Gandalf the Unconcerned

"After living in this room of extensive ornamental carvings for so long, my boy, I just cannot express much passion for actual pink dragons that may appear will-he, nill-he."

Oh my God, no! They’re showing “Reptilicus” at the drive-in next door!

The motto on the armorial device is bad Latin for "what, me worry?"

"Tell him to call back Tuesday."

Ah, Craig Shaw Gardner. He was big in the comic fantasy genre before Pratchett really caught on in the US, and I read quite a bit of his stuff in the 80s and start of the 90s. I see 1 he kept writing after 1992, but I seem to have missed all of his later work.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Shaw_Gardner

>3 AndreasJ: So it is! Also I like the pulling a rabbit out of the wizard hat. That bit is fine.

@TorMented: GSS!

The wizard looking more bored than sick and the goofy look on the dragon's face tip it over from amusing to LOOKIT HOW WACKY!!!

@bam2001: I did too, apparently. Although I looove the Cineverse Cycle. Got the omnibus from SFBC and it has survived all moves and library weeding since. I can hear the jungle drums and still am amused by Our Hero tripping over the subtitles.

I don't know for sure, but it sure looks to me like The Unwell Wizard or his bumbling medical assistant don't know which end of a thermometer goes into the mouth. I seem to remmember it's the bulb end that goes there.

I suppose it's better than a picture of the assistant taking a temperature some other way....

Saw the title and thought at first I was getting called out for not being civically engaged enough or something haha

>3 AndreasJ:
I think your translation is correct, but it is very bad Latin!

>8 paradoxosalpha: Like you were expecting good Latin from this cover?

@GandalfTheGreen: Hello! Since you aren't Gandalf the Ennui Wizard, we wouldn't apply this to you.

@Hammy_JLK: Good observation. Also, you'd think a wizard's assistant wouldn't be quite so startled by a dragon, even if it is pink and goofy. Particularly with the book in Wiz' hand.

Wiz isn't going to be happy to have potions spilled all over him. It's hard to get good help these days, or so I've been told by every cat I've ever known.

>9 GSSex-noob: Maybe assistant is startled because Unwell Wizard's nasal congestion caused him to summon a goofy-looking pink dragon, instead of the stereotypical fierce green fire-breathing virgin-devouring sort.

Then again, this pink dragon may still devour virgins, but not female ones. That might upset a wizard's assistant, being eyed that way....

>10 Hammy_JLK: Which would explain Wiz' blasé attitude: "Eh, I can get another loser kid to be my dogsbody."

Either that or the elixirs have hallucinatory effects, and the boy's been nicking sips off Wiz' medicine. Pink elephants, pink dragons.