[Zsinj16]

One of the fantasy artists I hate is Roger Garland. He mostly draws pictures based on "The LOTR Saga" and let me tell you, they're the dumbest paintings I've ever seen. The worst one I saw that he painted was the "Chaining of Melkor"
Then, there was this other dumb Tolkien artist, I forget who his name was, but he drew the Witchking as a fat, short chubby guy
with his head on fire wearing wimpy armor that didn't even fit him! And he was riding through some gates of some fortress and he looked like he was going to fall off his horse he was so fat!!
I don't know whether the artist was on crack or dope or what when he drew this piece of excrement, but when I saw it, I was sorely infuriated!! If the Witchking was real, he'd behead that dumb artist in a millisecond for portraying him that way!!

[Ciuva]

I can't stand the covers on the Belgariad by Eddings. I mean, Ce'Nedra is supposed to be a young girl who is very, very low, but on the cover she is a VERY tall woman who looks like she is about the age of thirty. Why should something that originally wasn't that bad, be spoiled by such a stupid detail? And the cover on the Eye of the World is really bad too. (Haven't seen the other ones in WoT)
It really destroys my opinion of the book, no matter how good it is.

[webgoddess]

I'll let everyone in on a disturbing industry secret.

According to Glen Cook, author of the Black Company series and the Garrett series, the cover artists are NOT ALLOWED to read the book!!!

They are given a one page description by the publisher's marketing house of what they are suposed to paint on the cover. This does not necessarily mean it has anything to do with the book - but it has everything to do with selling it.

Here's where I'm getting my info: http://www.quantummuse.com/glen_cook_interview.html
I was there when the interview took place.

[kassimir funk]

OK, that really pisses me off. DOWN with the publishing houses! DOWN!

[saintjon]

I liked the portrayal of Lan on the Eye of the World cover. *ducks to avoid scathing retort*

[Miriamele]

What bugs me more than bad quality cover art in general (and it does abound in fantasy books) is an inaccurate portrayal of characters. It's so annoying when it's obvious the artist never read the book at all and has no idea what he's really depicting.

Like, if a character is supposed to have blond hair and on the cover she has brown. One example that bugged me recently was the covers on the MS&T books. Simon is supposed to be 16 years old, for Pete's sake, and on the covers of the 2nd and 3rd books he looks like he's about 45. You'd think that for such awesome books the publisher would at least hire a half-decent artist.

[Rob B]

Originally posted by Miriamele
One example that bugged me recently was the covers on the MS&T books. Simon is supposed to be 16 years old, for Pete's sake, and on the covers of the 2nd and 3rd books he looks like he's about 45. You'd think that for such awesome books the publisher would at least hire a half-decent artist.

Couple of things, the events in MS&T take place over about a year or two. I think the covers do a good job of charting Simon's growth as a character from that of a inauspicous innocent to a hardened, mature person who has seen much in the world (War, Death).

And the artist is Michael Whelan. He reads the majority of the books he does covers for and Tad (in his Shadowmarch forum) has mentioned that he thinks Whelan does a good job.

[Miriamele]

Well, I understand that Simon is supposed to grow up a lot over the course of the story--which, btw covers less than a year--but he's still only 16 at the end, and I don't care how much he's been through there's no way he'd look that old. Miriamele too looks like she's about 40 and she's the same age as Simon.

On the other hand, the cover art of the Otherland books was very attractive. I think it was done by the same artist. Why is it that the sci-fi books get nice covers and the fantasy books the publishers slap with a cheesy picture? Is it just a tradition or something?