Sep 24
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A kids’ book? Well you know what kids love: FONTS, terrible fonts – gold outline! Give me: people animals… that’s right, I want a man weasel, man mouse, man rabbit and man mole all on there. Uh, best not make it too cutesy though, give the weasel a bow and arrow.
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Tagged with: anthropomorphism • archery weapons • bladed weapons • Brian Jacques • Chris "Fangorn" Baker • font problems • longbow • mouse people • rabbit people • Red Fox Books • Redwall series • rodents • shiny • ships • stoat people • strange creature • sword
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September 24th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Redwall was always a series i wanted to read as a kid but never got around to it.
I can’t help but think your choice of book today might be controversial.
I put it to you sir, that its a kids book and its meant to be shiny and have cheesy characters in heroic poses, because kids are stoopid and shiny is good.
you dont see redwall in the scifi/fantasy section, you see it in kids/ young teens section… not that i hang around the kids/ young teens section lol
The only thing i have to razz about on this cover its the wee tiny vole at the front with a tiny wee ore for rowing, is that tiny ore really propelling the boat at all?
September 24th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I don’t know CSA, it does have a weasle in dress and that is always something worth mocking at any age.
Just because they’re young doesn’t mean they deserve this kind of thing. In fact it could be damaging to their fragile minds leaving them scared for life…and is that rabbit really wearing a bright orange life jacket?!
September 24th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Controversial?! That’s what I’m all about. ๐
I know, I did debate with myself if I should post this one but in the end I decided for it. The art and font is basically what a terrible fantasy cover would use anyway. I found it in a charity shop so I wasn’t sure at the time. (Just to clarify I wasn’t hanging about the kids section!)
September 24th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Mi you do have a valid point, i guess i readily accepted cheesy Narnia covers when i was young and that acceptance by kids accross the globe is what has lead to the terrible covers we have 2day. Is it a good thing?
The weasel is clearly too cool for a life jacket, i bet the guy smokes 40 a day and doesnt wear a seat belt either… damn thats cool.
The boat is about to topple over cause he’s standing too.
SI: you running low on Baen books or just taking a break from posting them? ๐
September 24th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
CSA: Just you wait for tomorrow…. just you wait ๐
September 24th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
You’re building expectations… now i expect atleast 1 scantilty clad female warior, some glowy magic, a magic sword, a dragon, some sort of alieny creature, some ghostlike image in the sky and the standard awful Baen orange embossed font…. atleast 3 of those is needed or im gonna be disapointed
September 24th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I’m sorry, but I’m having problems with the weasel in a dress…
September 24th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
He could of just got out of his bed? His dressing gown?
September 25th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I think its that it has a strangley low cut scoped neck line that would be very flattering on a busty young lady but doesn’t really work so well on a weasel. Though perhaps this is all the rage in the magic world of long bow shooting animals.
October 18th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Thats no weasel! She’s an otter! And also a phsycopath. Unlike you squares, I was obsessed with Redwall for quite a while.
October 18th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Welcome to the site, iwcys! It’s good that you’re here to show us the way…
October 19th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Here at GoodShowSir we like to think no comment goes checked ๐
And as the great Hewie Lewis says, ‘It’s hip to be a square’
Oh yea.. it is an otter… And being female explains the skirt!
I do believe I read a Redwall book when I was younger though I can’t anything about it. So I appologise iwillconsumeyoursoul ๐ BTW my soul tastes better with an expensive pino noir!
October 19th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
A psychopathic otter in a dress…
You know, I’m still not getting the ‘I must read this book’ feeling.
The pills must be working.
April 29th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
It’s not a mole. It’s a shrew.
Yes, I read the books too.
June 28th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Well, this is pretty interchangable with any of the Redwall covers. Read ’em as a youngster, sho’ nuff. They ARE in fact about woodland creatures who wear clothes and carry weapons in some sort of ye olde medieval realme, so really this is simple truth in advertising.
June 30th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I get it that the Redwall novels are about talking animals who wear clothes and such. What strikes me about this and the other covers in series is how these look like more like animals standing awkwardly on their hind legs and forced into clothing made for humans. As opposed to the more anthropomorphic talking animals in–for example–Disney’s Robin Hood. This particular cover makes me think of “Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure” mentioned in Pratchett’s “The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.”
April 30th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I have the first 5 Redwall books, and the first 4 actually have quite nice covers, done in a sort of “tapestry” style. I stopped collecting them after the 5th book because they went to this sort of cover which really turned me off of the series (well, that and the fact that Brian Jacques couldn’t seem to write 2 books in chronological order). I recently noticed that you can’t get the first few books in the covers I have anymore.
May 8th, 2011 at 10:47 am
The most controversial thing about this cover is the animals’ sliding squat thrust technique.
October 5th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I read all the Redwall books that came out up through when I was in Middleschool, and I must say, this is exactly what goes down in pretty much any given book: Anthropomorphic animals waging war with medieval weapons.
October 6th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
WEASELBO – First Blood in the Wind in the Willows, Part II
March 30th, 2012 at 2:50 am
This cover is just the right balance of realistic and stylized and impressionistic to be disturbing. Any direction would improve it.
It’s realistic enough that the animals look creepy, but not so realistic that they become beautiful; cartoony enough that they look ridiculous, but not enough to make them sympathetic. Everything — water, animals, clothing, sky — looks painted with the same flat, bright, opaque color. There’s no light, no atmosphere, no depth.
July 7th, 2015 at 7:10 pm
Listen mouse, why bother wearing clothes if you’re not going to put on trousers??
May 7th, 2017 at 2:48 pm
Boaty McStoatFace.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:42 am
In addition, that’s a hare, not a rabbit. Read every single one of these books. Including the one published posthumously. Would you believe there are 21 more like this?
February 23rd, 2024 at 7:50 pm
Bloodthirsty barbarian bastards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Y8OWkiUts
February 23rd, 2024 at 8:31 pm
Where’s Hissing Sid when you need him?
(You asked for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrq6av5-PS8 44 years of trying to forget this and you show me a cover that gives me flashbacks).
February 23rd, 2024 at 8:45 pm
@ Tat: This is awesome, full album sides one and two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j5sAd5uCjk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z1I6uZkys0
February 23rd, 2024 at 11:12 pm
I was thinking the head looked a little small even for a weasel. To find it’s an otter makes me think even more so. Even for a river otter.
Also those life jackets are anachronistic for medieval-esque times, but I guess it’s to set a good example for the kiddies?
I know moles like messing about in boats, but they seem to be on the open sea, or at least a large lake in broad daylight — is mole happy about this?
@fred: headbanging
February 24th, 2024 at 3:39 am
“Watch me shoot that seagull right in the head.”
“Don’t be such a psycho, Susan.”
I’ll note that otters belong to the group _Lutrinae_, so maybe the Pearls of Lutra are the otter family jewels?
@Tat Wood, @fred: a fine find. As an Ammurican, Captain Beaky and his valiant band are new to me.
February 24th, 2024 at 9:14 pm
It’s the rabbit’s face that gets me: “I’m just as tall as that bloody weasel, but he gets the bow and I’m rowing the boat! And they gave him the green dress as well. It’s just not fair!”
February 24th, 2024 at 9:55 pm
The hare does look righteously angry. One swipe of the oar and otter is overboard, then posing mouse. Mole gets mouse’s lifejacket, and he and hare paddle away in the boat or boats.
February 24th, 2024 at 9:57 pm
The hare does look righteously angry. One swipe of the oar and otter is overboard, then posing mouse. Mole gets mouse’s lifejacket, and he and hare paddle away in the boat or boats.
@Bruce: I noticed that yesterday as well, but didn’t make the “family jewels” connection. GSS!
February 24th, 2024 at 11:56 pm
Looking at the embiggened version, the mole (shrew?) is in a smaller boat [1] which appears to be cutting ahead of the one with the mouse-otter-hare trio. Collision imminent?
[1] Canoe?
February 26th, 2024 at 12:02 am
It’s definitely pointy-nosed, so I’m going with shrew as well. He appears to be in a long dugout canoe/boat, presumably fashioned by beaver people.
The critters in the main boat best hope he’s European, as some of the American ones are highly venomous. There also seem to be some other shrew canoes (say that three times fast) in the background. The most visible one is perhaps going to stage a collision and he and his buddies will leap onto the boat and that’s all she wrote for crazy otter, posing mouse, and surly hare. Down by poison and used as food, with the boat added to the Dread Pirate Vole fleet.
February 26th, 2024 at 12:28 pm
shrewcanoesshrewcanoesshrewcanoes
February 26th, 2024 at 12:30 pm
@GG & @Tor
A fine name an emo band, I’d have thought…
February 26th, 2024 at 11:28 pm
@Max: Shrew Canoes, ft. the Dread Pirate Venomous Shrew. 10:00 Saturday, at a seedy venue near you! BYO angst!
Shrew Canoes shoegaze.