ladyofastolat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladyofastolat) wrote2007-11-02 12:57 pm
ladyofastolat) wrote2007-11-02 12:57 pm
Book covers
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 anotherchildhood 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.
(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
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.
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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...
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