Originally published at: The home of shockingly bad sci-fi book covers | Boing Boing
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More than half of the posts on that Reddit group are actually pretty good covers, with the highest-rated comment being someone saying “I think this is actually pretty good.”
Not much actual fodder for humor there. Even most of the bad ones are obvious Amazon self-published Photoshop nightmares, the mocking of which feels a bit played out and punching down.
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Well, there goes my weekend.
(I can’t resist Sci Fi book covers, regardless of quality)
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Funny… I immediately thought Jeff Bezos when I saw it
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I’d happily welcome Megamind as our overlord rather than Amazonman.
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I expected I’d find some book there that I own. I didn’t expect it to be Bimbos of the Death Sun.
(Please fix “Ronald Dahl” btw.)
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Well, the place I usually go to for my SF cover kicks is here:
https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/
highly recommended, even if they keep posting covers of books I actually own. Mmmph.
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As another source of good SF covers, just look at the art of Karel Thole.
He, more than anyone else, painted the SF cover landscape in Italy (Urania book series) in the past millennium.
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I’m wondering about the author/publishers note to the artist for the Strange Relations cover in this post:
“We feel this artwork needs to show a white Jesus lion with breasts with a screaming slug with arms and googly eyes on its back. Oh and try and to do something with the chapter about the vampire babies being killed by vigilante serpents as they hatch from their eggs… Just make it look beautiful and don’t spend to much time as we’re on a budget!”
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And for all these horribleness, some of these covers do accurately reflect the contents of the books - I recognized God Emperor of Dune right away!
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Good old Ronald. Are we sure that’s not one of Roald Dahl’s aliases from his espionage days?
But honestly, was there anyone, ever who could claim a GOOD experience with him? Reports of him being a prize winning asshole seem pretty consistent.
One of my friends, as a (British) child, met him “on holiday” somewhere. My friend says Dahl was nice, and in particular, interested in listening to children talk in a way that adults frequently are not. Sounded like a fairly important skill for a children’s books author to have.
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THere’s a corollary to another phenomenon that I noticed 20 years ago, and which now thanks to Netflix doesn’t exist. I remember looking through the drama section at Blockbuster and noticed that literally 80% of the covers had a gun. Clearly it was (is) a cultural touchstone that resonated with movie audiences.
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In case anyone is curious. That Hebrew book cover is for God Emperor of Dune by Herbert.
That story seems to be inspiration for a number of interesting book covers: (google image search)
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Also:
Nudist Beach Dōtonbori Robo (Kill La Kill)!
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I guessed that.
One favorite of mine in this genre of which I own a copy of is the… interesting… 80’s paperback cover for Phillip K. Dick’s The Man In The High Castle.
Of course, this being Dick, maybe it wraps all the way back around to being somehow appropriate.
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That cover is by Richard M. Powers; a very popular and prolific cover artist in the 60’s and 70’s.
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My BF found a website whre you can download film noir posters & theatre cards. He grabbed 'em all, and uses them as a wallpaper slideshow on his machine 
He’s even searched for reviews, and bought some movies based on their posters.
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