(urth) Wolfe covers

[Daniel Petersen]

Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:

> On the other hand, people have objected to the Short Sun covers - but are
> they not, essentially, very faithful and literal representations of the
> contents of the books?
>

Em, not so sure about that.  Is Seawrack's hair colour wrong?  Horn's hair
doesn't look balding at all.  Babbie and the Neighbour would require much
speculation on the part of the artist and these are not particularly
impressive.  And the godling looks more giant than I remember him being
described when he's holding Silk-Horn.

But that aside, even if they depict accurate content from the stories, they
are terrible 'unicorns and rainbows' fantasy drawing styles, not
particularly skillful or tasteful or interesting.  They're some of the worst
and most embarrassing fantasy kitsch I've ever seen.  (RttW is not as
painful as the others - OBW is the worst.)   Is it even a good idea to try
to depict some of the most pulp-fantastic elements of Wolfe's stories on his
covers?  That can be so susceptible to misapprehending the literary
excellence and subtlety of the writing that simultaneously celebrates,
subverts, and transfigures the subgenre(s) Wolfe is drawing from (alongside
his 'mainstream' influences).  Why not try something more subtle or quite
clearly 'beautiful'?  If it has to be straightforward representational
figurative paintings of events in the stories, then AT LEAST GET AN ARTIST
WHO HAS A CLUE ABOUT GOOD REALISTIC PAINTING.

These paperback covers for The Knight:
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/gene+wolfe/the+knight+28ebook29/6515022/

and The Wizard:
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/gene+wolfe/the+wizard/5596395/

are just the worst!  Looks like they would be the Twilight of heroic
fantasy!  Yech!

DOJP

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:

>  On the other hand, people have objected to the Short Sun covers - but are
> they not, essentially, very faithful and literal representations of the
> contents of the books?
>

> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 01, 2011 4:51 PM
> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Wolfe covers
>
> Finally!  So good to hear someone complain about the ATROCIOUS covers Wolfe
> gets landed with.  I literally have to hide them from family and friends
> when I'm reading them so they won't (justifiably) judge a book by its cover.
>  They couldn't be more incongruous with the fine literary craftsmanship of
> their contents.  I long for the day when they will reissue his entire output
> in something with a design quality worthy of the artistic merit of the
> writing.
>
>
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