The painting chosen for the dust jacket is rather unique because it is not the usual full color spread but a smaller picture set upon a white background. Here a statuesque Princess Duare is being guarded by one of the Myposan fish-men, whom ERB described as “most peculiar.”  “Their full black beards and their gills I have already mentioned; these, with their protruding lips and pop eyes, resulted in a facial pulchritude of something less than zero” (33).  We may imagine this scene is taken from chapter seven in the slave market where “The fellow who had touched Duare’s shoulder moved forward to the platform, and the others crowded about him” (52). 

“The tharban might be described as the Amtorian lion, although it does not  bear much resemblance to Felis leo except that it is a ferocious carnivore.  It is much larger; its tawny coat is striped lengthwise with dark brown markings; its enormous jaws, splitting half the length of its head, are armed with sixteen or eighteen large fangs and its feet are equipped with three heavily taloned toes; it has a black mane, much like that of a horse, long, pointed ears, and the tail of a lion.  It also has a most abominable disposition and an insatiable appetite” (242). 

The tongzan is “a creature as large and as terrible as the tharban.”  ERB describes it thusly:    “Its body closely resembled that of a Bengal tiger; in the center of its forehead was a single eye on a short antenna; from the shoulders, just anterior to the forelegs, grew two enormous chelae; and its jaws were as terribly armed as those of the tharban” (243).

In a circular composition, a tharban and a tongzan fight over the tiny,  fallen Duare.  JCB has followed his father’s description of the beasts with precision.  One wishes that this illustration had been presented in color to give greater force to his original conception.

A full-bodied Duare lies in the foreground while Carson threatens a host of Myposan warriors with his pistol, who are pouring through a large, classically arched doorway. 

Many tridents already lie at his feet.  The shading is so subtle that the effect is partially lost in the black and white version. 

The foreground figures of Duare and Carson are well defined while the Myposans come out of a blurred distance.

Among the Brokols, Carson finds that their children were born from trees like fruit, attached by stems attached to the tops of their heads.  This knob was retained by adult Brokols.

JCB pictures Carson and his friend, Jonda being lead by a group of warriors past a large tree upon which two babies are “nearly ripe.”  The warriors of Brokol are “of a sickly greenish hue and entirely hairless -- no hair on their heads, no whiskers, no eyebrows, no eyelashes” (149). 

The warrior leading the pair carries one of their nasty weapons,
long-handled hooks, which they used to pull an enemy close to their swords.

In this seemingly grim scene  a Vooyorgan is simply reproducing. 

“You see, these creatures are amoebic neuters; and their dividing is the physiological phenomenon of reproduction . . . they divide into two parts, like the amoeba and other of the Rhizopada” (206). 

A guard looks down upon the dividing Dan-voo-med, looking rather pleased at his accomplishment. 

He wears a short, Roman sword at his waist and a longer, barbarian sword on a thick, leather shoulder strap and the typical, single, South Sea islander’s skirt. 

A group of Noobol warriors wearing Arabic turbans sit astride
strange-looking horses with short heads and large, saucer-like eyes. 

These zorats also have pendulous ears like large cocker spaniels.  They have just startled Carson and Ero Shan, who were about to board their space vehicle in the foreground. 

Since zorats are not the large, dramatic Burroughsian cats or other terrible beasts of his menagerie of strange creatures they probably have not been rendered by artists very much.