Why is Aahz running around in his underwear?

Question

I read some of the early Myth Adventures books quite some time ago. I don't remember any specific description of Aahz's clothes, but I find it hard to believe Asprin would forget to mention it if Aahz had been "dressed" like this:

I Googled this, and all the other images I could find of Aahz had him more or less fully clothed. Oddly, the comics seem to have a different idea of his clothing than the (other) book covers (the comics put him in a distinctive black outfit with red highlights and no shoes, while the books mostly have him in brown tunics and similar, like what Skeeve is wearing). This suggests to me that Asprin didn't write about clothing at all and the illustrators are just making it up as they go.

In the book cover above, was the illustrator just trying to show off Aahz's body, or does this image correspond to an actual story event that I've forgotten?

^{I cannot be held responsible if you follow that link and subsequently waste a lot of time on TV Tropes.}

Answer 1

Actually, the first few paragraphs of Chapter 4 are about clothing Aahz:

"HMMM . . . Well, it's not a tailored jump-suit, but it will have to do."
We had been trying to outfit Aahz in a set of clothes and he was surveying the results in a small dark mirror we had found, turning it this way and that to catch his reflection piecemeal.

"Maybe if we could find some other color than this terrible brown."
"That's all we've got."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I have two shirts, both brown. You're wearing one, and I'm wearing the other."
"Hmmm. . . ." he said, studying me carefully.
"Maybe I would look better in the lighter brown. Oh, well, we can argue that out later."

I was curious as to his attention to his appearance. I mean, he couldn't be planning on meeting anyone. The sight of a green, scaly demon would upset most of the locals no matter what he was wearing. For the time being, however, I deemed it wisest to keep quiet and humor him in his efforts.

Actually, the clothes fit him fairly well. The shirt was a bit short in the sleeves due to the length of his arms, but not too because I was taller than him, which made up for most of the difference. We had had to cut off some of the trouser legs to cover for his shorter legs, but they, like the body of the shirt, were not too tight. I had made the clothes myself originally, and they tended to be a bit baggy, or at least they were on me. Tailoring is not my forte.

He was also wearing Garkin's boots, which fitted him surprisingly well. I had raised minor protest at this, until he pointed out Garkin had no further use for them but we did. Pragmatism, he called it. Situational ethics. He said it would come in handy if I was serious about becoming a magician.

I have sent a message to the agent of Walter Velez, who did the cover art, but I'm not anticipating much of an answer. As I mentioned in the comment above, cover artists often provide work without ever reading the book, occasionally with no knowledge whatsoever other than a description of what they are to draw.

---

Hah! The agent replied.

Sean,
Amazing what fans pick up.
Here's what happened:
Another Fine Myth was the first cover for a proposed series by Bob Asprin. It wasn’t a book yet. All we had was a proposal about the story and characters; they were general descriptions. Aahz was described as a large, green scaly guy.

I think Walter was also having a bit of fun with this, so Aahz as a creature, not human, didn't need clothes. After this one we got manuscripts of the finished stories, with descriptions of character traits and clothes, etc.--Walter went from there.

The same thing happened with the Thieves' World books. We only had the concept of future books; loose descriptions of characters and had to create a cover. Also, along the way writers made changes and enhanced descriptions, so as the stories evolved, so did the art.

I hope this helps.
Best,
Jill
www.jillbauman.com