Fish, Barrel, Gun: Tutis

For a self-styled "caustic" cover critic, Tutis is the gift that keeps on giving. They show an interesting willingness to appopriate other people/publisher's cover art for their own shoddy POD editions.

Example #1: This is the Larry Elmore cover for the first of Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis's wildly-popular-in-the-1980s Mormon-propaganda, sub-Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons spin-off novels:



Here are a couple of Tutis's classics:




Setting aside the complete inappropriateness of these covers (though at least they Photoshopped out the dragon), this is the unwise theft of a cover which millions of people will recognise.

Example #2: When Weis and Hickman started writing their own sub-Tolkien Mormon propoganda that wasn't affiliated with Dungeons & Dragons, the first cover looked like this:



Enter Tutis:




Example #3: Trashy fantasy novels seem to be a useful resource for Tutis. Here's the cover for one of the bestselling Terry Brooks' many, many Tolkien-"inspired" novels: again, a book cover seen by millions.



And here's Tutis's edition of The Man Eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures--remember, by the way, that said man-eaters are actually lions, not made-up airborne monsters.



Example #4: This Tutis Wilkie Collins make use of a Charles Addams painting of the Addams family home.



Example #5: Why reuse other people's covers when you can reuse your own, whether or not they suit the book at all (though who knows where this image came from originally?)




With their usual care and attention, they've left off the author's surname on that second book--it's actually by P. G. Wodehouse. But what is that thing? Look into its cold, dead, pink eyes...



Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!