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Post by King Gillibran on Sept 14, 2023 13:44:14 GMT
I have decided to start a second series of polls based on the Cover Artwork. The polls will be in groups will be split into 10 gamebooks and will include all Puffin, Wizard and Scholastic varients of cover art. I will not however be including a seperate porthole version of cover for Scholastic or Wizard 2 if they have an ordinary one. I have seen somewhere that there were full page cover art for Scholastic 7 -12 and you can look at those when voting on them. I have decided however to stick with my standard 5 votes for simplicities sake. Feel free to voice your opinions and give reasons why you choose the ones you do. Have fun choosing your 5 favourite!
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Post by scouserob on Sept 14, 2023 13:48:15 GMT
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 14, 2023 13:53:53 GMT
Thank you for these repeated links, scouserob . It's interesting comparing a dragon on Night Dragon cover with Eye Of The Dragon's dragon - there's no question to me the former is superior, in spite of it being rather generic. Stylistically, the former looks reminiscent of Tolkien, or repeating my previous criticism, perhaps more a Tolkien knock-off, where the other looks like something out of Knightmare or the Harry Potter universe (yes, Americans, Disney as well). I guess you could say Curse Of The Mummy looks different from other FF and might be applicable to a Terry fantasy (Deary, Pratchett, Gilliam, take your pick) which is why I voted for it.
So, voted for Night Dragon and Curse Of the Mummy, my other picks:
Knights Of Doom - Perhaps a bit boardgame-like, but well-drawn and reminiscent of good legend and fantasy works for boys.
Spellbreaker - All the art in this book is good, skillfully-drawn and bright, the cover perhaps more than the interior. My only conflict was to vote for the Puffin version or the Wizard one, which I've never seen before; they both have their charms, with Wizard being more mature and darker, but I prefer the original for some reason - the beast is very attention-grabbing.
Magehunter - Looks very foreign and different from standard sword & sorcery, drawn with definite skill if not the most beautiful.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 14, 2023 14:48:17 GMT
Night Dragon's cover is amazing. I also like both Spellbreakers, particularly the original. Nazek is so evil looking. Curse of the Mummy is very good, much better than the somewhat rushed looking internal illos. Magehunter has a nice colour scheme and a cool bird of prodigious size.
Never been a fan of the Wizard extreme close-ups (Legend of Zagor, Temple of Terror and Eye of the Dragon).
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Post by evilwizard on Sept 14, 2023 23:59:47 GMT
The cover for Eye of the Dragon is one of my favourites, even though it is technically misleading
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Post by hallucination on Sept 15, 2023 7:08:52 GMT
This was a hard batch for me! I really like almost all of these. Night Dragon, Knights, Magehunter, and the Wizard edition of Spellbreaker are all especially awesome imo. Great colours, cool creatures, and in the case of Night Dragon, suitably badass. Picking a fifth was hard. For now I’ve settled on Curse, though who knows if that’ll change
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 15, 2023 18:50:36 GMT
Island of the Undead is quite misleading too as was The Crimson Tide.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 19, 2023 8:07:28 GMT
Surprised at the liking expressed for Magehunter. I really like Ian Miller's work (and it's a real shame he didn't respond to the invitation to use his original Magehunter cover rough in the Wailing World scenario). But to this day I think his cover for Magehunter was two-dimensional, lacking the dynamism I felt was in the rough my wife did. I still don't know whether Puffin sent him the latter (I suspect not: artists have their pride).
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 19, 2023 13:35:13 GMT
Surprised at the liking expressed for Magehunter. I really like Ian Miller's work (and it's a real shame he didn't respond to the invitation to use his original Magehunter cover rough in the Wailing World scenario). But to this day I think his cover for Magehunter was two-dimensional, lacking the dynamism I felt was in the rough my wife did. I still don't know whether Puffin sent him the latter (I suspect not: artists have their pride). I feel this was clearly a sympathy vote for the exciting and foreign world (subject matter, if you like) over technical skill. I could tell Island Of The Undead was well-drawn but didn't vote for it because it was sword & sorcery; as you say this simplistic style reminds me of those pictures of The Last Supper I've seen before Da Vinci blew everything away with his phenomenal perspective techniques.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 21, 2023 12:28:23 GMT
Surprised at the liking expressed for Magehunter. I really like Ian Miller's work (and it's a real shame he didn't respond to the invitation to use his original Magehunter cover rough in the Wailing World scenario). But to this day I think his cover for Magehunter was two-dimensional, lacking the dynamism I felt was in the rough my wife did. I still don't know whether Puffin sent him the latter (I suspect not: artists have their pride). I feel this was clearly a sympathy vote for the exciting and foreign world (subject matter, if you like) over technical skill. I could tell Island Of The Undead was well-drawn but didn't vote for it because it was sword & sorcery; as you say this simplistic style reminds me of those pictures of The Last Supper I've seen before Da Vinci blew everything away with his phenomenal perspective techniques. Or maybe it was just that the voters, like me, really liked Ian Miller's work generally, and wanted to vote for him, even if this particular example wasn't very good?
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 21, 2023 12:30:38 GMT
Island of the Undead is quite misleading too as was The Crimson Tide. What's misleading about The Crimson Tide? The cover is illustrating the single most common ending of the whole book (you die, and appear before the Tribunal of Hell).
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 21, 2023 14:03:27 GMT
Or maybe it was just that the voters, like me, really liked Ian Miller's work generally, and wanted to vote for him, even if this particular example wasn't very good? It's not really surprising that it's got a few votes considering people have 5 votes to spread around just 12 books. Even then, only 50% of voters actually gave it one of their 5. At any rate, its bright colours help it stand out from most of the other books in this list.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 21, 2023 15:13:41 GMT
Island of the Undead is quite misleading too as was The Crimson Tide. What's misleading about The Crimson Tide? The cover is illustrating the single most common ending of the whole book (you die, and appear before the Tribunal of Hell). I don't remember seeing or reading about any shark-man executioners but I suppose it could be interpreted any way you want.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 23, 2023 13:20:36 GMT
What's misleading about The Crimson Tide? The cover is illustrating the single most common ending of the whole book (you die, and appear before the Tribunal of Hell). I don't remember seeing or reading about any shark-man executioners but I suppose it could be interpreted any way you want. Should the covers of FF books be literal depictions of scenes that appear within? The original cover brief for Magehunter was for the Pit Fiend encounter, which was also the subject of an internal picture. Since the two didn't resemble each other in the slightest, and it also became evident that the Pit Fiend encounter in no way represented what Magehunter was about, a lucky second chance led to the Roc/Flying Serpent encounter, which was a bit more like it (also, the Pit Fiend arena would have looked too much like Trial of Champions). But surely the purpose of the cover is to be an arresting image that somehow conveys what the book is about? I always thought Slaves of the Abyss did this really well (Steve Williams did that cover brief), and that wasn't really an actual scene from the book (though I think it sort of got shoehorned in). I must admit that, especially after the Riddling Reaver cover debacle, I hated the covers which were basically just a monster standing there looking menacing. Even though Moonrunner is one of my favourite books, its cover is just another 'Here's the monster' effort. Phantoms of Fear sort of does this, but I think it's forgivable because it's so weird. Very few covers break away from the rigid pattern -- maybe original Warlock and Spectral Stalkers are two examples? -- and I don't think the abject failure of Black Vein Prophecy is a criticism of trying to do something different, just testimony to my shit abilities at writing cover briefs. Crimson Tide, again, suffers from me being rubbish at cover briefs, though I'd learned a little from Black Vein Prophecy. But do you really read these books waiting for the cover scene to pop up? The cover of Crimson Tide was there to tell the reader that the book took place in an Asian-influenced setting, and one in which societal concepts were more important than in most FF. Anyone with any knowledge of Chinese mythology would recognise it as riffing on the tribunal of hell, where the deceased would be judged by the Yama King in a sort of grotesque parody of the earthly courts. And that gets to the heart of what each run through of an FF book is: until you succeed, you generally end up dying, and that implicitly involves judgement. So I still argue that The Crimson Tide cover is not the slightest bit misleading, but gives a pretty clear impression of what the book contains. Not literally, of a single scene. But overall.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 23, 2023 17:51:53 GMT
I don't remember seeing or reading about any shark-man executioners but I suppose it could be interpreted any way you want. Should the covers of FF books be literal depictions of scenes that appear within? The original cover brief for Magehunter was for the Pit Fiend encounter, which was also the subject of an internal picture. Since the two didn't resemble each other in the slightest, and it also became evident that the Pit Fiend encounter in no way represented what Magehunter was about, a lucky second chance led to the Roc/Flying Serpent encounter, which was a bit more like it (also, the Pit Fiend arena would have looked too much like Trial of Champions). But surely the purpose of the cover is to be an arresting image that somehow conveys what the book is about? I always thought Slaves of the Abyss did this really well (Steve Williams did that cover brief), and that wasn't really an actual scene from the book (though I think it sort of got shoehorned in). I must admit that, especially after the Riddling Reaver cover debacle, I hated the covers which were basically just a monster standing there looking menacing. Even though Moonrunner is one of my favourite books, its cover is just another 'Here's the monster' effort. Phantoms of Fear sort of does this, but I think it's forgivable because it's so weird. Very few covers break away from the rigid pattern -- maybe original Warlock and Spectral Stalkers are two examples? -- and I don't think the abject failure of Black Vein Prophecy is a criticism of trying to do something different, just testimony to my shit abilities at writing cover briefs. Crimson Tide, again, suffers from me being rubbish at cover briefs, though I'd learned a little from Black Vein Prophecy. But do you really read these books waiting for the cover scene to pop up? The cover of Crimson Tide was there to tell the reader that the book took place in an Asian-influenced setting, and one in which societal concepts were more important that in most FF. Anyone with any knowledge of Chinese mythology would recognise it as riffing on the tribunal of hell, where the deceased would be judged by the Yama King in a sort of grotesque parody of the earthly courts. And that gets to the heart of what each run through of an FF book is: until you succeed, you generally end up dying, and that implicitly involves judgement. So I still argue that The Crimson Tide cover is not the slightest bit misleading, but gives a pretty clear impression of what the book contains. Not literally, of a single scene. But overall. The majority of the FF covers are depictions of either scenes or encounters of what's in the adventures or a blend of both where an encounter might be depicted in a different setting that happens elsewhere in the book. Don't get me wrong, I do like the cover of The Crimson Tide and know a bit on Chinese mythology (being Chinese helps) so I appreciated the inclusion of such figures as the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, but again, it's the Shark-Man guards that I thought were very out of place.
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Post by tyrion on Sept 23, 2023 17:55:37 GMT
I didn't have the crimson tide when I was a child, but as an adult I can appreciate the cover. I don't know what teenage me would have made of it though. Possibly looking forward to a fight with some fish dudes.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Sept 23, 2023 21:49:47 GMT
Rare footage of Katy Perry being judged by the Tribunal of Hell
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Post by sleepyscholar on Sept 23, 2023 22:51:16 GMT
Should the covers of FF books be literal depictions of scenes that appear within? The original cover brief for Magehunter was for the Pit Fiend encounter, which was also the subject of an internal picture. Since the two didn't resemble each other in the slightest, and it also became evident that the Pit Fiend encounter in no way represented what Magehunter was about, a lucky second chance led to the Roc/Flying Serpent encounter, which was a bit more like it (also, the Pit Fiend arena would have looked too much like Trial of Champions). But surely the purpose of the cover is to be an arresting image that somehow conveys what the book is about? I always thought Slaves of the Abyss did this really well (Steve Williams did that cover brief), and that wasn't really an actual scene from the book (though I think it sort of got shoehorned in). I must admit that, especially after the Riddling Reaver cover debacle, I hated the covers which were basically just a monster standing there looking menacing. Even though Moonrunner is one of my favourite books, its cover is just another 'Here's the monster' effort. Phantoms of Fear sort of does this, but I think it's forgivable because it's so weird. Very few covers break away from the rigid pattern -- maybe original Warlock and Spectral Stalkers are two examples? -- and I don't think the abject failure of Black Vein Prophecy is a criticism of trying to do something different, just testimony to my shit abilities at writing cover briefs. Crimson Tide, again, suffers from me being rubbish at cover briefs, though I'd learned a little from Black Vein Prophecy. But do you really read these books waiting for the cover scene to pop up? The cover of Crimson Tide was there to tell the reader that the book took place in an Asian-influenced setting, and one in which societal concepts were more important that in most FF. Anyone with any knowledge of Chinese mythology would recognise it as riffing on the tribunal of hell, where the deceased would be judged by the Yama King in a sort of grotesque parody of the earthly courts. And that gets to the heart of what each run through of an FF book is: until you succeed, you generally end up dying, and that implicitly involves judgement. So I still argue that The Crimson Tide cover is not the slightest bit misleading, but gives a pretty clear impression of what the book contains. Not literally, of a single scene. But overall. The majority of the FF covers are depictions of either scenes or encounters of what's in the adventures or a blend of both where an encounter might be depicted in a different setting that happens elsewhere in the book. Don't get me wrong, I do like the cover of The Crimson Tide and know a bit on Chinese mythology (being Chinese helps) so I appreciated the inclusion of such figures as the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, but again, it's the Shark-Man guards that I thought were very out of place. The shark-headed demons were there because it's Titan, and therefore, as with the Isles of the Dawn themselves, a warped parody of our own world. And Katy Perry notwithstanding, it gives a salutary warning of what happens if you watch too much Baby Shark when you're a nipper.
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