impressive to deserve that font. And whatever is beyond the Blue Moon will deserve an even more awesome font. And what is beyond what is beyond Blue Moon will have to top that. If this is a series, it seems to me the limiting factor in the number of books will be the availability of even more awesome fonts.
September 27th, 2013 at 8:32 pm
Font problems indeed! That initial ‘B’ is unlike any B I’ve ever seen before!
September 27th, 2013 at 9:41 pm
@AdamRoberts:This strengthens my belief that none of our parties involved in creating these covers ascribe to the Principle of Least Astonishment. They might think they do, but they’re wrong.
Luckily for us, or this might be Good Show Sir:Only the Worst Kyrgyztani Childrens Non-Fiction Book Covers.
September 28th, 2013 at 8:18 pm
“When I first looked at this I thought the woman had a skeletal lower body, both legs and a tail. What do you call something like that?”
– The catwalk.
October 1st, 2013 at 11:09 am
@AR #14: Not sure that is a ‘B’ actually. Could be a particularly swishy ‘R’. There’s some serifs there a reputable B definitively shouldn’t have in that position.
Then again, in view of what earlier commenters have remarked on bits falling off, perhaps the publishers should have gone for ‘Glue Moon’.
October 5th, 2018 at 2:22 pm
She has a cape. He doesn’t have a cape. Skeleton has a cape. I wonder if his costume matching compulsion would extend to a black leather bustier w/ silver nipple spikes.
October 5th, 2018 at 3:29 pm
Editor: The problem with this cover is overexposure.
Artist: You mean just because I put vaguely fairy-looking blondes and rickety skeletons and blue-jeaned hunks with swords on all my covers? I kind of thought of it as my “signature,” you know? Ok, I admit they’ve been on the last 20 covers I produced, so maybe they are getting a little overexposed, but . . . .
Editor: You idiot! I was talking about the lighting—it’s way overexposed.
October 6th, 2018 at 12:14 am
Dude did not get the dress code memo. Everyone else has big swirly capes, and he’s in a t-shirt. Probably also wearing jeans, but we can’t see.
Skelly ‘sploded spontaneously, I think.
Was Mr. Sullivan incapable of drawing lower limbs, be they male, female, or skeleton? Just had everyone in random darkness?
Where IS the bright lighting coming from? Dude’s arm appears to be glowing of its own accord, ditto damsel’s face. Is the Rlue Moon radioactive?