That said, you haven't always had stellar cover artwork, and sometimes, you still don't. Sometimes, regrettably, Call of Cthulhu campaigns have bad, confusing, poorly done, or simply tone-deaf artwork, and it's not your fault it happens - but bad art is bad art, and it needs to be addressed. So, I'm going to take a look at what I think are the five worst pieces of cover artwork for Call of Cthulhu campaigns, supplements, and material thus far. Because if you can't mock the things you love, what kind of gamer are you?
Now, there will be a few caveats and exemptions here. For the sake of keeping things simple, I will only be looking at the covers for English-Language, USA editions of supplements that have scenarios, are full campaigns, or both. That means no cover art from the Keeper Manuals/Investigator Handbooks, no artwork from the Keeper Screen packs, and no cover art of the MULA or non-standard releases of scenarios and campaigns. Supplements that began life as MULA publications and were later republished are fair game, as are multiple reprints or editions. Stuff from Trail of Cthulhu or other Non-Chaosium game systems are not being looked at here, but scenarios printed by other companies besides Chaosium are fair game, too. If I didn't do this, this little opinion piece (and it is just that - my opinion) would be far too long. Now, do remember that my opinion on the cover art is no indicator of quality of the scenario or materials within; it's solely about whether or not the art is good and makes me interested in the book for the right reasons. If it makes me giggle, scratch my head in confusion, or otherwise not react with something like "Awesome!"/"Oh, that's creepy as fuck"/"Well that got my attention", it's probably a Worst rather than a Best. Now, let's start this list off, shall we?
Seriously, doesn't it look like that's what's happening here? You can't unsee it now, can you? Every time I look at this cover, I grin and giggle like a small child - it really does look like that... Dimensional Shambler? Mutated ghoul? Is spinning that Investigator around like you would a toddler by an arm and a leg. The fact it apparently burst out of a shredded straitjacket or lab coat to do so makes it look like the monster just wanted to have a fun party. Why do you gotta throw sticks at the monster like that, Investigator? It's just trying to show you a good time and here you are being ungrateful. Shame on you.
Now, the reason this one's at #5 is mostly because it's charmingly stupid-looking, the monster isn't that bad, and that is definitely occurring outside of an asylum somewhere. The art is not terrible, just confusing in how the monster is throwing that poor schmo. There's potential here, but I just cannot take what looks like a monster spinning a guy around seriously. It really does look like an airplane ride, not a life-threatening battle against the Mythos. Come on, guys, you had to know this looked goofy.
Oh. Oh no, Sixtystone Press. That's not good. That's not good at all.
Okay, so it's not a Hastur campaign, but one that uses the bizarre creatures discussed in From Beyond. That explains the garish colors, I can get behind that. What I can't get behind is the fact that the artwork on the faces is so badly done, it makes the White Jacket Elvis impersonator look the exact same as the other four guys on the cover. Seriously, they all have the same exact grimace on their faces. I don't know if that was the intent, but something tells me it wasn't, because I don't think anyone would ever be dumb enough to write a campaign about a cult of Elvis impersonators. Not only that, but it looks like White Jacket Elvis has had his neck broken - human necks just do not bend that way or that far. And no, "Well, maybe it's Eldritch Elvis" is not an excuse, because I absolutely refuse to believe that a stupid concept like "Eldritch Elvis" was ever a thing.
I will give the cover some credit, though - the skull with the sigils (while also poorly drawn with not enough dimension) is cool, and the weird pink alien things are pretty neat. The Elvis impersonator's jacket design is neat, too, and I kind of want it for reasons. For those things alone, this cover is up at #4 instead of lower down, but that's all that saves it. I just really wish it had been rendered better, because seriously, that neck condition looks painful.
And why the hell shouldn't I? Just look at this ridiculousness. It's so bright, obnoxiously so, for the campaign it's for. MoN is dark and gritty two-fisted pulp similar in vein to The Mummy or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It's really not fitting to have bright colors here, especially for the dire and horrific scene at the Mountain of the Black Wind in Kenya. Not only that, but Nyar is just... blending in with the colors back there, who decided to make him blue? Black would have been thematically appropriate and would have made Nyarlathotep, you know, the god the campaign is about, stand out better. And let's talk about elements on this cover here: we have the Bloody Tongue God in the far distance, a huge fireball (or maybe Cthugha, is this a dual summoning?), what I assume is some cultists standing on an altar built on... what is that, mounds of dank weed? Is Nyarlathotep just getting hella high right now? Because that is clearly not the Mountain of the Black Wind there, that ceremony or whatever is not taking place on a mountain. And what is with the giant leopard on the lower third upstaging the Crawling Chaos? In his own campaign? How pissed do you think Nyar is right now knowing he was upstaged by a goddamned leopard?
Actually, wait a minute... that's not a leopard, that's a jaguar. That's a goddamned jaguar, in a scene from the Kenya chapter of the campaign. Look at the rosette pattern. Jaguars do not live in Kenya, but leopards do. Was... was the artist trying to have a leopard here, and got jaguar instead? I know it's a hard distinction to make if you don't know your big cats, but leopards do not have spots that look quite like that - theirs are more mottled, while jaguars have rosettes closer to those depicted here. How hard could it have been to look up "jaguar" and "leopard" in your encyclopedia, and used those images as references? And why is the jaguar more important than Nyarlathotep? Is the Crawling Chaos possessing the cat? This cover is just not well explained at all, plus it's a campaign spoiler, so it's no wonder the cover got changed from the 2nd Edition onward to the much cooler looking design that predicts that weird glowing earth orb Donald Trump touched in Saudi Arabia. Seriously, go look at that image and then at the MoN 4th edition cover; you can't unsee that now either, can you?
Not only that, but I just have so many questions about this cover. Why is the title font so generic? Why did they append the word "Adventure" onto the CoC logo in the corner and the header? How does this dated look scream "Modern" when it appears like it was not drawn for a Modern scenario first? Why is there a Cthulhu turd in the background the ship just hit, or is that a shoggoth or an island or something? Why is the sky green, is it stink clouds billowing from the Cthulhu turd? Why is that murderous sea captain rabid and apparently also blowing smoke from his mouth like a dragon? Why is his axe all bendy, and suspiciously clean for having just killed a dude? Why isn't he piloting the ship? Where's all the blood from this slaying? Why is Mr. Clean hitting a dude in the background with a wrench? Did he clean up all the blood from the killings? Why is there just that one dude in the back screaming and doing nothing while holding a straight razor? Did he just go mad? What is his story? Who are you, Screaming Man?
But you know what's even sadder than this reprint? What they did to the Dreamlands cover in the third edition reprint. Let's talk Dreamlands for a second. What are the Dreamlands? Cthulhu Mythos Does Lord of the Rings, right? It's vast plains and jungles and deserts with weird animals, villages with a billion cats that will fuck your shit up if you even accidentally harm one, a whole underworld with monsters of its own, a realm of gods - some more powerful than others - with fantastic tower-cities of glass and amber and sunset tones. It's the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It's epic journeys into danger and high fantasy in an alternate dimension of Earth where magic is very real. It's imaginative fancy run wild with danger and surreal happenings around every corner, full of color and creative life you can change and alter just by thinking about it. So, clearly, when you think Dreamlands, you expect color bursting from the page and fantastic beasts and all that jazz, living clouds and three-armed fishmen, satyr-like monsters and gorgeous landscapes. In essence, you think of scenes like these:
I mean, just look at how grey and uninspired this cover looks compared to the other editions. More like Dream-Quest of Unknown Sad-dath. There is no excuse in the world for doing this to a supplement meant to depict such a rich and creative setting. Who at Chaosium decided this was the best depiction of arguably one of the coolest fantasy settings of all time? Who looked at this and thought it looked good, and why were they not fired on the spot for trying to give the fantasy CoC setting a gritty reboot? There's nothing dreamlike here at all, just a mass of faces that, I think, are supposed to be asleep but just look like they are all pulling the Feels Good Man face. You know the exact one I'm talking about, don't pretend that you don't.
They're not even particularly well-drawn faces, either; no wonder the fourth edition of this supplement goes back to the cool ship image above. It implies so much more vibrant adventure than this sad excuse of a cover. And if you're seriously dreaming about faces that look this smudgy and dead, you probably need more help than I or anything present in the Dreamlands can give you. Turn around, go back up the stairs. The realms of Dream are not for you to witness or influence. Lord Azathoth only knows what you'd end up doing to the place if you actually got there.