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.
Obviously, the book is set in the world of the circus. The hero is a sideshow freak with a conjoined female twin growing out of his chest. Spamword money26: obviously, he only exhibits himself like that for the money.
Holy schmoly, that’s some craptastic cover art!
Anyone else notice how strangely long her fingers are? It’s like she’s channeling ET.
Oh no! I thought her follow-up cover for “Wildcat Arrows” second in line in her ongoing self-publishing fiasco took the ultimate prize in WTF moments… seriously I feel like I now understand why there are so many people involved in the publishing process. She needs someone in her crew of people to say “Hey, that looks like S#!t don’t go there!”
spam word: Problems76… the number of things I spotted wrong with this cover!
To clear something up…
Dara Joy DID NOT release her books through an e-publisher. She self-published them. E-publishers (the good ones which are real businesses) have real cover artists who use real photos and models to make real covers. Dara Joy has…I dunno, her webmaster/contact guy who, I think, takes pictures of himself and lengthens the arms to impossible proportions to violate some magazine cutout.
Oh, and e-publishers also give you your books immediately upon payment. They don’t make you wait two weeks to send you an electronic file with password protection on it.
That’s all :).
Showed to BF…he said he doesn’t know which part to pick on first…
acckkk…..
Generally I don’t make snide and insulting remarks about photoshopped things because my own abilities with photoshop literally begin and end with ‘photoshop – that a way to use the computers to make pictures or play with an existing one, right?’ I don’t make art with photoshop, I don’t even make bad photoshopped things. I have no photoshop, and haven’t even seen photoshop on a computer I could touch.
but oh merciful Lord, those are awful! My eyes, they burn…. what has been seen cannot be unseen…
As has been mentioned, cutting out pictures from magazines would be better… borrowing existing hardcopy paper book covers and replacing the words would be better… You know, abstract swirls with near-glowing neon letters and swoopy swirls would be better that…. those.
For that matter, just get out ye olde paper and pencils, draw out some people freehand, and apply ye olde colored pencils or watercolors… that could be very impressive with a good artist.
As for… that – I have read a couple of Dara Joy’s older books, and found them fairly enjoyable in the mental junk-food sort of way (I don’t think I would have liked actually meeting any of the main characters, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in their places, and I didn’t feel like the book had any deeper meaning than ‘see the pretty woman who isn’t quite happy, see the gorgeous guy, put them together, watch the sparks fly! They have sex – lots of really great sex (but they don’t talk to each other!) and in the end they shall live happily ever after (with lots of great sex)’. Good for a few hours of diversion, but most of it doesn’t stick. And sometimes that’s exactly what you want – a couple hours pleasant diversion from your life. (And sometimes you want one that at least considers historical settings and their issues, or tries to paint a vivid image of there/then. Sometimes you want to play with different personalities and circumstances… But the paperbacks that I saw had interesting covers, much, much better than… those.
Would it be too much to ask that if you can’t get good cover art, just stick a background color behind the words so you don’t scare people away? Because… those look scary.
press99 – would pressing 99 make those pictures go away? or should that be 911?
Call me stupid, but what does the Bravo, Bravo Quebec stand for? The rest of it I got.
Keri… It’s Bar B Que.
I grew up in a houseful of fashion police, where the motto was, “spandex is a privilege, not a right.” I’m thinking PhotoShop should also be classified as such. Or at very least, one must pass a test and be certified before being allowed to use it.
Also, if you stare at the cover and let your eyes go out of focus (or glaze over), you can see there are all sorts of other pictures within the picture. Not sure if it’s supposed to be some sort of subliminal thing, or just shitty covering up of previously pirated images. For example, look at her strangely masculine arm draped in red. Start at the freakishly broken thumb that has been severed from a corpse and attached here … and follow it up past her elbow, just to the left of pretty boy’s nipple, There’s another man’s face—as if he has his arm around her and his head on her shoulder. If that’s really just her arm, and not another man w/ his arms around her, then she really needs to get that second elbow/broken arm looked at. If it is another dude (and a third echoed on her other shoulder), then pretty boy has a lot more to be worried about, as he’s got a veritable orgy sprouting from his loins. Makes me wonder how he can be that top-heavy, yet still stand upright.
Diane
who normally sees double, and having stared at that cover for so long can no longer focus at all. :oP Please excuse any typos, as I can no longer focus on the print enough to see them
Diane ;oP
Has anyone seen the MSDS sheets on these? Because I’m pretty sure they could be labeled as a toxic waste…of resources.
Surely there’s a child somewhere in need of a computer. And who would know how to use it for good instead of evil.
method95 Yeah, there are at least 95 methods of avoiding this level of crapitude. My favorite being: Hire a damn professional.
@KeriM, I was about to ask the same question. I guessed it was barbecue, but I can’t figure out how that goes with OMGWTF. Unless, mayhaps, it is over my tired little head.
Anony Miss,
I know this has been discussed on SBTB somewhere, but I can’t find the link. You can check it out here though:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=omgwtfbbq
@jinap, bless you. I’m feeling infinitely hipper now.
Yeah, the cover is hideous, but Dara was in a bad place at the time. She was in a lawsuit with her publisher at the time and was in debt due to all the court costs. Probably couldn’t afford a cover artist.
Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god AHHHHHHH
WHO ROIDED OUT MICHAEL JACKSON AND GLUED PART OF A WOMAN TO HIM?!
I think I could only recreate something that HIDEOUSLY AWESOME if I drank a bottle of Jack, smoked some crack, dropped acid, got a body cavity search from a large woman with a hairy mole named Bertha, and then ROLLLLLLED my face across my keyboard for layer one. Then rooooollllllleeeedddd my ass cheeks across my keyboard for layer two. Then had my cat, high on catnip, finish it up.
THEN AND ONLY THEN could I perhaps duplicate this wonderfulness.
Hey Quaid, Quato wants to see you.
omg. omg, total eyebleach material. i really don’t get it. it looks likepicasso cossed with whoever did that “hungry caterpillar” book on drugs. drug specifically created to create a complete lack of taste and penchant for something ‘70s. is there now a dara joy line of unspeakable covers?