Welcome to Cover Snark! We hope you enjoy this group of terri-bad covers!
From Cynthia: What happened to the guy with the orange scarf’s butt?
Sarah: What happened to the guy on the left, and the guy in the orange groin scarf, and the other dude and I need to look away now.
Usually I’m like, “Huh. Okay.” But that one is really, truly disturbing.
Elyse: Nothing about this is good.
Sarah: Really no.
RHG: I have several questions.
Sarah: I think the guy on the right is wearing a trash bag as a skirt.
RHG: Did they get their crowns at Burger King?
Are they all dehydrated? Is that why they need to share? There’s not enough water?
Sarah: If so, the middle guy might need to rethink his nutrition regimen. I’m very concerned.
Elyse: The guy on the left has something going on on his back and by “something” I mean he needs an ointment
Sarah: They all seem to have skipped “burger day,” it seems.
Elyse: Maybe a topical steroid.
Like is that body hair on his mid-back? A rash? Why is his upper back so oily? This is like a dermatological mystery
RHG: The guy in the middle has some weird deformities happening in the rib cage.
Elyse: Are they living in an irradiated wasteland?
Sarah: I’m a little concerned the liquid on the left guy is blood.
And, really, I’ve seen a LOT of covers. A LOT of a lot. And this may be one of the most not-sexy opposite-of-alluring what-the-hell covers I have ever seen.
Elyse: But it just keeps giving us more. It’s full of fucked up Easter eggs.
Middle guy has no ass. None. And I think he’s missing part of a leg.
WHERE IS THE LOWER HALF OF HIS BODY.
Sarah: His ribcage makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Elyse: It’s like this was designed by an alien who had never seen a real person.
CarrieS: I just keep wondering why, if they are kings, they can’t shower.
Amanda: I’d like to just mention that all trace of this book has disappeared from Amazon since this cover was submitted for snark.
RHG: Can you be a necromancer in a knitted hoodie? Discuss.
Amanda: And what looks like a FitBit.
RHG: Look even necromancers need to get their steps in.
Elyse: Tina eat your food!
Sarah: They both look slightly like a celebrity. She kind of looks like Scarlett Johansson, and he looks like…the guy from Flight of the Conchords? Or that other dude?
CarrieS: He brings Polo shirts back from fashion death. Fear him.
Amanda: I immediately thought “armpits.”
Sarah: Hold up. Is that Brett Favre?
Elyse: Omg I think it is.
Sarah: Is there a pit so deep in his Wranglers, the ones that are cut to make room for his manjunk?
Amanda: The pit is so deep that jets could fly into it.
Sarah: Or out of it. COOL YOUR JETS, BRETT.
Elyse: As previous established, thanks to being a gross sexually harassing dick pic-er, we know that Favre does not need extra room in his Wranglers.
Elyse: Is the dog a SEAL? Is that why he gets a beret? What is he approving? Because it’s strongly implied it’s how this couple bones
Sarah: I don’t know if he approves or is resigned.
Amanda: I saw that too! I immediately thought of the human centipede.
CarrieS: Still illegal in most states. Consult a lawyer before trying this at home.
All I ask of life is that you never look at one of my covers.
The king on the left appears to be draped in the tablecloth from my grandmother’s kitchen table. So that’s where it went!
And is the Necromancer guy David Copperfield?
The Necromancer is trying to force her to eat glowy fruit. Wisely, she rejects the irradiated peach. He persists. She stares into the middle distance, summoning her army of zombies to take him down before his deadly nuclear fruit contaminates the water supply.
I’m wondering if she’s supposed to be the necromancer. As well as his wardrobe choices, his expression seems deeply concerned by that crystal ball. And why would a necromancer be using a crystal ball anyway?
The necromancer looks like he’s popping a zit on her chin, and dogs on book covers should not be placed in a position that even hints at bestiality. I thought the latter went without saying, but obviously it needs to be said.
All but one of Author #1’s “73 distinct works” (per Goodreads) are gone from Amazon due to involvement in KU shenanigans that led to the great stuffer/scammer purge of 2018. Thoughts and prayers for everybody whose business model was fraud.
SEALs don’t even wear berets!!
Look at the kings’ faces. It’s obvious that the three kings are clones that haven’t finished cloning yet. She needs to toss them back into the vat until they’re done.
That King’s back is bothering me. I feel like he need to go take a shower even though he apparently he just had one
The three kings have been dead for centuries… I, for one, applaud the authenticity of book #1.
The Necromancer looks like Zachary Quinto from Heroes/Star Trek.
I think king no.1 has an alien coming out of his back. It seems to be a painless procedure. King no. 2, however, is seriously unsettling….
The view up the necromancer lady’s nostrils disturbs me quite a bit. Is that crystal orb her glowing snot? Sorry…. I have a disgusting imagination!
@Ren Benton – totally agree about dogs (and any other animals) on book covers. Yikes!
I love the woman’s expression on No Pit So Deep (Cue Google suggestion: Did you mean Too Deep?)
Anyway, it’s *almost* neutral, but with just enough of a trace of “wtf is this???”.
Some people should have their Photoshop licenses revoked.
We Three Kings (Goldie, Frank and Myrrtle?) appear to have recently escaped the leper colony. If it were me I’d be feeding them instead of trying to climb them.
So yeah, which one of them is the necromancer? I’m betting it’s the girl because she does look like she’s just seen a ghost, whereas the guy is just trying to figure out how he’s going to get the world’s biggest bubble gum bubble off his hand. Or maybe submitted to Guinness before it deflates.
Whereas the woman on the subsequent cover intimates that there’s no “pit” so deep this guy can’t fill it. Or maybe keep digging it deeper. This is only book 1, after all. And seriously, what kind of name is Cody Musket?
All of these make me much more contented with my DIY covers. Good lord.
Also random query: how in the hell do people think it is okay to use photos of actual well-known humans on the covers of their presumably-shitty books? I know stock images are a thing, but … I wouldn’t even put a photo of an UNKNOWN human on the cover of one of mine unless I had a fistful of contracts saying I could.
I thiiiiinnnk that middle king’s butt is present, wrapped in an almost identical garbage bag to right hand king’s skirt. His torso I cannot account for.
Am I the only one who looked at cover #1 and thought: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? So, from left to right I see Pestilence, Death, Famine, and War. Or is that just me?
SILKSTONE as a last name is only a bit more classy than VELVETSTEEL but lacking any charm.
For the Necromancer, imo the cover model looks more like Jessica Alba than ScarJo, and if it were just her (without the less-than-great composition of knitted hoodie guy), it’d be fine. But I am intrigued by the idea of a necromancer in a knitted hoodie. She fights paranormal crime! He does the spell work! Brotp of the century.
This has got to be the funniest cover snark issue ever Thanks for the belly laugh.
Shared by Three Kings:
I first read that turban thing as her hair, and thought: Is she their mother? their grandmother? the queen of all cougars? (YEAH!)
I’ve seen a lot of ineptly photoshopped swords, but I can’t remember when I last came across a photoshopped crown. Three of ’em, no less.
No Pit So Deep:
Thanks to the wording of the subtitle, I had to look it up to confirm that “Cody Musket” isn’t some real person that I happen never to have heard of. Mercifully it wasn’t so, because what a name to stick on a poor defenseless kid. Almost as implausible as “Remington Steele”.
Seal of Approval:
Raise your hand if you really, really wish the cover had depicted, er, a different animal known for barking.
I have seen way too many ineptly Photoshopped crowns in the last year. Part of what I don’t understand is why somebody thinks a crown is necessary in this day and age anyway. There are royals in many European countries and they don’t wear crowns except on rare ceremonial occasions. The only good crowns I’ve seen on a cover are dangling over part of the title, but never on the people because inevitably, as with “Shared,” they just look like they’re a badly added afterthought.
By the way, the model for all 3 kings on “Shared” is Jason Baca and he mostly looks like a normal guy with muscles in real life so I have no idea what happened with that cover.
My husband pointed out that the three in the first photo look suspiciously like the same guy. That is genuinely one of the most disturbing covers I’ve ever seen.
@roserita:
Your Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse explanation makes the cover make sense. Which makes it a very powerful explanation.
Shared: I cannot get over the ribcage of horror! It distracts from the odd back hair/outline of an about to be inked tattoo/random mud stain think on King on the left’s back. And now I can’t get the line “Pardon me, your trash bag is making me look like I have no ass.” out of my head.
Necromancer: I have no words. I just give up trying to figure that one out. The knitted hoodie…why?
No pit: So its the love story of NCIS era Sasha Alexander and Chris Pratt escaping from…some sort of pit/armpit/etc?
Seal: I have seen (and laughed at) this one before. The cap on the dog’s head makes me crack up…and I always wonder if the dog is really a shifter and they share the woman. (Hey, there probably is a subgenre of this somewhere).
The woman on the Kings cover looks like Sally Field to me. Playing a crone. Which doesn’t work for me AT ALL.
The Necromancer woman looks CG to me. And why do we have to see up her nose anyway?
Pits woman looks like she just wants us to rescue her from Cody Musket.
And all I can see when I look at the Seal cover is that her elbows are digging into his back. How is he not in pain?
#1 : Now I know what happened to at least three of the ringwraiths after they lost their jobs in Mordor.
I googled to find out who wrote Shared by Three Kings. Nothing came up. It’s not on the cover unless it’s hidden within the disturbing imagery. I do understand why the author did not want his or her name shown.
If you want to see some great fighter jet action you must go to Father Crowley Pass, aka The Jedi Transition. What you will notice right off is jets fly in the air.
@Karen Hillis
There was an interview with Elizabeth II (I think around Jubilee time?) and she said she had to keep her head upright and look straight ahead while wearing the heavy ceremonial crown, or it would break her neck . No looking down at her lines.
Though that shouldn’t be a problem for the Zombie Kings…
(Or, like, Game of Thrones screenwriters.)
Is the first one supposed to be Biblical erotica? O_O If that floats your boat great, but give it a less freaky cover! 🙂
We three kings so prurient are
Baring gifts, we traverse afar
Crown and towels , scars and scow-ls
Each of us hung like a star!
Oh-oooh! Star of studly, star of knight!
Not too sexy, not too bright.
Never feeding, so misleading,
Guide us to the perfect bite!
I think the orange scarf is actually her skirt/sarong. Aside from the disturbing rib cages, I think what gets me the most is the laughably badly photoshopped arm which seems to have erased the lower part of the third king’s face. All of the arms/hands are bad, especially the third king, who appears to have an extra finger (although I thinks it’s actually part of his sword hilt).
I have now officially spent too much time trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
I think it’s funny that the 3 kings are so disturbingly bad, that no one seems to notice the chick’s leg cannot possibly be attached to her body at that angle.
Brett Favre…lolol
Neville Longbottom wore a knit hoodie. I’m just sayin’.
@Candy Campbell, I found it on Goodreads, if you’re still curious 🙂
Well, thank you. I’ve gone to Goodreads and the blurb about the book is so spot on: “The three kings of the ruby peninsula have a problem. Actually, the triplets have a slew of problems.”
So the cover needed to convince prospective readers that indeed, these guys had more than one problem. Excellent work graphic artist.
sigh Photoshop and other graphic arts programs ought to come with a warning: Using this program without skill and common sense has been known to destroy more than one book cover.