Cover Snark is always a great way to start the week and we’ve got some great (or rather bad?) covers to snark at, many of which came from some awesome readers.
From Reader Katherine:
RHG: Oh honey. No.
Elyse: DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS!!!
Carrie: SNORT
Elyse: The holly bush is eating her and suddenly everyone is rendered blind!
Also does anyone other than Carrie get that reference?
Carrie: I know it’s holly but all I can think about is poison oak.
Also Elyse wins the Internet today
Amanda: Nothing good can come out of that position. And I do mean that literally. (I’m talking about a fart.)
Sarah: I have two holly trees in my yard. Do not go NEAR that kind of foliage with your dress half-off or your hair down. Just asking for misery.
Amanda: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think the this dude’s muscles may be too big.
Carrie: they are scary
Elyse: It looks like a tumor
RHG: Multiple. Oh I know what it reminds me of!
Sarah: He’s pec pregnant.
Amanda: I picture him having little T-rex arms under that shield.
RHG: Pretty much.
Elyse: HE HAS A GLANDULAR ISSUE OK?
RHG: It’s the Liefeld Gland.
This next one comes from a tweet from Main Street Books:
@SmartBitches This might win for the worst romance cover I've seen in… a while. pic.twitter.com/XRKKl45KcH
— Main St. Books Monroe @mainstbooksmonroe (@main_st_books) September 3, 2015
RHG: OH NO
Carrie: If you put his penis in your ear you can hear the ocean! If I had a penis in my ear I would look grossed out, not bored. That woman is so, so bored.
RHG: Micropenis
Amanda: I hope the heroine cuts off her hair and fashions him a loincloth at the end for her ultimate expression of true love.
Carrie: I think he’s farting.
Elyse: Pretty sure her earring is caught in his pubic hair. Also I like that he’s rocking nothing but a beaded necklace. SEE KIM KARDASHIAN, GREY HAWK DID IT FIRST!
From Reader SusanK:
Amanda: WHAT?!
RHG: uh
Sarah: He’d be better off with this girl. I bet she’s in the sequel:
Amanda: Trying to figure out where each arm originates is like looking at a M.C. Escher painting.
This creeps me out and gives me Human Centipede vibes. (DO NOT GOOGLE AT WORK)
Elyse: He’s a billionaire with the hands of a god! Specifically Durga.
From Shana:
So when I spotted the cover for Sue Lyndon’s Owning his Bride, I had to share it with you guys. I mean the suggestion that he owns her is bad enough. It also looks like he might have some personal hygiene issues of the “what’s that smell” variety? And she, poor half naked thing, can’t get away cause he’s holding her head in place. Frickin’ hilarious.
Sarah: He looks… he’s plastic, right? That’s what she smells?
Amanda: His body looks like it’s made out of wet plastic. And she has no neck. HOW CAN SHE GIVE A PROPER BEEJ WITHOUT A NECK?
Sarah: Like one of those plastic things that you take it out of the package and think, “I’m either going to get a migraine, or get high, or both.”
Amanda: Yep.
Elyse: Or he’s rubbing the oil from her hair on his torso…or vice versa
Sarah: Like the straight-to-VHS sequel to There’s Something About Mary? This time, he needs her to style his hair.
Oh ow the proportions in that last one. OW OW. Her arm. And his torso is too long. The whole thing is just *shudders*
Maybe the woman on the first cover is ducking into the bush in the hopes it will keep her warm? Love the Triffid reference. 😀
Didn’t everyone know that if you put your ear there and listen real close you can hear the ocean?
I just cackled so loud that I scared my baby! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ALL THE ARMS???
That last one – what the hell is going on between his belly button and the beginning of his jeans? How much space does a person actually have there? Not that much, I say. And I don’t think that’s her actual arm. Perhaps there’s a weird mashup happening between this one and the previous, and she accidentally got one of the extra arms.
With the Grey Hawk’s Lady cover all I can think about is Meg from Family Guy having ear sexytimes with her boyfriend.
Uh, am I the only one that see’s a bad photoshop of a younger Jon Stewart on that Grey Hawke dude’s face?
and dammit I know how to spell sees. Also, agreed with Crysta on the jacked up navel. It’s like they cut a six pack into thirds and forgot to shift it down. Or maybe it’s just a porthole and this is some weird whale porn of which I am unaware.
There’s some body builder out there who actually does look like Liefeld’s Captain America but I can’t seem to find the right google terms to find his photo.
The Liefeld reference cracked me up. I think the worst though are the Christmas Tree one and the Greyhawk’s Lady one.
Google Image search “muscle synthol” for some Liefelds in Real Life. Synthol is an oil injected in muscles, can turn them hard as rock, and quite horrifying.
For the last one, it totally looks like someone was messing around in Photoshop trying to do the title, accidentally “grabbed” the pecs layer and squished it up, and was like “whatever”…I can seriously see this happening in my head right now
There is just something so wrong with Grey Hawk’s head parts…like the face doesn’t match the hair somehow, is he wearing a wig? how old is this dude supposed to be?
And she looks like she’s contemplating the existentialism of the dudes’ junk
My first thought when I saw the Captain America picture was “OMG even Cap has bigger boobs than I do!”
I wonder if Greyhawk makes his lady walk around in front of him all the time so that he doesn’t have to bother with a loincloth. That could explain why she’s so bored and annoyed looking.
On the last one I suspect the bride is having buyee’s remorse.
My childhood best friend’s father had a navel that was inches above the waistband of his mom jeans.
We live in an area where it’s totally kosher for men to run around, even on the streets, without their shirts on. He generally didn’t but he was a mechanic and when he would come in the house dirty, he would take off his shirt at the door.
It was so odd looking to me that I found it hard to even glance at. It made me uncomfortable. He didn’t, he’s the nicest man in the world. But he had a scary navel.
The first thing that strikes me about Gray Hawk’s Lady is that his hawk is actually an Osprey and not generally found in the mountains. Oh god, I really am a bird nerd.
So looking back at #1 I’ve decided she’s using either a GoGirl or a SheWee to “water” that holly.
To be fair, I do see The World’s Smallest Loincloth on Greyhawk there.
Still trying to find that body builder photo. I just can’t hit on the right search terms and even when I tell Google to eliminate “Chris Evans” it still brings up photoshopped Chris Evans.
The more I look at the last one, the odder it looks. The hand on her hair doesn’t look like it belongs to him. It’s a disembodied hand like some kind of weird hair accessory.
FINALLY FOUND IT!
http://www.tickld.com/t/1108418
AHAHAHAAHAHAH
Gray Hawk is the best thing I’ve seen today (and probably last week also.) Thank you!
I always adore Cover Snark Day. Honestly, who makes these decisions? How can they think these are good choices?
Kudos to the order in which you offered the pics. Each one is worse than the one before it.
The ones with too many arms… are they by any chance attempting to depict multiple partners? OTOH, just imagine what a skilled lover with five or six arms could do to one?
I have to wonder ig that holly is alive and it’s what tearing her dress off.
That guy’s bulgy arms turn me right off and as for that Captain America… wrong, so wrong, just wrong.
Pretty certain Gray Hawk has on a loin cloth cause there is A Something just past her left eye.
As for Owning His Bride, apparently they are outdoors on city streets. Shouldn’t they a tad chilly? That look on her face… how did no one in the publishing company notice how distressed she looks?
This first one looks like she’s peeing in the bushes at some kind of horrifying winter Girl Scout camp for grown-ups. Very painfully peeing in the bushes. Ouch, holly. And snow.
My first thought when I saw the Grey Hawk’s Lady cover was that maybe it was a shot of them practicing a Victorian ice-dancing lift.
@Laura Stone, once you pointed that I see it. Unfortunately, now I can’t unseen it.
The one with the arms? Is he an alien? Are there other people behind him just trying to touch her too? So many questions; not enough time.
On Facing Fire‘s cover, the first thing I noticed was that the guy looked really annoyed. Then, I noticed the arm and I understood why. I hate looking ridiculous and I imagine he does too.
I decided to look up “Owning His Bride” – and yeah, he actually does own her. She was held in a prison where when a guard is ready to leave he can choose a bride from the prison. It’s an “erotic romance.”
But that cover is not NEAR as disturbing as “The Doctor’s Little Ward.” She’s suppose to be 19 but looks like she’s ten! Age play, I get it, but please make it clear that the heroine is really a legal adult all the same because otherwise it looks like you’re promoting child porn!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Doctors-Little-Ward-Sinclair-ebook/dp/B011CN9FS6/ref=pd_sim_351_6
Isn’t there a Fabio cover very similar to Grey Hawk’s Lady? Was it a trend in Native American romance?
Sandra, perhaps you are thinking of #5 on this site? We just know what he’s doing on her back. http://momentummoonlight.com/author/rhyll-biest/
Then there’s #2on this site. I think she’s been strangled.
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/style/498146/MAC-romance-novel-make-up
Whole lotta Fabio covers here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/29286.The_One_Only_Fabio
Then of course there’s #6 on this site which raises a whole lot of questions: http://www.pajiba.com/seriously_random_lists/nips-blowing-in-the-wind-fabios-15-best-book-covers.php
Gotta love “nips blowing in the wind,” though
Any number of nekked Fabios in this collection: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/15/fabio-birthday-best-book-covers_n_2868943.html
Ho! This is hysterical!! http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/things-fabios-really-thinking-on-his-romance-novel-covers#.tlG7bq8J7
LOL! I’ll end with this one: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a33472/10-romance-novel-covers-unretouched-real-people/
Looked up Triffids. Spot on answer. Although by the look on her face she seems to have either just orgasmed or finally was able to pee. She just looks so satisfied despite loosing her incredibly thin dress while outside in the snow & in a prickly holly bush.
I’m also believing Grey Hawk has a loin cloth on and that the 4 armed chick at first glance is half snake until you realize that’s the bed’s headboard.
On the last one, I am amused that the lighting makes it look like he has hairy shoulders. Or maybe he just wasn’t flexible enough to wax there?
Re: “Facing Fire” – oh, that Trent Reznor! Not satisfied to only be Alterna-Rock-God/Cleaned-Up-Iron-Pumper/Oscar Winner; no – now he’s bent on conquering the RS (& I’m not talking “Rolling Stone”) cover-model universe. “I wanna f**k you like an animal”, indeed…
@Jami – ugh, no wonder the woman on the cover of “Owning His Bride” is making that face.
@Althea – Yeah, I have no problem with consensual BDSM between adults. But this whole business about buying someone? Not to mention judging from the descriptions of all the author’s work she has a thing for spankings and enemas.
Spankings – okay, but once you involve the anus I want nothing to do with it. Something about that just freaks me out.
But between that and the blog Kindle Cover Disasters – http://kindlecoverdisasters.tumblr.com/ – I’m curious about how one gets published on Amazon under a pseudonym and how to keep anyone except Amazon knowing who you really are. Cause I could use some extra money but I wouldn’t want any fans from hunting me down IRL. Cause some fans can be psycho.
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