Welcome back to Cover Snark! Every so often, I need to reissue the disclaimer not to eat or drink while reading.
Amanda: That stance is straining them jeans. One fart and those things are a goner.
Elyse: Those are some man titties. Yikes.
Sarah: That belt is doing so much work. So much.
Amanda: I did not see the baby at first
Sarah: ME NEITHER.
I thought he was holding his own chest.
Elyse: Whoa!
Sarah: Also: CLAMMY baby? Not good if the baby is clammy.
Elyse: It’s like the gorilla in the basketball game thing.
Sarah: Wat.
CarrieS: That’s not a baby, that’s a growth.
Amanda: How many babies are hidden in this picture?!
Amanda: Dr. Nips, we have a code orange. A tiger is loose in our cliffside jungle hospital.
Elyse: That’s not the way you wear a labcoat, Thatcher.
Sarah: Or pants.
CarrieS: You put the genres all together and you mix ‘em all up…
From Qualisign: Font problems: Love[d]ick.
Title problems: Lovesick as a caption for that cover?! Eeek.
Sarah: Is he walking into a decontamination shower that’s only knee-high?
Amanda: But that doesn’t even look like an S! It looks like Love Jick to me.
Sarah: Or a z? LoveZick?
LoveGick? Gick is a word I could use in many situations.
Elyse: I’m way more concerned about whatever is happening with his ribs.
Amanda: And he has a pair of tattooed eyes on his chest, which would be very distracting in a sexual situation.
Sarah: Indeed.
CarrieS: There’s no shame in masturbation but it does make me think that he’s more interested in himself than whoever he’s supposed to be in to.
The baby on cover two seems to be missing an arm, and Dr Nips should be called Dr Nip, because he seems to be missing one. Lots of missing parts! And do the weird creepy eyes on the last cover have angel wings for eyebrows? I’m confused…
My main thought on cover one is, wtf are you running around in the woods, mid action sequence, with your shirt open?
If there was someone with him, I’d buy they got interrupted, but alone just looks odd.
The stance on the first cover confuses me. Is his foot on something or is he just lifting his leg in a way that makes no sense? If the threat is in front of him, why is he looking over his shoulder? If the threat is behind him, why is the gun pointed in front of him? This is all separate from why his shirt is open during this…gunfight? Chase through the woods? Shooting practice?
The way the baby blends in to the guy on cover #2 is really weird. And it seems to be missing an arm. Some of this could have been solved by putting a shirt on one of them. If you really feel the need to market with a shirtless man, then give the baby some clothing.
This week’s Cover Snark is brought to you by “The Problem with Fonts”:
I read Cover #2 as “Claimmy Baby” and was very confused.
And my brain say Cover #3 as “Love is Ick” and wondered what sort of romance novel this was.
Love Jick is the name of my Hole/Dionne Warwick/thrash-metal/easily-listening/seventies mash-up cover band. We do all Burt Bacharach songs.
Also, what is that purplish contusion on his left pectoral area? Oh—bruising? That’s soooo sexy!
Looks like Thatcher overtightened his corset too many times and warped his ribcage.
And does anyone else think the title “Claim My Baby” has unsettling Men’s Rights overtones?
At least Clammy Baby dude looks to be properly supporting the baby. So it has a stupid title and font issues, but the model photo isn’t all that bad.
Does anyone else think that Thatcher’s pecs/shoulders and abs/hips are rotated in ways that real bodies don’t? It’s like the artist drew a horizontal line and merged two different images.
Love Jick’s hands are wrapped in Ace Bandages. Is that like the trick of wearing band-aids on your finger tips to prevent nail#biting?
I wish the font obscured the title to the first cover, Heart Taker sounds like the evil monster from an urban paranormal and like consent isn’t his first priority. And I think someone should give him some info on basic gun handling, point where you look or look where you point for instance.
Is Love Jick doing the Floss dance moves?
Sarah, before you adopt ‘gick’ or ‘lovegick’ as your new favourite word, you should know that in hiberno-english already has a very well established meaning and usage!
… it does make for an even more unfortunate reading of the title spelling though …
Once I saw the title Thatcher, all I could think of was Margaret Thatcher, and even though nothing on the cover has anything to do with her, the association is still in my head.
Also, wtf is Thatcher so illogically attired (the time to lose your stethoscope is BEFORE you start removing clothing, and once you’ve taken off your lab coat to take off the top half of your scrubs wtf would you then put your lab coat back on (well, halfway back on)) in front of what looks a lot like Half Dome, and why is there a tiger, because last I heard there are no tigers in Yosemite.
@Grace. Too right.
The writer of “Thatcher” has not seen Bedrooms and Hallways, clearly, where Thatcher’s autobiography was used as a cool shower equivalent.
Very disturbed by the destruction of/by Robinsons too. Not much less numerous than Smiths, so either way, mass destruction. Y-link gene-cide, if they’re murder victims.
It looks like Lovedick is “drowning in an ocean” of snake skin.
Does Heart Taker refer to the monster that tore his shirt open and was about to rip open his chest? Narrow escape, bud, but no matter how panicked you are you do need to focus on where you’re shooting.
I guess Claim My Baby is a new reality show, like Finders Keepers; if you can find the baby you get to keep it.
Even the tiger doesn’t know WTF is up with Thatcher and his ever-narrowing waist; look at that epic side-eye. Danger, Will Robinson! He’s out to destroy you!
#4 clearly loves his jick, he’s spraying it right at the viewer.
@Grace
Once I saw the title Thatcher, all I could think of was Margaret Thatcher
<topic drift>
Every time I shelve a library book by a picture-book author named, say, Nixon, or Falwell, I find myself thinking that certain surnames ought to be retired, like the way names of especially destructive hurricanes are never used again.
</td>
Only one nipple among the four titles combined?! Well, I guess the first selection’s man boobs carry some kind of equivalency. But no more than three fonts on any one cover? C’mon, bitches, you can do better.
The longer I look at that first cover, the more confused I am by the Heart Taker’s upper body garment. He seems to be wearing a jacket and a shirt. And/or possibly a cloak. His cuffs seem to be jacket over shirt. And there’s two lines of buttons. But what’s the drapy blowy thing behind him? Probably why he’s looking behind him.
The baby guy can do no wrong for me. See how he’s snuggling in? I can feel my ovaries working now. (If it’s a vampire story, no-one tell me.)
The guy with the stethoscope is not a doctor. Doctors are older, don’t have the hours to spend in the gym and look tired. At least, all the doctors I know.
(Am I the only one to see an out of place animal and hear the discussion about piranhas from Disney’s Tarzan? “No, they’re native to South America”)
And I don’t care if he’s love sick. If he’s drowning in an ocean of jick, then ick.
That looks like Steven Seagal’s mouth and chin on the Heart Taker. No thank you.
And please change that poor clammy baby’s diaper. He’ll snuggle better once he’s dry.
The cover model for Clammy Baby is bonding with this newborn via skin-to-skin contact, a process more adorably known as “kangaroo care”. It’s a real thing that exists, and this is an adorable example.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about that title font.
I just went and checked out the Clammy Baby on Amazon. Several of the other books in the series also feature cover shots of Men Holding Babies Correctly.
is it me or does the first guy have absolutely no neck?
@Katie
Dude 1 is actually kneeling, it’s just hard to see