As I said in my last post, the first edition of The Hobbit was published in the Soviet Union in 1976 as a hardback children’s book. Translation was by Natalia Rakhmanova with illustrations by artist Mikhail Belomlinsky. Notice anything different about Bilbo? That’s right, his entire legs are hairy, not just his feet. That’s because …
In the previous two posts of this series I’ve concentrated on the lighthearted (back then) wink-wink smirk-smirk types of covers that sold “adult” — or those that were marketed as adult, even if they were rather tame — SFF novels. Though these might be considered sexist today, there was a humor to them, an idea …
Back to more SF sleaze. Here’s another book that makes no sense. The title may be referring to The Night Life of the Gods, the 1931 fantasy humor novel by Thorne Smith, which was mild whimsy about what happens when Greek Gods enter contemporary New York and have a night out on the town. But …
It’s amazing to me how differently artists interpret Bilbo Baggins. Last month I found these two covers and now, here’s this one. It’s not a great depiction. First off, Bilbo is too tall and portly, and his signature feature, the hairy feet, is missing. He looks more like John Goodman from the 1990s sitcom Roseanne. …
* smirk * The 1960s was a time period in which Playboy magazine type humor, the counterculture, and the SFF genre intertwined. Looking to cash in on these various trends, publishers released an astonishing variety of “adult” naughty novels embodying this robust, exploitive stew. The humor ranged from martini-dry to crass (as in the above …
As a Midjourney beginner trying to generate pictures with a certain “look” one of the most useful stylistic tricks is the –sref function. The reference pic can’t be any old image though. The more distinct and stylized it is, the better. The simpler and clearer it is, the better. This is where real art education …
I recently came across two foreign editions of The Hobbit I haven’t seen before. First, The Little Gnome. I guess the translator didn’t think the made-up word “hobbit” was understandable to Portuguese audiences? That said, I like the cover design. It’s whimsical if misleading — hobbits had nothing to do with mushrooms, except for eating …
Technically its name is “The World of the Three Moons” but the country the series revolves around is called Ruwenda, so I’m going call the world Ruwenda as well, similar to how “Narnia” refers to both Narnia the country and Narnia the greater world around it. The purpose of this post is to give some …
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