Oct 02
Good Show Sir Comments: This must be that Edgar Rice Burroughs novel where the Terminator travels all the way to Barsoom to track down the sexy, half-naked Sarah Connor!
Published 1972
Good Show Sir Comments: This must be that Edgar Rice Burroughs novel where the Terminator travels all the way to Barsoom to track down the sexy, half-naked Sarah Connor!
Published 1972
October 2nd, 2017 at 9:40 am
This cover requires some serious analysis, so I asked my good friend and psychology professor, Dr. Wolfram Wunderligliebe, to tell us what this cover “means”.
Doctor, what do you make of this strange, disturbing image? What is it trying to say?
– Whoever decided to put ze picture on ze book is ein completen “Kjeller-Ockupanten”, in English zat means “basement dweller”. In clinical terms it is ein Verkranken Verdammten Verkakten Scheissekake.
October 2nd, 2017 at 10:10 am
Judging by the tiny mountains at their feet, these people must be giants. Miles tall!!
October 2nd, 2017 at 10:49 am
The attempt to sex up the weightlifting at the 2116 Olympic Games was deeply misguided.
October 2nd, 2017 at 11:13 am
“John, cart her off Mars!”
October 2nd, 2017 at 11:14 am
Notes on anatomy to the artist:
1. Scapulae do not swing back quite that far.
2. Ladies have more than one lower leg.
October 2nd, 2017 at 12:09 pm
@DSWBT #4 – I got nothing better than this – Good Show Sir!
October 2nd, 2017 at 1:58 pm
This is an interesting take on Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. Can’t wait for the HBO version.
October 2nd, 2017 at 2:17 pm
Mars, the sun bathing colony.
October 2nd, 2017 at 3:13 pm
#1111111111 in the Bullshit Sexism on Covers series.
October 2nd, 2017 at 3:22 pm
@FB: #c3adc3 in the Color Palette Series
October 2nd, 2017 at 3:42 pm
That’s what happens when you’re running around on Mars without oxygen or clothes.
October 2nd, 2017 at 3:49 pm
David Lynch’s first design for the male Fremen stillsuit was pretty close to what they went with. The female one, less so.
October 2nd, 2017 at 3:51 pm
“Things are going according to plan. Her clothes have disintegrated, her skin is starting to glow yellow, soon the flesh will be gone and we’ll be ready to PAR-TAY!!“
October 2nd, 2017 at 4:33 pm
No. “11” in the series? I thought it was the first book.
About the only thing semi-accurate about the cover is the damsel’s level of dress, given as how everyone on Mars goes around pretty much naked, yes?
Apart from that . . . I’ve no idea.
October 2nd, 2017 at 5:40 pm
Look: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that the cover is creepy. Who’s the target audience? The Grim Reaper?
October 2nd, 2017 at 7:18 pm
@Anna – The first book in the series is A Princess of Mars
Anyone who owns that edition should send a photo into GSS pronto.
October 2nd, 2017 at 8:29 pm
Whether intentional or not, it’s impossible to look at this illustration and not think of the Pietà. And then you realize how bad this cover is. For example, the woman is apparently weightless, since there’s no impression in her flesh from skull-boy’s fingers pushing against the weight of her torso or leg (even taking Martian gravity into account). For comparison, check out how Mary’s fingers push into Christ’s armpit.
Obviously I am not trying seriously to compare this sci-fi cover to one of the world’s great works of art, but, really, just what do they teach them over there at the Unknown Artist’s Institute?
October 2nd, 2017 at 8:58 pm
B. Chiclitz: I think that school of illustration is called Sociopathic Realism.
October 2nd, 2017 at 10:14 pm
@BC: I thought of the ending of Wayne’s World, as a matter of fact.
October 3rd, 2017 at 1:01 am
Funny thing, I was looking at a bunch of available ebooks of “Princess of Mars” last night and being amused at the pulpier ones, and the Baen-ier ones, and the wacky 60s-70’s ones, and the ones with the boring generic wallpaper covers.
None of them horrified and depressed me. TILL NOW. Upon seeing this.
Cadaverous robot* and a girl so dead Space Sheep wouldn’t feel the need to hide the cleavage even if she didn’t have pasties. And even as dead-ish as he is, isn’t his neck a bit overlong?
The mouseover line is exactly as creepy as the cover.
#11 in the series, #1 in creepy. Needs to be more happy pills available at Unknown Artist Institute.
*or he might just have a clear plastic outside, like those “Visible Man” models of this era.
October 3rd, 2017 at 3:26 am
Skibet: Raket…I’m afraid…er…Raket…I think I turned your hot Chinese girlfriend into a cold, dead Chinese girlfriend.
Raket:Er, that’s not my girlfriend, Skibet.
Skibet: It’s not your girlfriend?
Raket: It’s not my girlfriend.
Skibet: This dead body in my arms isn’t your girlfriend?
Raket: No, that dead body isn’t my girlfriend.
Skibet: . . .
Raket: . . .
Skibet: . . .
Raket: You’re still single, aren’t you, Skibet?
Skibet: Yes, Raket. And I think I will be, forever.
October 3rd, 2017 at 4:37 am
@DSWBig T—
19. Thanks for reminding me where I am. I need the occasional nudge.
21. Nice pull on the Raket & Skibet Show. Is this the episode that starts with them having a picnic inside the “extinct” Martian volcano crater?
October 3rd, 2017 at 7:13 am
Raket and Skibet relocated to Mars? Were the coffee tabletops inadequate defense against the Art Deco ship?
October 3rd, 2017 at 12:03 pm
@BC,xnoob: It’s simpler than that, the producers forgot which planet they were on after Season 1. 😀
October 4th, 2017 at 7:15 pm
“John Carter of Mars” is actually a collection of two novellas, the second of which, “Skeleton Men of Jupiter” is what is illustrated on the cover.
October 4th, 2017 at 7:42 pm
@Donald – So Jupiter now has volcanoes? And a surface?
October 4th, 2017 at 8:31 pm
@Bibliomancer—I guess what I thought was a pastie is actually the great red spot.
October 6th, 2017 at 2:12 am
So half this book doesn’t include Mars?