Some kind reader sent us several covers from Lady Aibell Press a while back. And by “kind,” I mean “256 different flavors of sadistic, you goddamn bastard.” I would’ve forgotten about the existence of these covers, but a hard drive clean-up turned them up, and like the generous bitch that I am, I’m sharing the pain with you.
Candy: How To Turn into an Angel in Three Easy Steps:
1. Buy a bad Rick James wig.
2. Fold giant paper fans and staple to your back.
3. Run around shirtless while looking creepily smug.
Sarah: My concept of guardian angel does not at all include Scott Baio with a greasy, stringy mullet and wings made of kilos of cocaine. I struggle to think whose angel that might be. Maybe Lindsey Lohan’s.
Candy: “Eep, opp, ork, ah ah”—that means “I’ll have dirty anal sex with both of you using my unnaturally huge toes in the back of your brother’s broken-down 1979 Cutlass while warping the aspect ratio of reality.”
Sarah: now that’s a whole new fetish subset I’d never considered: Empty Head Women With Giant Bunion Feet—Plus Bonus Alien.
Candy: Darlin’, if you knew how to position your mouth correctly, you wouldn’t have to dislocate your jaw every time you tried to give a blowjob. Seriously, going down on a dude works so much better when you’re actually within proximity of his dick, know what I mean?
I mean, the judge doesn’t exactly look impressed. And check out your boyfriend, there. He’s all “Eh, what can I do? The blowjobs are terrible, but let’s be honest here, with a face like mine, I’m lucky to be getting any kind of trim at all.”
Sarah: According to the American Legion flag code, “The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.”
By placing the flag on a book with a woman too dumb to know where a penis is located and two smarmy men with a penchant for too much toupee glue, this cover has done more to damage and soil the flag and the international reputation of the USA than any international affair of the last 25 years.
Too bad the American Legion doesn’t directly specialize in the asskicking of those who desecrate the American flag by placing it on horrific covers. The only thing worse would be alien feet.
This begs the question…is hammer toe love better than camel toe love?
Speaking of Scott Baio (cuz you did), have you seen that he’s got a reality show coming out on VH1? It’s called 45 and still single. I almost laughed my butt off while watching the promo. He goes to counseling to find out why he’s never married & is told he’s got to speak to ALL of his ex-girlfriends.
The best part? One of the promos shows him talking to an ex & she says “I got my first AIDs test because of you.” What kind of sick & twisted thing is this? Just thought I’d ask…
Also…those covers? Very disturbing?
You know, I look at that angel, and all I can think is “My hed is pastede on yay!”
(Is this totally obscure, or are others familiar with the wank that broke the internets a few years back?)
Also, why does the alien have a mini pig snout? Why not just eliminated the nose? Why insult pigs in that manner?
All things considered, my two covers with Lady Aibell turned out really nice. But the artist who did them isn’t working for that publisher anymore.
The non-judge guy looks like the weird love-child of Vincent d’Onofrio, Oliver Platt, and Jack Black.
The covers make want to shriek about professionalism, pride, and propriety.
::shriek::
“You should give this publisher some kind of award…”
A Smart Bitches Hee-Haw Salute To Bad Cover Art? Salute!
Are his wings made of… coffee filters?
Okay, just to make sure I’m not, like, horribly ignorant, here: Book covers are supposed to entice me to read the book, right? Because these are making me ill, and I don’t think that’s the intended effect.
My spamblock word is range69, I kid you not. Perhaps it’s part of Oklahoma Space Odyssey?
Ah, snarkhunter, you’re a veteran of internet fandom, I see. I’ve since appropriated this for the beginnings of knitting projects: “My stitches are castede on yay!”
(Casting my memory back to circa 2002: It was a photomanipulation of Dominic Monaghan that started the frenzy, right?)
…
…
…
Hmmmmm.
Wtf?
I think that is all I can say. I have no idea how anyone would look at the covers (or the blurbs) and say, I need to read this!
I think that contributor would have been me.
Here is the “my hed iz pastede on yay” thread from the Crystalwank post over at Fandom_wank:
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/374922.html?thread=23969674
Holy crap! Call VH1 these are the WORST covers EVER!!! I had to check my daughter’s closet because those wings looked exactly like the ones I built from paper mache for her pageant. Hers were prettier cuz they were pink…
A gay gym rat with home-made waxed paper wings. A manage with two pied-deformed hos and a three-eyed, hammer-toed alien on a bed of toxic blue goo.
These could be fascinating stories of the human (and non) condition.
But I believe the last is actually an episode from WORST COURTROOM DISASTERS hosted by Jack Black’s evil twin. The blonde doesn’t give the judge a bj. She Bobbit’s him with her teeth.
Catch it in reruns on Fox.
…And yet I look at the covers and think, I need to read those! Like, right now. Too amazingly crazy to pass up! Love the blog, you bitches. Just found you now. Check mine out for something different, but related by way of the bitch: http://www.literaryrejectionsondisplay.blogspot.com
Chicklet, I’ve been around internet fandom so long that I’ve long since passed “bitter old fic queen” status. Long enough, anyway, that Crystalwank seems like it happened last week, instead of several years back.
You know, I really think the chick on the left in the alien cover has a broken neck. So now it’s a necrophiliac hammer-toed alien three-way.
Well, that’s it. I’m buying The Gold-Plated Garbage Truck right now.
You know what this is? It’s The Weekly World News of erotica. Home of bad Photoshop and so-horrible-it’s-fun.
Every time I pass the Weekly World News and see that “Lady gives birth to alien baby” story, I just want to buy a copy for the sheer giggles of it. (I will resist the temptation here, although… one of us has just got to get our hands a Lady Aibell book and share!)
I guess they don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up with the covers. What you see is what you get.
Do you think they are all (writer, editor, artist) the same author with different pen names?
NOTE: their logo is “Where fantasies are in the palm of your hand…” Were they purposefully that subtle?
They trademarked a reference to masturbation?
Where your fantasies are in the palm of your hand! TM
Teddy Pig, I think you meant TMI.
pardon me-and i don’t want anyone stalking me i do own a gun but(t) doesn”t the blonde on the DEAR JUDGE cover look like Ann(e) Colter????nuf said
Here is the “my hed iz pastede on yay†thread from the Crystalwank post over at Fandom_wank:
Thanks, gehayi! I’d forgotten how that phrase took over livejournal in the days (hours?) after that post. It still makes me laugh like a loon. MY HED IZ PASTEDE ON YAY. *falls over laughing*
Open, did it ever occur to you that an author who has a book with LA might be reading your post? My covers turned out decent, and my books aren’t so horrible that the publisher didn’t want to “get anyone’s hopes up.” In fact, if Candy and Sarah want to read or snark them, they’re more than welcome to do so.
All I know is I want Candy to interview the author who wrote
Humper County Vampires
No one can ever make fun of Changeling’s covers again, that’s all I’m saying.
By all that is unholy…
I think I’m going blind.
And having visions of green puddy dudes with giant feet and leering guys in black robes.
Am I the only one who noticed that the angel’s pants are on wrong? I mean there’s so much else going on in that cover, but… look at his pants. They’re not right! I don’t pants slant at that angle. It’s very disturbing.
Or maybe he’s a crooked angel with a crooked pelvis and a crooked peen.
… wow, Ann, you’re right. Angel dude’s going for that “rapper-style, boxers hangin’ out of the pants” look, but he forgot the boxers.
Has anyone else noticed the Neanderthal-esque line of the “Guardian Angel” chick’s jaw? It’s like her face is normal from the forehead down to the eyes, and everything below was wrecked by Photoshop’s “distort” feature.
Then again, maybe she’s just having an allergic reaction to the flowers.
Although truthfully, I am seriously jealous of her bangs. Why can no one ever cut mine to hang like that? Even, straight, not too thick, and right at the brow-line. Why can no stylist manage this? Is it really that fucking hard, for the love of crooked angel-pants??? I think I need to print this out and take it to the salon next time.
Of course, I’ll have to cut out most of the picture. It wouldn’t be good for my stylist to be laughing hysterically while holding sharp scissors near my face. I’d probably end up with uneven, too-short, fucked-up bangs that… that… that look like what I’ve got now, damn it.
I need to get me some photo-shop. Those artists are obviously having fun *snerk*
At least now we know why Billie Joe MacAlister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Oh God!Please, please bring to life the International Eye Bleach Award! The IEBA could be an annual thing, where we can vote for the most offending publisher, and their award could be being shamed all over the net. Pretty please?
L.E. Bryce, you are right. I was being prematurely snarky. As a writer, I would hope that readers would judge my work on its own merit, and not (as the saying goes) by the cover. We all know how writers rarely get any input on their covers.
I do honestly have to wonder at these covers, though. People WILL judge books by them, whether it is right or wrong to do so.
There are three famous people on the last one:
*The judge is obviously Gomez Addams.
*The girl in red looks like Christina Aguilera, but considering her mouth is open, I’m opting that it’s Tara Reid in a blond wig that makes her look like Aguilera
*The second guy looks like Jack Black with a bad combover.
I think we are witnessing the birth of a cult.
Laughing my fucking ass off @ the IEBAs!