Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 3670615" data-attributes="member: 18832">Like a lot of people, I'm not a big fan of Larry Elmore's work, but I completely agree that he's an appropriate artist to help bring the print era of Dragon to a close.I'm not sure this is really fair.The cover for Dragon #358 technically features, hmm, the surprise round before the battle proper begins? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Adventurers have come upon a fire giant, but their foe is still working a sword on his anvil.#357 is simply a portrait of Demogorgon surrounded by demonic subjects. #356 is two dragons fighting, a traditional Dragon cover subject if ever there was one. #355 is just . . . some guy. #354 is a modron. #353 is Malcanthet enthroned. #352 is some guy. #351 is Lord Soth standing amidst a pile of skeletal corpses.#350 is a sorcerer on a black dragon - okay, the forest behind them is on fire, but "someone on a dragon" is a classic Elmore subject, to say nothing of a traditional Dragon cover. #349 is an elf aiming a bow out towards the reader, but it's not a fight scene. #348 is Vecna. #347 is a four-armed elemental sorceress. #346 looks like the aftermath of a deadfall trap. #345 is a warrior followed by a frost giant. #344 is Tiamat.You have to go back to #343, with a red dragon confronting some adventurers, to get a real "battle scene". #342 is a white dragon, but it's not fighting anyone. #341 looks like a golem being constructed by several wizards. #340 is a sorceress and a phantasmal dragon-creature. #339 is the Lady of Pain.#338 is a wizard. #337 is Zuggtmoy. #336 is a female mummy. #335 is some elven fighter or rogue entering a room through the open window. #334 is a kraken. #333 is Fraz-Urb'luu. #332 has a battle scene, for once - a guy throwing a spear at a red dragon on its hoard. #331 has an over-equipped adventurer exploring a dungeon room by torchlight. #330 has a mind flayer about to proceed to round 4 of its tactical procedures. #329 has a very satisfied medusa and her latest victim, but it's not a battle scene. #328 has Soveliss and Tordek back to back, but they're not fighting anyone - they're waiting for enemies to approach through the trees. #327 has a thief gazing at a gem while a huge spider approaches from behind.#326 has a real fight scene - three adventurers versus a couple of goblinoids. #325 is a wizard using his spellbook. #324 is a death knight in the snow. #323 is a red dragon clawing through the cover. #322 is a creepy assassin or something. #321 is a paladin (or "infused") fighting a devil. #320 is a silver dragon. #319 is a barbarian slavedriver about to a whip a fallen man. #318 is a ninja. #317 is a tiger-man. #316 is an improbably modern spy stealing scroll from beneath a throne. #315 is Strahd von Zarovich lunging forward as Lord Soth and others rise from their graves.There are no "vistas" in these covers - they tend to be portraits of individual characters or creatures - but it's completely inaccurate to say that there is a "decided preference . . . for depicting battle imagery" in the last few years.Even in Dungeon, where you would expect more fight scenes, you don't see that many. #150 is Demogorgon beating the hell out of the eleven Dungeon iconics, admittedly. #149 is Iggwilv playing chess with the heroes and demon lords. #148 is Charon transporting a corpse in his boat. #147 is Vanthus Vanderboren, a half-fiend death knight, standing over a dead warrior. #146 is Harliss Jarvell, a female swashbuckler, being attacked by tentacles, but it's not really a fight scene. #145 is a colossal crocodile chomping a boat full of adventurers. #144 is adventurers exploring a dungeon, the last one having just been snatched into the floor by tentacles. #143 is a sorceress and her imp familiar ready for a fight, but again it's not really a battle scene. #142 is a priestess by a firepit. #141 is a beholder. #140 is Mephistopheles. #139 is a tyrannosaurus attacking some adventurers on a beach.Again, three out of twelve covers is hardly a "decided preference". In fact, it's quite clear that the decided preference is for single-subject illustrations - a monster, a villain, sometimes a PC-type adventurer.</blockquote>

Verification