Monday 7 December 2009

Tutis? Balls.

I had been intending to forswear any more Tutis-bashing, but a combination of technical and medical difficulties have prevented me getting the images I was going to write about. So here are some more cheap shots at the world's most incompetent "publisher" of classics.

One artist Tutis has regularly ripped off, using his images for their covers, no matter the inappropriateness, is Luis Royo. Now, I loathe Royo--his stock in trade is hideous softcore paintings of Gothy warrior women with few or no clothes, often humping demons or monsters of some kind or other, invariably with their mascara running. Here are the covers of several of his books, to show you what I mean (click for bigger, if you dare).





Anyway, Tutis seem to have decided he's worth plundering for their covers. In a rare display of restraint, however, they seem to have only used those of his paintings which feature fully dressed men, rather than masturbating sorceresses. And of course, nothing says 'Jack London' or 'Balzac' better than space warriors or wizards.


 
 
 

That last book is also available in another edition. In an inspired spirit of literary crossover, it features small metal models of the Mad Hatter's tea party from Alice in Wonderland.


 

That's not the only Tutis title to try this kind of literary mash-up: who knew that Dorothy of Oz had met Charlotte Brontë?


 

What remains mystifying--among many other things--is that they don't just slap any old image on the cover. Sometimes they go out of their way to change the picture to fit different books. Not in any way that actually fits what the book is about, but still...



 

Still, they do have another edition of Kipling's Kim, and at least that one has a cover which recognises that, at heart, it's just a simple story about multicoloured zombies with Walkmen.


 

The madness doesn't end there, inevitably. Here are some more uniquely interpreted classics, kicking off with an anti-slavery novel (with added gun-toting blindfolded ballet dancers), and proceding via a biography of Chopin (not the pianist, but the guitar-playing, jeans-wearing folksinger) and a pirates (on bicycles) adventure, to the previously undiscovered fact that America's presidents actually run the country from a secret base on Easter Island.


 
 
 
 


9 comments:

Brian Busby said...

As the great-grandson of a man who served as a Canadian customs agent during the Klondike Gold Rush, I can report that his photographs from that time do not capture a single individual clothed like the couple on the cover of The Call of the Wild and the Human Drift. I can only assume that the image represents the latter of the two works.

Anonymous said...

I'll admit that I never knew that they had bikes on Treaure Island.

And I love the Heavy Metal covers--especially the crotch shot of the open-legged witchy lady.

They don't care...about...copyright...law...at...ALL.

Deb said...

It's a little-known fact of American history that once John Quincy Adams had finished his term as U.S. President, he went to Easter Island to continue his public service.

Also, I see the bicycle from the cover of Wuthering Heights has migrated to (and been duplicated on) Treasure Island.

Must...restrain...further...urge...to...snark...

Ben said...

Best Treasure Island cover ever.

It puts me in mind of a Christopher Guest style comedy about an ill-fated theatre production that tries to base the whole story around bicycles...

"Ar, Jim-lad, you try pedalling with a wooden leg.." and so on, for three hilarious hours.

Ben said...

Oh, and thanks for giving me an excuse to look at some Heavy Metal covers without my having to admit the complete failure of my attempts to to live life as a grown up by actually seeking them out myself - always welcome!

Rex Parker said...

"Treasure Island" cover is, by far, my favorite.

Bob Fingerman said...

Maybe this is all a brilliantly elaborate prank?

Boltzmann's Brain said...

quality

Lola said...

I love the title of "Subversive Beauty" paired with the most conventional depiction of beauty ever.