What about the lettering on the spine---will it be white, like the first three volumes, or yellow, like the fourth, or some new color altogether? I need to know.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Sep 10 | 10:27AM by Jojo Lapin X.

Quote:

There is now cover art for vol. 5.

Good to see that van Hollander has saved some of his worst for last. Can CAS cover artwork get any worse, or more undignified, I wonder? Van H. makes some of these Arkham House hacks that several here defend so breathlessly look like Michelangelo, by comparison.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 19 Sep 10 | 03:19PM by Absquatch.

In your opinion, no, the artwork cannot be "more worse" than it is for this volume. I find it interesting that Van Hollander has integrated Smith's portraits at different ages with a wide sampling of Smith's own sculptures into the background and foreground. Not to everyone's taste, but it does represent Smith.

Jim

Jim Rockhill,

The next time you want to try to score a cheap debating point using someone's typographical error as ammunition, you might want to wait a little while to see whether that person has used the "edit" function, as I did. For some reason, edits on this board tend to be slow in arriving.

The question, to my mind, is not whether the "artwork" in question "represents" Smith; the question is whether it does him justice.

Again, apologies for having once again offended the Eldritch Dark Thought Police with what is quite obviously only one person's opinion, however strongly expressed it may be.

Nice to see that you are still humorless, still defensive about your own positions or errors (though quick to point out the flaws in others), and still prone to loading your posts with rhetoric ("cheap debating point", "Thought Police") in an attempt to make those positions seem as if they were brave sallies against the status quo, instead of simple opinions, whenever someone else attempts to express their own opinion or make an objective point.

Does Karajan represent Beethoven's symphonies justly or Furtwangler, or Klemperer, or Szell, or Matacic, or Cluytens, or Abbado, or Barenboim, or Harnoncourt, or Mackerras, or Skrowaczewski, or (the list goes on and on and on)? The greater the artist, the more ways in which that artist can be represented and only a boor insists on outshouting everyone else, because only his or her opinion is valid. If our definitions of what fits the canon are too narrow, there would have been no room for Beethoven (compare his Eroica or the Ode to Joy structurally, gesturally, and orchestrally to even the most ambitious of their predecessors), just as there was no room for Smith for decades. The introduction to one of the recent Bison reprints refers to "outsider art" when describing Smith's stories.

I like both approaches to Smith. I suggested the cover illustration for THE FREEDOM OF FANTASTIC THINGS and approached the artist's estate for reprint rights; but I also like one or two of the Penningtons, all of the Gallardos, and the present set of covers by Van Hollander.

Each of these artists brings out something different to consider about Smith, and the thing I like best about the Van Hollander covers is that once one gets past the somewhat garish foreground figures, there is a myriad of more subtle things going on in the background. And is this not like Smith's own writing? We may initially be attracted (or repelled) by the plot or the jeweled language, but there is a deeper emotional undercurrent that holds our attention to the end, and ensures that we return.


There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink; depart,
And yet partake no venom (for his knowledge
Is not infected), but if one present
Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.

Is the spider (or as another person has suggested, the vomit) all you see? Are only your tastes valid? Only your arguments defensible? Only your motives untainted?

You are entitled to your opinions, but it seems more than a little odd to see you demanding that everyone else respect your opinions when you show so little respect for anyone else.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 20 Sep 10 | 07:19AM by jimrockhill2001.

There is a good slip for you - motifs instead of motives - adds a whole new dimension to the argument.;-)

I told a friend recently that the file he sent me to proof contained one of the most evocative typographical errors I had ever seen - "It was birthday, Iliad been promised the sea" - if one is going to replace "I had" with something "Iliad" is a better error than most, especially if "promised the sea".

Jim

Spine lettering will match vols. 1-3, sez NSB.

Ok, then my next question is, will replacement dustjackets for volume 4 be issued to subscribers, so that a consistent look may be achieved?

Please feel free to join their Facebook group!

Absquatch expressed an opinion, a legitimate use of this forum. Jim Rockhill exploited a grammatical error to ridicule Absquatch. Ridicule is an undignified use of this forum. Furthermore, it is a bullying tactic, such as might be practiced by Thought Police. Justice favors Absquatch in this instance.

Martinus Wrote:
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> Please feel free to join their Facebook group!

Join Facebook? Never!

My perception of Absquatch's opinions is that they are not merely strongly held, but consistently expressed in a manner that jeers at the opinions expressed by others on the forum. We do not all have to agree on this forum, but to see this same mode of address used again and again, whether someone expresses an interest in the work of Coye, has a new book coming out, or whatever reason seems to me to be rude and unconstructive.

"Van H. makes some of these Arkham House hacks that several here defend so breathlessly look like Michelangelo, by comparison." - What is wrong with this sentence and so many others that have preceded it (my real gripe is that this is the rule not the exception in Absquatch's posts) - the connotation is that Van Hollander is worse than a hack, and that those who had been defending the Weird Tales/Arkham House coterie of illustrators are tasteless idiots who would not know "true" art if it snuck up behind them and fastened its fangs into a buttock.

This consistently trollish "I like this" - "Then you are a fool" dialectic serves no useful purpose that I can determine.

I am sorry if I caused any offense, but I had had enough.

Jim

Just received word that advance reader copies for CAS5 are going out to reviewers, and that the book is on track for an early December release. OO-rah!

Scott

Looking forward to seeing it, Scott. The supplementary volume will follow shortly after that, I suspect?

Jim

There are some interesting developments on that front, but I'm not yet at liberty to discuss them on an open forum. Contact me via email or facebook messages.

Scott