Nickolaus Albert Pacione Delivers: A Library Of Unknown Horrors
Submitter Russell Nayle said it best: “It’s an oompa loompa skater!”
Nickolaus Albert Pacione Delivers: A Library Of Unknown Horrors
Submitter Russell Nayle said it best: “It’s an oompa loompa skater!”
Fuck off — have you even read the book? You are really missing out on some talented writers in the pages of that anthology. I got that cover art as a Christmas present in 2007 by one of my magazine contributors.
It boggles my mind that such thin-skinned people, who take it as a matter of personal affrontery when someone criticizes any element of their book, think they’ve got what it takes to compete in the marketplace.
“Have you even read the book?” Big fat no. Nor do I see any obligation on my part to read a book in order to judge its cover.
But hey — good use of the f-word! By golly, you must be a real writer!
You can’t judge a cover by its book.
No, but you can damn well judge a cover by the cover.
Yep you can judge book by its cover. If someone doesn’t take the time to put together a half-ways-decent cover, they probably didn’t take the time to do decent editing. It’s been proven time and time again.
I can also judge an artist on how well they respond to criticism. This site is nothing but free advertising. I can only hope to show up on here someday.
Well, he might have better taste and judgement about writing than he does about cover art. The two do not necessarily correlate. The former might also not correlate with qualities like the ability to take criticism, or social skills. Still I wouldn’t bet the price of a book on that.
The cover was based up how I looked at Gothicest 2007 — it did get me in the Edgar Allan Poe Museum’s library you fucking knob jockey. The anthology over all as a personal touch.
Ah, and there you are once again demonstrating both the conciliatory good nature and the command of the English language which has made you the darling of the online lit community.
And you’re a fucking plagiarist you cocksucker, let’s see you write something and have some cool artwork go with it. You want to pick on my covers you piece of shit — jump to video and say it you faggot.
Okay. How about this?
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Eldritch-Nathan-Shumate-ebook/dp/B009Y5S5G8/
Or this?
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Eldritch-II-Haunted-Stars-ebook/dp/B00G8PFZYW/
Nicky my boy, you have gone from “amusing like a brain-damaed monkey” to simply “tedious.” Go back to your junior-high playground where people will be all impressed by your transgressive use of naughty words; the grown-ups have moved past you.
Nick- I spoke with the curator myself. You NEVER had this book in the library. Why don’t you think long and hard about that? Why would your unedited and poorly formatted book about your sad high school existence be in a library?
You have been told repeatedly to stop repeating this lie over the past year.
The cover looks like an oompa-loompa. Your “fan” must have hated you to give you this.
My apologies…I get your horrific covers confused with the stories (as there is no relation). I forgot Eye in Shadows is an enlarged blurry green and black photo of your face. This cover on Eye in Shadows would have been appropriate.
Nathan — you realize that cover was sent to me as fan art for a Christmas present in December of 2007. I liked the artwork so much it attributed to calling my anthology Nickolaus Albert Pacione Delivers. If you are going to pick on someone’s cover without reading the book, you deserve something like the word faggot thrown at you because you don’t see artwork where people still draw or do oil paintings for artwork in the small press where everything tends to be more digital. Tabloid Purposes IV got the coolest cover of my anthologies aside from the namesake projects — the namesakes are my favorite two anthologies because I got the one in the Poe Museum and the sequel ended up joining it. I get pissed when someone says I used stock photos for my covers because they came from my own camera. Lake Fossil Press doubles as my photography portfolio.
See, the great thing is I can just repost part of your flailing comment:
…and consider it self-refuting.
Turns out ugly cover art remains ugly even if you don’t read the work.
If there are good stories in this anthology they would be better served by a cover that make someone want to buy the book doesn’t look like a chalk drawing of a chubby 90’s altkid.
PS: Are you teh same Nickolaus Pacione with a thread on Absolute Write dedicated to your many unprofessional antics?
apologies – that should have read ‘that makes someone want to buy the book and doesn’t look like’.
Aw, I thought he was singling me out special-like. It takes the fun out of it that he’s like this with everybody else…
I’m sorry, Nathan. It does rather spoil it for you.
I’m not sure about your attitude to posting links from other places, so I won’t unless you say it’s OK, but anyone wishing to can easily google the man.
Let’s not turn it into a hatefest for the guy.
Understood.
Is one of your magazine contributors a bored 8th grader, doodling during Algebra I? Because that’s what the cover art looks like. Well, that, or an Eskimo, possibly with Downs Syndrome, dressed like a juggalo in horrible forced perspective? From the drawing’s horrible chin-pubes and your profile pic, I think this was supposed to be a drawing of you. If that’s the case, you should kick your artist’s ass, unless you really are a 4 ft tall Eskimo juggalo.
CHRIS
The guy who did the artwork — he went to art school and illustrates his own work. It was based upon my look at Gothicfest 2007 as I was wearing a black pocket t-shirt, Levi’s 560’s, Black 1993 turtle Fila’s and a White Sox cap. It is known fact that I am a die hard Chicago White Sox fan and been photographed with a White Sox cap all of 2007 and into the summer of 2008. So you are dissing his skills as a artwork, I bet you draw stick figures.)
Even if the book is good, it doesn’t change the fact the the cover is just fucking bad.
If that was the cover to the best book ever made it’d still be bad.
And no, being done by an amateur isn’t an acceptable excuse. I am an amateur myself, and I can guarantee you that I can make far better cover designs than this one.
In twenty fucking minutes.
Also, if you can’t take criticism, you can’t be a writer.
“You are really missing out on some talented writers in the pages of that anthology”
And you are really selling them short by thinking a cover like this is suitable. I’m sure they deserve better.
Also note that this blog is called “lousy book covers” NOT “lousy books”.
Nathan, Anni mentioned that this dude has a reputation for inappropriate behaviour. That was an understatement. I feel sorry for the authors involved in this anthology, as I’m sure they’re now regretting their decision to get roped up with this guy. For more reasons than just this highly unprofessional book cover. 😉
Click on his name and read his blog.
http://horrorgal.blogspot.ca/ I can’t stop reading about this fool.
That cover was a present because no one in their right mind would pay for it.
Also, shit like this is why legit artists have so much trouble earning a living with their work; people with either no taste or who are miserly cheap continue to buy or use terrible excuses for art.
That is so true!
It’s Chris Griffin gone emo!
Spot on!
Are you not entertained!
As someone who is familiar with Nicky I’d just like to point out that cover is a self portrait he drew.
Mr. Pacione drew the cover art himself. It’s supposed to be a self-portrait. He’s very proud of it.
I didn’t draw this, my drawing style is little different — Dirty Black Winter and Collectives along with my five year memoir along with the back cover of this anthology is my artwork. I am more surreal and stylized but looks like a psychotic 10th Grader when I draw because I had no formal art training as I was drawing since I was a kid.
You didn’t think it was odd you put an oompa-loompa on your cover? In what world did a drawing supposedly of yourself on the cover make sense? You had what- only 1 or 2 stories in it? You did no editing and the formatting is laughable.
The perspective is not “off” either on that cover, he really does look like that. Short stumpy legs just like “Cotton” from King of the Hill! (Except Nicky didn’t get his shins shot off during the “war”, he got kicked out of basic training.)
Wow this guy is anger central. He’s all: ” The world’s fulla eejits and I’ m the judge.” (When he clearly has no reason to feel superior.) I can’t decide if he’s off his meds, unbalanced, ego-maniacal, or all three. After visiting his poorly written blog I can only feel sad for the writers he edited into this anthology AND put behind this cover.
He doesn’t edit stories into his anthologies. He copy/pastes them in. Then spells the author’s names wrong on the ToC. That’s how good heis at putting books together. And he’ll proudly tell you that he uses 4 different word processing packages to do all this…
I thought this was Pacione’s worst cover until he recently come out with Legend Keeper:
http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Keeper-Nickolaus-Albert-Pacione/dp/1500156701/ref=cm_rdp_product
Those are some great reviews! My favourite was review 4.
Someone said that the covers are the best part of his books. My goodness, I have legitimate fear of the inside now. Using a cover to judge book is in fact good advice.
Sidebar: Nickolaus A. Pacione, if you don’t stop calling people gay, faggot, homo, or whatever else as put downs for people you dislike – We will find you, and we will queer bash you.
Contrast to Pacione. I can not imagine the editors Wise & Fraser putting out a cover for their classic anthology “Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural” with their names BIGGER than the title and dominated by a sketchy portrait of themselves by a friend.