It seems I have been looking at book covers for far, far too long. I now recognize when Ewa Da Cruz is featured on a cover, and I can almost tell the artist when I look at a picture. I'm not the only one keep track – this Pinterest board has artist and model notes, too.
But I'm beginning to think there's something seriously wrong when I can recognize the same two people from a very sexual photo shoot. Have a look – and BE YE WARNED. This is so not safe for work:
This is the first book cover on which I saw this couple. It has since been re-released, likely to move it slightly away from the problems of being “Daddy porn”:
Now, I think there's a nipple on the Mr. Parker cover. The nipple is important, because this same couple shows up on other book covers, still doing it.
Same dude, but… where is her nipple?
There is also another version of this cover, with a bit of bikini top:
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But still the lack of nipple is troublesome to me.
I emailed Mandy Roth about the cover, and she told me that the nipple is indeed an issue for some – but not for readers: The no top one had a bit of backlash and raised brows from some vendors. I’d made sure to airbrush away any actual nipple—leaving her very Barbie like. I painted the top on for another level of “safe” and the readers didn’t like it. In the end I went with what readers liked best, using that on the print version. I’ve attached the cover flat jpeg too so you can see I blew up the “palming of the boob” as big as I could.
Readers like nipples? Who knew!
Roth also told me that bookstores have varying limitations on what can be shown on a bookcover: Each vendor online and print has their own acceptable policies as to what can be shown as far as nudity and so forth. I’ve been doing cover art for years for varying houses and it has been beaten into me to show no actual nipple, ass crack or other dangly bits so that a cover complies with most if not all vendor polices. I think by this point I’m just conditioned to remove anything that could keep a book of a shelf (be it actual or virtual).
Fasinating! So even though the pose simulates actual coitus, the nipples and other dangly bits have to be removed, like the girl with no asscrack.
Meanwhile, this couple is STILL AT IT. Here they are again – I'm 99% sure that's the same dude, and perhaps the same woman with the corner of her jaw softened a bit:
I think I see some nipple shadow.
This one couple has raised many questions for me. Are these the only two people having sex in the stock art file? And why is possible coitus ok but nipples are not? Are nipples DANGEROUS?
How long have these two been doing it? What does the complete set look like? And what is WRONG with me that I remember this guy's profile and think, 'Hey! It's the Daddy's Best Friend Sex Guy!' Heaven help me if I run into him at Target or something.
I love how her knee (I hope that’s her knee!) looks like a tumorous elbow growth in the last picture.
The knee in the last picture bothered me too, because it looks like the couple is standing up. It’s the afterlife, so maybe they’re floating. Otherwise, I don’t see how he’s holding her up. Also, she has a really flexible soaz!
There are so many things wrong with the title “Daddy’s Best Friend” that I can barely concentrate on the picture.
I mean, really. ICK.
The stock pic has always made me wonder how big Jimmy Thomas’s hands are. I mean, it looks like he’s got big hands and well, she’s still more than a “hand full”. Wrong that I have boob envy (okay, to a point, I’m happy with nipples, thanks)?
I think I find the lack of nipple more disturbing than anything. It makes her look like that actress who doesn’t have a belly button. If you can’t show the nip, just put a top on her, otherwise it’s just freaky. I’ll never understand Comstockery, you can show a whole breast, but the lightest bit of nip is a no-no. I’ve seen Jimmy so much I feel like we’ve got a personal relationship, but seriously how big is this guy? There’s one interracial pic with him and I swear the model looks to be the size of a Barbie. Either she’s way tiny, or dude is ginormous.
Yes nipples are dangerous! Given the wrong situation you can poke someone’s eye out. God forbid she ever runs with them ;( And what is with this guy’s face in the first two pics. It reminds me of those games where you are blindfolded and have to guess what you’re touching. Let’s see, kind of jiggly with a pointy part……is it…a….jellyfish with a pimple?
I have to admit, now whenever I see a Jimmy Thomas cover, I sort of gloss over it because “Oh, another Jimmy Thomas cover, that dude is banging EVERYBODY in Romancelandia”. He’s a duke, he’s a rake, he’s a hot fireman, he’s a billionaire CEO.
They’ve become as generic as white packaging with black print, to me (sorry, Jimmy, nothing personal). On the other hand, given all the different periods he shows up in, maybe he’s a Timelord. Which would be cool.
“On the other hand, given all the different periods he shows up in, maybe he’s a Timelord. Which would be cool.”
I just choked on my breakfast. Imagine the awesome that would be a male cover model pageant if some of the contestants were Time Lords?!
Am I the only one who thinks he looks a little bored there on that first cover? Or is it just because my brain is still half asleep this morning?
According to the MPAA nipples are lethal. Violence might land you a PG-13 rating, and breasts without nipples (like in Avatar) earn a PG-13 rating, but nipple = automatic R.
Jimmy’s ModelMayhem page lists 2,500 covers so far. Wow… He’s the new century’s Fabio.
In that last picture I can see her knee, but where’s the rest of her leg? Is she portraying an amputee?
Nipples are dangerous! remember Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”? I think they finally settled the fine in that case.
I did notice that in the last cover they added a … tattoo? … to the man.
Is there a RITA award or some other competition for book covers?
Whereas I’m one of those perverts who thinks, “How do they get so in to it without really getting ‘into it’?”
It’s Jimmy Thomas. He’s on masses of covers. I have two Jimmy covers, but not this pose. He sells most of his photos direct from his website, and you can get covers ready-designed, so all you have to do is put in your title and name.
Given the choice between nipple and nothing where a nipple should be? Nipple, always. Your brain expects certain things in certain places. When they’re not cognitive disonance ensues. And it hurts.
According to my critique partner who writes erotic romance, a nipple on a cover makes it porn instead of erotic. Or something like that. One of her covers had the mysterious case of the invisible nipple. Maybe the guy’s hand covered it, but really, it should have been partly visible. http://deebrice.com/images/his…
I think it is the same girl. If the chin looks different, it’s because of the angle of her head. Anyone with their head all the way back the way it is in the first one. (By the way it hurts my head to go that far back kinda cranks your neck.) I don’t think the woman is that fat or her chin looks that different.
I love Ewa Da Cruz and am keeping my own personal list of all the covers she’s on.
Is there a RITA award or some other competition for book covers?
http://goo.gl/zm8XG
I was distracted from any nipple issues by the bulbous growth on her arm in the last cover. Is it a knee? A tumor? The most muscular lady arms EVAH? I just don’t know.
OMG I immediately thought “you could poke an eye out” in response to nipples being dangerous. Then I thought of other pointy parts that could poke an eye out and the mental process disintigrated from there. LOL 😉 (not winking, something poked my eye)
So is Jimmy Thomas the new Fabio? 🙂
I literally made a horror-noise at THAT title. There might also have been faces made. How can nipples ever be offensive in comparison?! /scared for life
From what I have read here… people need to have their nipples! No nipple? NO WAY! Nipple nipple must see the light of day!
It’s been a strange week… just roll with it. Hur… nipple pun. GAH! BRAIN! *slaps self and slinks off*
Can the nipple be added in???
But what about all those shirtless guys on covers? Aren’t the nipples or am I just so used to there being nipples I don’t even make notice that they aren’t there?
I must be getting old.
Sigh…what is so wrong with nipples?
the last photo: is it me, or does her boob look all squished at a funny angle? looks like that HURTS!
Am I the only one who went on this author’s site to read the description of that first book? It’s not even the creepiest one. I started to shiver (in the bad way) when I got to “Stripping for Daddy”. NO I’M NOT KIDDING. And the description doesn’t make it much less creepy.
It’s all fun and nipples until someone loses an eye..
I want to meet a Time Lord.
I vaguely remember watching a thing on tv about a big issue when Penthouse first came out as serious competition for Playboy, and Penthouse was fined for obscenity (or something—memory is mush). The line that Penthouse crossed, that made their picture go from sexy photo to obscene material, was pubic hair.
Which may explain why nobody in photos has any anymore.
(I think it was a biography of Bob Guccione.)
That cover would have me sitting there for way too long, wondering if she was either supposed to be an alien or possibly wearing a body suit the exact same color as her skin. I figure, if authors think nipples on their covers will make people think their book is porn and not erotic romance, they should probably pick a cover where “nipple or no nipple?” is not even a question they need to consider. It’s possible to have a hot cover without certain naked body parts showing.
“Flat male nipples” are TOTALLY different from “nipples.” I’m pretty sure there was a SBTB post on that.
There was a big deal in the sixties when “original” Star Trek was on that you could show ANY part of the breast as long as nipple was not exposed. I never saw the big issue with Janet Jackson’s nipple since it was pastied but, yes suddenly the female nipple is lethal. We must carry ricin in these things.
In these various covers, there are different positions on the hands and legs. The possible coitus is okay because it’s not coitus, he’s just helping her down from the counter! After all, he’s her dad’s pal right? He wants’ to be helpful.
Timelords as cover model contestants wouldn’t be fair, because you know we’d be all over that. Only thing that would top THAT entry would be a vampiric, shapeshifting cowboy contestant who happened to be a doctor and lawyer on the side. ( I think that covered the bases.)
I know! But authors don’t choose covers. It’s policy in erotica houses to not show nipples (she writes for two houses). You can SAY pretty much anything, but no nips or genitals in the pictures.
That stinks. I wonder, have the people who choose the covers gotten so used to the sight of weirdly nipple-less women that they think readers don’t even notice or think it looks perfectly fine? Maybe they should have a reality check person on call…
He has his size, weight, pant size, shoe size and everything on his website. He has small feet, they made me giggle after all his other stats.
I used to work with a guy who was a doctor AND a lawyer. I teased him that he was every Jewish mother’s dream, and he’d laugh and say his Jewish mom thought so! Totally nice dude too.