Sometimes we caption a cover. Sometimes, Candy and I commit acts of random snark on a particularly bizarre romance cover.
And sometimes, I can’t figure out what the hell is going on in a cover, and I have to turn to you able folks.
Jennie forwarded me this image, and let the following words warn you as to what you are about to behold:
Dara Joy is re-releasing “That Familiar Touch” in e-book form, with a new cover.
One might think that nothing on the planet of Photoshop could possibly improve this cover, right?
But no, there’s more. A new cover. From Dara Joy. Ponder that a moment.
Done? You ready? I don’t think anyone is ever really prepared for this type of imagery, but ok. Go ahead.
What in the name of nipples is going on there? Clearly this story is about an oddly-tanned man who shields his manjunk from a shimmying assault from the three-quarters of a vacant-eyed harem dancer growing out of his abdomen. Right? RIGHT?!
If the cover tempts you beyond reason (really, beyond reason, because no amount of reasoning can make sense of it), you can buy it for $8.95 from Joy directly.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be at the eyebleach station.
I keep coming back to stare (and giggle). It’s so mesmerizing. I am *dazzled* for sure. Buttercup’s Wesley’s words keep running through my head flashing in neon – “Dear God, what is that thing?” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
With apologies to John Webster.
“Cover his face”
“Mine eyes dazzle”
“He died young” (I hope)
Guy #2 is clearly holding the family jewels—his—which would certainly make that touch familiar. And creepy.
Seriously, this is why e-pubs won’t get any respect. How any publisher could think this is acceptable is beyond me. They either hate the writer on whose work these offenses are committed or they hate the readers and want to blind them. Or maybe it’s some maniacal marketing ploy: Hey, if the cover is bad enough, it’ll get snarked on SBTB! Bring on the Photoshop and lots of it!
It’s not possible Ms. Joy did this herself, is it?
@Darlynne: the book is self-published. LOL
I couldn’t agree more, darlynne.
Must … not … Google …
Why do e-books get covers anyway? I mean, this is obviously a class in its own among hideous e-book covers, and I nearly fell off my chair and spit orange juice on my keyboard when I saw it, but I think most of them are fugly anyway…and it’s not as if e-book readers spend hours gazing lovingly at the cover before they start reading, is it?
#2 = Aliens
Does his chin look like Michael Jackson’s to anyone else? And I think he should have gone with Crimson Sheen instead of Sparkle Blush for his lipstick. (Twilight fan maybe?)
And that poor woman needs to invest some of her Saturday night singles in a good brassiere. Holding them up like that must be exhasting.
She looks Reeeeeeeally pissed off too.
First cover: What is his/her hair actually made of? Did they just cut a hair shape out of a photo of hay or something?
Second cover: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m compromising by wheezing in asthmatic confusion. What the fucking fuck?
Dude…he’s so totally charging his lasers!
what bothers me the most… Ok, I have to admit, there is so much wrong with this picture, I cannot choose. But I still keep getting the thought “She’s got two frigging elbows on one arm!” running through my head.
-table22: Maybe if I hit my head on the table 22 times, I will give myself amnesia….
Ow. Just, ow.
But ya know, the guy rather reminds me of the lead singer from “Dead or Alive”…yeah, I’ve been living an 80’s flashback lately!
I would send this to a good friend who is a graphic designer for her scathing take on but am afraid she would disown me.
Holy mother of…wow. Just wow.
This is awful. Just wow. I kind of want there to be mutant dolphins in the background jumping out of the mint foil ocean, but that would probably open a black hole or trigger Armageddon or something.
All I’m sayin’ is…Go to her website.
THIS is why people should be required to have a license to drive their computers. Just because you have some kinda hardware and photo editing software, doesn’t mean you should use it or call yourself a graphic artist. WTF indeed.
The first guy looks kind of like a radioactive Charles the Second. That second pic? Skinny-dipper shielding his goodies with a half-size cardboard cutout, I guess, but what’s up with the neon purple sky with what looks like Jupiter in the background? Is this supposed to be an SF novel? Boggles the mind.
I just want to speak up in defense of Adobe victims everywhere. I use Illustrator and it’s a nightmare program. Completely non-intuitive, unnecessarily complicated… and strangely addicting. I am currently obsessed with lens flares. I love me my lens flares and I don’t care about any alleged light source.
Maybe SB could host an Adobe cover competition or fundraiser. There could be multiple categories: Best, worst, worst of the worst, insanely worstest, and lastly, eye bleed. No need to break out category by genre; they’d all be paranormal—beyond normal.
Pass the eye bleach. PLEASE. NOW. RIGHT NOW.
Holy baloney what the heck is going on!
Gives a whole new meaning to Spanking the Monkey… or rather spanking the unfortunate victim of “OMG I have a buttocks coming out of my chest” surgery (from the Greek, meaning “hand work”)
For the first cover, I could just laugh and say “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” But that second one…
DO NOT WANT.
I have come back to this site a few times this morning and still cannot believe what I’m seeing!! I think my favorite is “That Familiar Touch”—oh, the horror! It’s giving me a serious case of the giggles. The yellow eyes (the bully from “A Christmas Story” couldn’t compare). I love the hay hair and the pensive look—I’ve felt the same way on a bad hair day!
Geez, I need to take a break from the laughing and return later today.
Soosha! Her name is Soosha…
Come on—it takes skill to make something look that terrible and then leave it like that.
But did any of you dare to click over and read the excerpt? HTF did this woman become a NYT’s bestselling author? It’s all TELL TELL TELL compounded by POV issues (we’re in heroine’s POV, but her eyes gleam with anticipation). I mean wow, you really CAN judge this book by its cover (either one).
Ow, ow, ow.
EEEwww
The guy with the chartreuse hair and eyes is likely to set off a migraine attack if I were to look at the picture for too long. What the other one does to my brain I won’t even describe.
These both need to be nominated for next year’s Cover Cafe Worst Covers. Ye gods, that 2nd one looks like a 3-year old sneaked into the study and started randomly clicking the mouse on a Photoshop program.
Just when I thought “professional” cover art couldn’t find a new low…
It’s the Man with a Genie in his Peenie! And I now have some horribly bastardized version of the I Dream of Jeannie song stuck in my head.
Out, out, you horrid scarring images!
Jessa Slade said:
I love me my lens flares and I don’t care about any alleged light source.
OK, this totally reminds me of this Onion article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28225
So, someone knows the feeling. It’s irresistible!
No, but it helps in shopping. I’m far more likely to click on a book with an intriguing cover than some boring placeholder icon. Just like in real life, come to think of it.
Oh, Dara Joy, what happened to you? Your books were so charming and enticing, and such fun. And now look at you.
decision88: this would be the culmination of maybe 88 VERY BAD decisions…
oh lookie, it’s the incredible vanishing woman! dear god, I don’t think my eyes will ever recover from this pile of crap.
Whoa! Put down the mouse and slowly back away from the Photoshop.
I can’t decide if the first is a really ugly man or not. *shudders*
My kneejerk reaction (and really, that’s the only type of reaction possible with these covers) to the second is that maybe it’s some twisted story about Gulliver and the Lulliputian Harem Dancer. Or maybe they’re twins and it’s more symbiotic than romantic.
Either way, ick. Ick, ick, ick.
And my hubby (who is a computer geek weilding a computer art degree and proudly displays a sign on his desk that reads “Photoshop: Helping the ugly since 1988”) suppressed his gag reflex and asked me what in the name of all that is cut and pasted is that???? (There was mixed revulsion and disdain in the last word, BTW)
I’m thinking that would be “Ralphunzel, Ralphunzel, your hair is soo slick”.
The old Dara Joy was like crack in written ; I even own a copy of this one. Of course I had to work to get it actually sent after being charged for it. Now I get a vaguely nauseous when I see her name, followed by the sad nostalgia that I feel for things like the taste of Spaghettio’s before they added the extra calcium.
I need to bleach my brain. Forget the eyes, I’m going to see that one in my sleep.
…
…
…
I simply have no words. But I’m crying my eyes out from laughter and my brain is thanking me, because it’s pissed that my eyes ever gazed upon this imagery.
I AM making this into a tee shirt. Thank you all for the Friday evening hilarity between bath times.
{{{sigh}}} I’d love to be able to spend megabucks on graphics software I could operate with my eyes closed. It’s one of my fondest dreams.
That is horrible. Just, horrible.
it’s literally a woman trapped in a man’s body! this was taken as he prepared to head out for some special surgery.