We hurt because we love. And we place beneath the fold because HOLY SHIT, NOT WORK SAFE.
Sarah: It’s a whole new version of the Hokey Pokey – instead of putting your own arm or leg in, you rip the required appendage off some nubile chicklet, and THEN you do the pokey. Just wait until they get to the “You put your whole self in!” part. That ought to be messy.
Candy: Well, I guess they don’t really need nipples if they’re androids…but why have reproductive organs, period, if you’re androids? Huh.
And a question: Do androids get electronic herpes? And if they do, do the lesions manifest as little blinky pop-up ads on the cyborgs’ fiddly bits that won’t go away until you CLIK TO CLAIM UR FREE IPOD TODAY?
Sarah: This cover is giving me a “deep pressure” behind my right eyeball. And I bet she’s about to get some equally deep pressure in her ass, as preparation for “Trigon Rituals III: Ass Migraine.”
Candy: Does the Deep Pressure refer to the crappy airbrush job they did with her hair? I mean, seriously—they weren’t even trying.
Sarah: If pouring nuclear beer on your ta-tas is “crazy,” what qualifies as “completely bugfuck insane?” Pouring nuclear beer on your ta-tas during buttsecks?
Oh. Nevermind.
Candy: Sarah, that ain’t nuclear beer. Notice the lack of nipples? Those are MORE CYBORGS, baby. That’s hydraulic oil she’s pouring all over herself, and he’s busy testing her COM ports if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Sarah: My shit brown granny panties. Let me show you them.
Candy: Holy fucking shit. I didn’t know Prince had died, much less had his corpse exhumed, shit on, desecrated with a chest wig and then posed for a romance novel cover.
The Essence of Magic? Holy fuckin Shit. I can’t speak! I’m too busy wiping the tears from my face. Jesus.
I mean, JESUS. Really?
The man has so much going on we should all be having seizures. The mullet. The hairy chest. The hairy legs. The brown diaper. The extra folds of skin where his stomach was supposed to be….
I need a drink. And a shave.
DO NOT WANT
The essence of magic is being able to tunnel out of that isolated rehab center you see in the background and then survive in a warren of burrows you dug, with your own body, beneath it, surviving only on the subterranean creatures you devour after paralyzing them with your mesmerizing stare. In short, the essence of magic is being the source of the local Mole Man legend.
Hell, yeah, he has a right to that proud, defiant pose. Trips my trigger, I’ll tell ya.
That last one?
A crime against nature.
I feel the need for a strong drink. Curses that I’m underage. And don’t drink. But still. Ye gods.
OMG I threw up a little in my mouth.
The threesomes are pure porn covers…. but why why why why did you have to show that last one?
That aint right!
Oh god, the last one. My eyes went blind from the shock. He is just one hot mess
I am going to have nightmares I just know it.
*reaches for the brainbleach*
DO NOT WANT!
Omigod, I can’t stop laughing. I keep hearing Laurel’s id screaming ‘DO NOT WANT!’
I don’t want to look, but . . . but . . . I can’t stop trying to figure out HOW in the name of sweet Jesus and crackers that ‘Essence of Magic’ cover is supposed to be . . . seductive? erotic? *shudder* Just typing those words in the same sentence makes me want to Brill-o my skin and pour Jack Daniels over my eyeballs.
But damn, there are some funny bitches on this site. Thanks for the guffaw, y’all.
Dear Goddess…that last one may have put me off men for life. OK, well, maybe just for an hour or so.
Actually, I guess I’m just off whatever that – creature – on the cover is supposed to be. Not sure what it is, but looks like it bites. Just sayin’.
Pass the brainbleach, please.
confirmation word – summer23. Thank Goddess, fall – or at least cooler weather – is finally here in Paris on the Prairie (Dallas, TX).
Oh sweet Mary. Candy’s comments about the last cover made me laugh so hard my head hurt. That’s just… so not right.
goddamnit, put a fucking warning label on that shit, will ya?
Too late…I’m terminal
It was the funky toes dangling outta dude’s disgusting spread-eagle-mangina-nut-shot that put me over.
SPEECHLESS
(Or maybe it’s just a hairball caught in my throat)
I was up until the wee hours reading theory and I’ve only had one cup of coffee. Sweet Cyborg Jesus, look what you’ve done to me!
“strength28” why yes, I would like some
Essense of Magic—there is something about that cover that reminds me of the x-file story about the guy that ripped out livers and ate them, went oozing up toilets and finally made himself a papier mache nest out of old newspaper stuck together with his super sticky saliva.
I mean, couldn’t you image the guy on the cover doing all of that?
Saying “behind the fold” isn’t nearly warning enough. You ought to add “viewing these covers may permanently damage your DNA and affect future generations.”
I’m a glutton for punishment. I keep coming back because I just can’t believe that Essence of Magic cover is real. but then, I also can’t convince myself that I would’ve imagined such a grotesque thing. I’m not that demented.
I also keep changing the title to: Son of Sasquatch: A Love Story.
Or maybe this is just the real Hairy and the Hendersons
Essence of Magic—I didn’t know Alice Cooper posed for romance covers.
Wha…? Well, you won’t find *that* Cyborg Nation on the SciFi channel.
re Essence of Magic: The only thing more disturbing than that picture is the fact that I have seen him snarked before. And I believe it was more of a side-view. Which would mean there’s more than one of those freaks out there.
:::shudders::::
“Essence of Magic” makes me think of what might be the result if Gollum got sidetracked watching soft-core porn and wound up with a whole ‘nuther concept of “preciousss”.
essence of magic.
ladies it think he’s sitting on my nasty guy friends couch from college.
i didn’t believe this was a real cover… until i found…. THIS!
http://amberquill.com/bio_Dixon.html
The author Paris Dixon has photoshoped her own face onto the spindly figure of that poor homeless man.
Y’all, click on the link that colleenlaughs provided and scroll down.
Check out the series of covers for ‘Scarlet Damnation’ – Paris Dixon’s series about a “Vampire Heavy Metal Group.” Each cover gets its own dude + instrument. The lead guitar? Our friend Grannypanties, re-photoshopped! Less traumatic, as there’s less hair and more guitar-coverage. And it’s smaller.
But my fave is the drummer, Mattias. He stole Sarah Jessica Parker’s hair!
This was a time when dresses became wider, tempers ran shorter, and a horrific institution called ‘slavery’ was the norm.
Does this sentence seem batshit insane to anyone else?
OH! DON’T click on “Scarlet Damnation”. When I did I got all kinds of things loading from places like valentinees.cn and cheapticketscanada.com. Adware up the ying-yang.
Holy man pelt! That things gotta go. And the mullet. And the diaper. Maybe he could close his legs? Hmmm…not much left to work with, really.
Aw, shoot. Looks like the link’s been updated. No more Scarlet Damnation covers. I guess I’ll have to look for them in my local Barnes and Noble’s! 🙂
I’m sorry to make Sarah revisit previous unpleseantnes; however, the last cover makes be think that there should be a golden garbage truck in the background…hmmm?
Srsly. That dude looks like a porn star from the 70s. But, perhaps I should run through a brief list of necessary elements: A mullet? Check. Aggressively hairy everything? Check. Freakishly bad “come hither” pose? Check. Makes audience scream at the heavens as WHY such a disgusting man would ever get such a hot woman? (As I haven’t read this “piece”, I cannot say for certain. But, most likely? Check.) Yup…definitely 70s porn star.
Joanna, this was snarked by Bam last year. Apparently the heroine gets him – and 11 other men. Or at least their “essence”.
The comments on Bam’s site are also awesome and had me laughing out loud again.
OMG, I think you just violated the Geneva Convention or something. That last cover truly counts as Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
*sobs*
What, what have we done to offend thee, that you would punish us thusly? Please tell us so that WE MAY NEVER DO IT AGAIN.
I’m off to pluck out my eyeballs now…
To the cover “artists” who created these?
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG
Wow, I just read all the covers from Bam’s site and holy shit, it’s funny to watch “anon” people go batshit crazy and get beat down! I’m SURE that wasn’t the cover artist who got on there and posted bitter “you just don’t understand what these artists go through” crap. No, it DEFINITELY wasn’t!
“My shit brown granny panties. Let me show you them.”
Dear gods, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. And I laughed out loud for ten minutes before I could type this. 🙂
Oh my god. That last cover looks like someone just pulled a random picture off of the Craigslist “casual encounters” page and spent ten minutes with Photoshop on it.
I need eye bleach. So, so much eye bleach.
From over at BAM’s post on this last cover (in a comment):
“the publisher himself (Trace Edward Zaber) does nearly all of the covers at AQP”
Trace Edward Zaber??? Oy! That explains everything.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
Why, why, WHY?
Why would you DO that?
*bleaches eyeballs*
Essence of FAIL.
(Confirmation word: england14. As “lie back and think of?” Lord knows I need to think of ANYTHING other than that…that…WHY?)
I think I just turned sterile.
Oh god, I actually laughed until I cried. I must share the horror with my friends . . .
Motherhood (or lack of sleep) must agree with you Sarah, awesome comments.
That last cover is a nightmare…keep passing the eyebleach please.
Am I the only one seriously disturbed by Paris’s CRADLE WILL ROCK book? The title combined with a cover showing a close-up of a man undoing his pants just screams PEDERAST AHOY!