Dunnae if I ever posted this incredible paint'n by Fritz, but I just saw it again in onea my relentless searchings of book club (what happens at book club stays at book club). The fourth image is the frontis to that hardbound, but the fifth image is kinda freaky. It's a rough of witchofthedarkgate, and the elephant in that looks a lot like the Nildoror creatures 2 years later
Might've been an original cover idea that was rejected by the publisher or probably Fritz himself. A cover without humans was pretty unusual for him. And one thing Frank and Ellie learned pretty quickly was never to throw anything away. I'm surprised he didn't just paint over the figure, but I'm not sure I buy their story that this was meant for the Jakes book to begin with. It just looks too different. I think you've found the explanation for real.
ReplyDeleteYou raise an interest'n point, and I want to go look into where I got "their story" from, and come back to it. I only remeber buy'n into it some eight years ago because the girl and Nildoror are positioned the same as the "genie" and girl are in 1968's WOTDG, and they are also in a swamp, but you're spot on that it looks completely different, and I honestly dunnae know when the rough was done
DeleteOkay, had my dates wrong. Took off on one version of WOTDG that has 68 painted next to Fritz's sig, but the book is from 1972, not 1968, so it's 2 years after DTTE, not 2 years before. The che great coffee table book Icon is where they put the two together, and states that Fritz abandoned the rough and did the amazeballs published one right after, so that makes more sense to me. Still wanna say, though, the rough looks like a Nildoror elephant to me
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