Jan 22
John G Comments: “My best frend is an alien caled Mr Poot. He has a round hed, round eyes and is furry like my teddy. My dad dos not like Mr Poot. Mr Poot abduktid my dad and stuk a prob up his bum. My dad sed Ow”
Published 1971
January 22nd, 2014 at 10:15 am
The Patterson-Gimlin of book covers. Dressed for the beach, too.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:37 am
The o_O emoticon…it seems my wife can make that exact face. Thank you, cover!
January 22nd, 2014 at 12:36 pm
Just what I’ve always said: when it comes to the fine art of book cover illustration the marker pen will never go out of style.
THX 1136
If that’s bigfoot he’s upside down.
January 22nd, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Big Bad Banksia Man goes to the moon.
He really should take his cardigan off before swimming.
January 22nd, 2014 at 12:55 pm
If ever there was an example of ‘don’t judge by appearances’ it’s this. Any child who bothered to open it would find a decent-ish selection. One of the editors was the widow of the man who built Portmerion and had founded the New Left Review. The intro to the book was by Bertrand Russell. I can only assume that the cover was some kind of intelligence test.
http://www.farahsf.com/outofthis.htm
I’m pretty sure I read this as a kid, but only after everything else in the school library that didn’t have a pony on the cover.
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:21 pm
There were more supposed photos taken of bigfoot at Grateful Dead concerts than any other place on earth. But when the film was developed he always seemed to have vanished.
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:25 pm
This alien Muppet may look like a brute but he is more evolved than humans. He has three thumbs.
January 22nd, 2014 at 2:02 pm
The problem with Space Sloth invaders is that they’re easy to outrun.
January 22nd, 2014 at 7:22 pm
The SF publishing genre is unique in that nowhere else is more effort made to misinform the prospective reader.
January 23rd, 2014 at 12:41 am
WANTED: Thug. Must be excellent typist. Provide your own clothes, nose and transport. Apply 22/1, ‘The Covers’, G55 C0K.
January 23rd, 2014 at 10:40 pm
@Bibliomancer: Even better, he has six.
@DSWBT: Said number of thumbs makes me wonder if he’s the thug for the job. Unless of course his typewriter has three space bars.
January 24th, 2014 at 4:57 am
Does Sloth the Tie Dyed have six fingers because he seems to have no toes? Is he really just your run of the mill three-toed sloth who suffered an embarrassing mutation in the “where do the digits go” gene?
Also, has my sense of perspective abandoned me or is he like, way bigger than the ladder he presumably descended? Looks like he could barely squeeze into the saucer.
January 24th, 2014 at 7:03 am
I propose a “fingers” tag.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:05 am
OUT OF THIS WORLD: The Psychology of Science Fiction Publishers
In this groundbreaking work, several of the world’s leading psychologists attempt to explain the mental processes that lead to many SF book covers such as this.
They agree on one thing: The afflicted publishers are not motivated to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot due to a lack of money.
The reasons are more likely some deep-seated, unresolved guilt, a subconscious desire to fail — perhaps to control the humiliation and scorn publishers fear from the “mundane” world, with a sort of “pre-emptive self-humiliation.”
September 23rd, 2022 at 10:17 pm
Tat Wood (#5) would be spot on except for one thing: going by the cover, the book is actually Out of This World 3 (there were apparently 10 in all). Seems that it was originally published in 1961 under its original title and then republished in 1971 without the “3” and with the bizarre cover above. Tat’s comments are true of the first one in the series, but the second and so on didn’t have an introduction by Bertrand Russell.
My high school library had the first and second, and that was my introduction to SFF, some 60 years ago. I still clearly remember a couple of the stories: “The Ruum”, by Arthur Porges, and “Placet is a Crazy Place” by Fredric Browne.