Well, sure. That's why I said least, not none.I 99.9% agree with this but I would say that if the cover was pornographic or excessively violent, that might just turn me away from buying the book. That isn't the case here of course.
It's cool that your father wrote the old sci-fi novel with that silly cover. No, not that old sci-fi novel, the other one with the same silly cover. No the other one. Look three shelves down, next to all the other old sci-fi novels with the exact same cover. It's the one with the alien planet floating amongst the stars in the background. You can't miss it.One such cover for an edition of one of my father's novels: A woman clearly based on a popular actress of the day, who was at least 10 years older than the book's protagonist. She was holding a ray-gun that looked copied from a child's plastic toy, when no such weapons appeared in the story. A "spaceship" that was clearly a jet fighter with the wings cut off is flying past overhead...
Yeah, I like my scaley and spikey beholders, but recent depictions don't really capture the flavor of outsider madness that I think of when I think of beholders.
Thinking about it, I think my favorite 5e depictions are some of the art depicting Xanathar:
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Though I also like artist Chris Rahn's (@ChrisRahnArt) concept art for Xanathar, that has a much darker theme:
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Now, does this always work? Of course not. Advertising often lies to the consumer. Also back when my parents were being published, unless you were a big name the novel covers got done cheaply and with minimal input from the authors, which often resulted in them being hilariously inaccurate*. But the general idea at least holds.
*One such cover for an edition of one of my father's novels: A woman clearly based on a popular actress of the day, who was at least 10 years older than the book's protagonist. She was holding a ray-gun that looked copied from a child's plastic toy, when no such weapons appeared in the story. A "spaceship" that was clearly a jet fighter with the wings cut off is flying past overhead. That's what happens when a publisher who knows little about the story submits an art order to an artist who knows even less about the genre.
That, I believe, is Jeff Easley—who did a lot of AD&D covers. Never liked his style at all.I think some of the worst book covers by artists who obviously did not understand the source material has to go to Drizzt novels where the artist didn't understand elven lifespans. The fact that it was repeated on two covers just goes to show how well TSR was run.
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