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fandom: good omens

new cover art for good omens sparks wank. (story at eleven.)
in good omens fandom, wank is afoot. i'll start you off with a quote from our snarky fandom newsletter, niceandaccurate:

quantum_witch posts the new book covers to lower_tadfield (irisbleu does likewise on stjamespark). Overall reaction is mixed between those who think they're cute and those who want to know why Aziraphale is dressed like a 1950s gym teacher and wtf is with the bat wings the artist gave Crowley. Everyone likes the Look Aziraphale is giving Crowley, though.

niceandaccurate was both nice and accurate at the time when it went to press, but there was something brewing in the comments. many good omens fans are very devoted and loyal to the authors of its canon, neil gaiman and terry pratchett. so much so that some of them are apt to take things a bit personally.



the criticisms begin in the original main community for the fandom, lower_tadfield, but it's pretty tame.

there are people who don't like aziraphale's sneakers or crowley's pin-striped suit and hair.

over in the younger fic/art/discussion only comm, stjamespark, opinions are much the same but a bit less restrained.

jennaria and irisbleu make jabs about the artist's style. someone is irritated by crowley's bat wings. ida_pea uses the word "sleaze" for crowley. the fact that only crowley has a wineglass is brought up. [you will see a comment from me there as well; i'm a member of both communities.]

and this pisses quantum_witch off. she makes a public post to that effect.

I'm just happy as hell at the new "Good Omens" book covers, every last tiny precious lovable detail of them. However... some people seem to disagree. Of course, that's always the case with some people.

she goes on to explain that because the cover was approved by the authors--"Even directed, a bit, as he was quoted as saying that the Aziraphale drawing had to go back for tweaking before it was finally approved"--"these images are as close to perfectly canon as we're ever going to get." (emphasis hers)

she acknowledges that crowley's bat wings and horns in the picture aren't canon because she said so because they are contradicted in the text of the book, but maintains that every other detail of the picture is so definitively canon that people don't have the "right to declare "wtf?" to anything [the writers] present [us] with".

in the comments there are some interesting bits as well, such as quantum_witch's response to her first comment, in which it becomes clear that it's much less acceptable to criticise the art of someone famous and published. to this beetle_breath replies that such criticism is "like that moron who accused Anne McCaffery (I'm not really a fan, so sorry for the misspelling) of stealing THEIR idea."

linnpuzzle comments to disagree that the cover is hard-and-fast canon, citing that it's easy to obtain a writer's approval for a piece of art and pointing out that by the logic of quantum_witch's post, all the other covers for the book ever printed would be canon also. (the reply to this is that authors usually don't get a choice of covers; it's the blessing that's been given to this one which makes it special.)

when i originally read this post, there were a couple more comments which had been deleted by the time i saved the source here:

irisbleu (in response to "we should all just be grateful they're not suing us for writing fanfic/making art"): It's not a matter of letting us, per se: it's a matter of courteously looking the other way because they know that most of us aren't doing any harm at all. We're not trying to shove it in their faces or imply it ought to be published. We're doing it for love of the characters.

Think a bit more carefully before you speak for all of us.

jennaria had also posted in response to beetle_breath's comment on mccaffrey fans (this one paraphrased from memory): Wait, did I miss something? Since when was kibitizing book covers the same as claiming the authors stole ideas?

after both those were deleted, i grabbed the source, which was a good thing, because the post was locked down before i could even finish writing up this entry. the link has been replaced with the saved copy.

ETA: from the comments here, a link to a post by quantum_witch from last june that may be related to the current wank, or at least to irisbleu's comment. apparently quantum_witch sent the text of a fanfic sequel to go that she was working on to neil, offering it to him to publish or use in writing an eventual actual sequel without credit to herself. the text of his polite "no thanks" is included in the post.

eta: the eta post has been locked, but you can read a copy here.