Questions: 1 all right, when does the Librarian attain his present comfortable pre-eminence in shape?
I haven't re-read TCOM and TLF since they came out:because they always struck me as only just better than the simple examples of the weak comic fantasy of the time neatly subverting the high fantasy tropes, AFAIK, they whoosh through neat subversions: is that Cohen the Barbarian? Could that be Fafhrd and the Gray Mauser? Are we now following the world's most scared "wizzard" through a Dragon riders of Pern skit at the edge of the world? It's not that the two books are duds, it's that when PTerry started getting into his stride he was writing books about how people worked and how
2 I think Mort (for Death) Wyrd Sisters (for the Lancre Witches) and ("Guards Guards" for the guards are good entry points, and there are remarkably few duds in the whole set-up (apart from over-use of the Dungeon Dimensions in earlier books). It's a world that after the first few books isn't simply becoming a fantasy trope-fest (although there are plenty of fantasy tropes gleefully subverted), but a world about how people work narratively. Most like Dickens in richness of texture and varieties of humour from puns and wordplay to banter, irony, wit, sarcasm, fierce indignation and sheer silliness (there are extra treats for people who've read or read about history or various other things (like Shakespeare or the Bible or Gormenghast (a lot of Unseen Academicals reads rather like Gormenghast with the unlikeable Smeems taking the role of Abiatha Swelter and Nutt as the basically decent and civilised Mr Flay, while the more psychopathic and dangerous among the Faces could be Steerpike, and then there's the actual football stuff I don't know much about, and the send-up of Romeo (Trev) and Juliet (Jools): "Two households all alike in villainy" (snort). Perhaps my favourite aspect is the Patrician getting gloriously plastered. We've seen him weakened by lack of food and sleep etc many times, but not that wonderful send-up of the Machiavellian lord with famously abstemious habits)
Incidentally, where do the wizards come in as known later (as a stable-ish squabbling system headed by Ridcully without much reliance on Dead Men's Pointy Shoes) I think it's Moving Pictures where Ridcully the Brown is set up as a hearty proponent of huntin' shootin' and fishin' while the other wizards want big dinners and a quiet life except for the Bursar who's developing his nervous tic.
Question 3: Anybody else have a distinct preference for artists? I have a very strong preference for Paul Kidby, mainly because I don't necessarily much like the early preference for "THIS IS FUNNY, therefore exaggerate characters and scenes until they're pretty much unrecognisable"--which was the standard look for early comic fantasy that was in my opinion much worse than really good comic fantasy like PTerry's (Craig Shaw Gardner. some Piers Anthony, the Robert Asprin things. Josh Kirby is a much better artist than the ones they had, but has the same way of hitting you over the head with humour.
Josh Kirby draws Granny Weatherwax as a standard crone with her face fallen in and an expression of elderly imbecility. While she can exaggerate the "poor old woman" bit for effect, and at least once wished she was toothless enough to be discounted by others, her standard expression is fierce calm and barely-suppressed rage, and she's very dignified (although a lot of the humour involves getting her flustered). There are Josh Kirby covers I do like: particularly The Truth. It's well-composed, and although it's busy and still very caricatured, it allows me to follow the action--even for the casual cameo role for Brother Pin and Sister Tulip, and a glimpse of Otto Chriek.
Paul Kidby bases his work on actual art-works and draws characters the way they look. Miss Treason festooned with Boffo, with ravens, clocks and skulls. That gorgeous and rather romantic version of Bill Door and Miss Flitworth done after "American Gothic". The City Watch look the way I expect them in Night Watch. The one I can think of that looks wrong is Lu-Tze because Kidby is pushing "Tibetan monk in orange robe" so hard he looks important, when he's a scruffy, scrawny History Monk with an important job to do. I only realised who he was because he had a broom... (Apart from the covers I'm looking at the Imaginarium e-book, which is wonderful!)
Looking at the "Discworld Massif" on the Paul Kidby website...how many people can you identify? I started wondering why Vimes has such a silly-looking helmet, and then realised that as well as his "internal scruffiness field", of course it's something a bit like a custodian helmet, the hat famous for making British bobbies look a bit of a tit but protecting their heads since Robert Peel set up policing by consent. (not about much nowadays as sensible officers have better gear when trouble is expected).
What do you think?
I haven't re-read TCOM and TLF since they came out:because they always struck me as only just better than the simple examples of the weak comic fantasy of the time neatly subverting the high fantasy tropes, AFAIK, they whoosh through neat subversions: is that Cohen the Barbarian? Could that be Fafhrd and the Gray Mauser? Are we now following the world's most scared "wizzard" through a Dragon riders of Pern skit at the edge of the world? It's not that the two books are duds, it's that when PTerry started getting into his stride he was writing books about how people worked and how
2 I think Mort (for Death) Wyrd Sisters (for the Lancre Witches) and ("Guards Guards" for the guards are good entry points, and there are remarkably few duds in the whole set-up (apart from over-use of the Dungeon Dimensions in earlier books). It's a world that after the first few books isn't simply becoming a fantasy trope-fest (although there are plenty of fantasy tropes gleefully subverted), but a world about how people work narratively. Most like Dickens in richness of texture and varieties of humour from puns and wordplay to banter, irony, wit, sarcasm, fierce indignation and sheer silliness (there are extra treats for people who've read or read about history or various other things (like Shakespeare or the Bible or Gormenghast (a lot of Unseen Academicals reads rather like Gormenghast with the unlikeable Smeems taking the role of Abiatha Swelter and Nutt as the basically decent and civilised Mr Flay, while the more psychopathic and dangerous among the Faces could be Steerpike, and then there's the actual football stuff I don't know much about, and the send-up of Romeo (Trev) and Juliet (Jools): "Two households all alike in villainy" (snort). Perhaps my favourite aspect is the Patrician getting gloriously plastered. We've seen him weakened by lack of food and sleep etc many times, but not that wonderful send-up of the Machiavellian lord with famously abstemious habits)
Incidentally, where do the wizards come in as known later (as a stable-ish squabbling system headed by Ridcully without much reliance on Dead Men's Pointy Shoes) I think it's Moving Pictures where Ridcully the Brown is set up as a hearty proponent of huntin' shootin' and fishin' while the other wizards want big dinners and a quiet life except for the Bursar who's developing his nervous tic.
Question 3: Anybody else have a distinct preference for artists? I have a very strong preference for Paul Kidby, mainly because I don't necessarily much like the early preference for "THIS IS FUNNY, therefore exaggerate characters and scenes until they're pretty much unrecognisable"--which was the standard look for early comic fantasy that was in my opinion much worse than really good comic fantasy like PTerry's (Craig Shaw Gardner. some Piers Anthony, the Robert Asprin things. Josh Kirby is a much better artist than the ones they had, but has the same way of hitting you over the head with humour.
Josh Kirby draws Granny Weatherwax as a standard crone with her face fallen in and an expression of elderly imbecility. While she can exaggerate the "poor old woman" bit for effect, and at least once wished she was toothless enough to be discounted by others, her standard expression is fierce calm and barely-suppressed rage, and she's very dignified (although a lot of the humour involves getting her flustered). There are Josh Kirby covers I do like: particularly The Truth. It's well-composed, and although it's busy and still very caricatured, it allows me to follow the action--even for the casual cameo role for Brother Pin and Sister Tulip, and a glimpse of Otto Chriek.
Paul Kidby bases his work on actual art-works and draws characters the way they look. Miss Treason festooned with Boffo, with ravens, clocks and skulls. That gorgeous and rather romantic version of Bill Door and Miss Flitworth done after "American Gothic". The City Watch look the way I expect them in Night Watch. The one I can think of that looks wrong is Lu-Tze because Kidby is pushing "Tibetan monk in orange robe" so hard he looks important, when he's a scruffy, scrawny History Monk with an important job to do. I only realised who he was because he had a broom... (Apart from the covers I'm looking at the Imaginarium e-book, which is wonderful!)
Looking at the "Discworld Massif" on the Paul Kidby website...how many people can you identify? I started wondering why Vimes has such a silly-looking helmet, and then realised that as well as his "internal scruffiness field", of course it's something a bit like a custodian helmet, the hat famous for making British bobbies look a bit of a tit but protecting their heads since Robert Peel set up policing by consent. (not about much nowadays as sensible officers have better gear when trouble is expected).
What do you think?
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