The Emperor's New Covers 3

February 10th, 2010

I have already presented the new alternative mass-market covers for The Blade Itself and Before They are Hanged, to varying degrees of rabid excitement, approval, disinterest, outrage, and suicidal despair. I now present, at arm’s length and with eyes slightly narrowed, like a person holding out a match to a joss-stick that might actually be made of a mixture of dynamite and poo, the third in the trilogy:


Click upon it to see it in all its awe-striking detail, if you dare. Art is once more by Chris McGrath, and design by Laura Brett. I love it, but for those of you who always imagined, for some reason, that Jezal dan Luthar should be bald, or wear black lipstick, or have antlers sprouting out of his head or some shit, you may express your outrage in the comments section. Come on! Let’s see if we can break 100 this time around! I can take it!

Furthermore, and why we should be so nice to you ingrates is beyond me, I will be attempting, for the very first time, to bring some high-quality content to the readers of this blog by using it as a forum for interviewing the artist of these covers, Chris McGrath, over the next couple of weeks. So anyone who has a worthwhile question (and I don’t mean, “in my dreams Jezal dan Luthar is blue like a fucking N’avi, why haven’t you painted him that way?”) can post that too, and I will decide, in my infinite wisdom, whether to bother him with it…

Posted in artwork by Joe Abercrombie on February 10th, 2010.

5 comments so far

  • Lincoln says:

    WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! JUST TO SHOW THE SHEER MADNESS OF IT ALL, I SAY WRONG! I HAVEN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK YET AND I KNOW IT'S WRONG!

    (But in all seriousness, I think it looks excellent. Definitely looking forward to reading this.)

  • Elena says:

    i'd hit it. so…i guess it's a win? 🙂

  • Elena says:

    that being said, new glokta is probably my favorite of the three.

  • Not says:

    I think Elena might be the rare (hot) fantasy fan……

  • Anonymous says:

    Not how I imagined, but I don't care either. It's an awesome piece of artwork and certainly I don't think there is anything that contradicts anything mentioned in the book.
    I'm actually considering buying the newer covers as well as the older ones, maybe because I love the books a whole lot, maybe because I'm a nutter, or maybe because I really do like both sets of covers THAT much. Maybe all three.

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