Book covers

[ladyofastolat]

I just feel the need to share the true awfulness of this book cover. This is a children's retelling of Tam Lin. You know the one - beautiful fairy queen of surpassing loveliness; handsome young earthly knight; beautiful and deadly fairy lords and ladies...



(You might have to click on the image to enlarge it for the true awfulness to be apparent.)

Quite why that handsome knight, Tam Lin, has been turned into a sulky 8 year old, I don't know. Why is he wearing an elasticated medjeevil tunic thing? It's fairy queen, ageless and immortal, not drag queen, ageing. And as for those deadly fairies... These chaps have clearly escaped from Enid Blyton, by way of the Brownies. ("Here we are, the jolly pixies, helping others in their fixes." Hmph. I've never quite forgiven Brown Owl for moving me to the elves in order to a sixer, when everyone knew that the pixies were the only ones to be. But that's another childhood trauma story.)

We used to joke at children's book selection meetings that people who failed art school ended up illustrating children's Bible stories. I've recently revised that assessment. People who fail art school illustrate folk tales. Admittedly, some folk tale retellings have excellent pictures, but many are dire. Even worse, though - and this is rather shameful - is the general standard of illustration in many of the explicitly "multicultural" titles.

While we're on the topic of book covers, I had to look for a surprisingly long time at this one before I saw it for what it was, and not as a picture of a cat whose head had been hollowed out and filled with fruity ice cream.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Urrrrghhhhhhh!

[torkell]

Okay, that first cover makes no sense. I've just read Tam Lin (tracked down the child ballad version), and the people on the cover just don't fit with the story.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's the scene, told in flashback, when he fell from his horse and was originally taken by the Queen of Fairy. The ballad doesn't specify how old he was when this happened, or how long ago it was - though I think the implication is that it was no more than seven years ago, and also that he was already old enough for the Queen to find attractive. This retelling seems to have had him captured as a child, and reclaimed as a teenager. Presumably they felt this gave it more child appeal.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Ah! It's a tiara. It took me a while.

My all-time worstest book cover is a mid-70s edition of Picnic on Paradise (http://www.bookitinc.com/pictures10/220529.jpg), which is boob-a-licious for no readily apparent reason, certainly none to do with the book itself. Or the writer's politics.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Urgh! That's awful! I hate the fact that half-naked women in implausible "armour" crop up on so many sf and fantasy covers, even if they don't appear in the book at all.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Ah but it's a well recognised combat technique.

Lymara the She Wildebeeste ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrud_the_Barbarian ) would deliberately drop her sword in combat. The effect of slowly leaning forward in her fur bikini was enough to stun most combatants...

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That picture is bad enough on its own. But then to scroll down (teenytiny screen, have to scroll for everything) to see the author was Joanna Russ... *facepalm* ;-(

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

There's irony there, to be sure. I hate buying books twice, but I was quite thankful to replace that one.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Is the text that bad too?

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I was trawling my library supplier's website for in-print, in-stock picture books (7500 search results!) in order to do a top-up order, and came across this. All I had was a review ("there are far better retellings around"), the cover, and one centrefold image that was too blurry to read the actual text.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Lol at the icecream-head - I saw it that way too. Also, why has the icecreamhead got such a severe 5 oclock shadow???

That Tam Lin cover is foul, but not as bad as the cover of my copy of The Dragon Waiting, which could win awards for dreadfulness and terrible drawing. Sadly (or perhaps not) I cannot find a version of that cover online.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I've just been re-reading the Charles Vess illustrated part III of The Books of Magic which has a perfect fairy queen (and Tam Lin for that matter), so this travesty is even more of an affront.

What do they teach them at art school these days?

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Sadly, many folk tale retellings are done by small regional publishers who just don't seem to have access to any half way decent illustrator, or to authors who actually know how to write. There are some folk tale retellings that are beautifully written and illustrated, but a lot really won't serve to inspire the next generation to love these tales.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

(takes illustrator of Tamlane out to be stoned to death with miniature marshmallows...pastel colored and everything)

That's beyond wrong on more levels than I can possibly express. (cries)

And boy am I glad I wasn't the only one seeing a hollow cat head full of tasty treats (though in my mind they were fruit-studded brains) and not a sparkly tiara.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I feel the need to conduct a scientific test now. I want to take that hollow-cat-head book and show it to a hundred normal people in the street, just to find out what they see. I have this worrying feeling that it would never remotely occur to them it was a cat with a hollowed-out head. With most people here, it never seemed to cross their minds that it wasn't. ;-)

[rustica.livejournal.com]

Actually, what it reminded me of was that cookery set from the 1970s where the bowls and utensils and thingywotsits assembled to become a "man". So, yes, quite clearly it's a cat with a hollow head.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Definitely fruit-stuffed brains! Mmmm ;-)

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I was a Pixie *is smug* And mark another vote down for 'bowlhead cat'.

The Tamlane cover is truly horrific. However, the title now has me wondering about possible connections between Tam Lin and Tamerlane/Tamurlane (Tamburlaine). Which is... interesting ;-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Pixies were the only ones to be. I was a Pixie for almost my entire Brownie career, until cruelly moved. Hmph!

Maybe Tamburlaine only had the successes he did because the Queen of Fairy was on his side. And... oh! Christopher Marlowe attracts all sorts of conspiracy theories. I'm sure one could do a Tam Lin novel - a sort of Tudor Fire and Hemlock - with Marlowe in the Tam Lin role, granted success and given magic in his words, until his seven years was up and he was paid as a tithe to Hell (which was explained away as a tavern brawl.) He wrote Tamburlaine as a coded cry for help, that fell on deaf ears, and...

*laughs* I am getting far too into this...

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

You do realise I only didn't bother with my own speculations because I wanted to feed you the idea and see what you'd come up with? The well of your imagination never runs dry ;-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

You are mean. *pouts sulkily* ;-)

[nilsigma.livejournal.com]

Add Tudor + tavern = semi-naked barmaid for the cover. When are you writing this one?

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who or what Tam Lin is, but that second picture made me laugh and laugh. I too thought she had ice cream (or oatmeal) for brains.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I'm getting mixed up- I though Tam Lin was a ballad about a man(?) who tries to have his way with a woman then drown her, but she outwits him and strangles him with her hair?

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

That sounds a little bit, but not quite, like The Elf Knight; but it sounds a typical enough trope for there to be several ballads/folk songs on the same lines.