Cover Snark: Return of the Mullet

I’m so excited for today’s Cover Snark. The mullet has made a triumphant return, but did it ever really leave in the first place?

Down and Dirty by Rhenna Morgan. A ginger-haired man is standing with his arms crossed. A pretty innocuous thing. But he has a mullet. A thick, beautiful mullet along with a bushy mustache, connected beard, and a soul patch on his chin.

Amanda: IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2019 WE HAVE A MULLET COVER

Elyse: I’m assuming the title is a direct reference to his hair.

Amanda: HA!

Elyse: But that is not a good situation at all.

Sarah: Definitely a description of the hairstyle.

Carrie: Dirt is not sexy.

Sarah: Maybe it’s not a mullet? Maybe it’s half a man bun?

Amanda: Don’t take this away from me, Sarah!

Her Wild Ride by Heather Van Fleet. A shirtless and heavily tattooed man is running both of his hands through his hair, but his proportions seem off. His body shape is like a stingray. Really wide on top and then oddly tapered.

Elyse: Wtf is even going on here. Are those tumors? Dude needs to see a doctor right the fuck now.

Carrie: Getting that chest tattoo must have been extra painful.

Elyse: I would like to think one of his MC buddies would be like “Stan, maybe you need to get that biopsied, you know?”

Amanda: His body type reminds me of a spatchcocked chicken.

Sarah: Still trying to read the tattoo. None of my guesses are valid Scrabble words.

Amanda: At first glance, I thought it was “idiots” and then “ulcers.”

Nightingale by Cathy Maxwell. A woman in a gorgeous green dress is sitting between a man's legs. Both of them are supposed to be sitting on a grand staircase, but neither are touching the ground or any of the steps.

From Julia: The heroine, overcome by the weight of her enormous dress, merely wants to sit on the stairs for a few minutes. The hero, despite the loss of his right arm and left leg in a tragic Photoshopping accident, does his best to support her. For some reason, although the dress flows neatly across the steps at the bottom, the couple float awkwardly in mid-air. But what of that? Their love will DEFEAT THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!

Amanda: He is HOVERING on those stairs.

Sarah: Maybe he’s a roomba? And he needs her skirts to help him clean the staircase?

Elyse: I’m having more logistical issues with this cover than the murder in the documentary The Staircase.

Carrie: I feel we should take a moment to admire her hairdo, which I recently saw in a friend’s photo of her 1988 prom.

My Solace by Alanea Alder. A black and white cover of a shirtless man stretching his hands above his head. However, his nipples and the indentation of his abs make it look like his torso is smiling.

From Helen: You know how your cover snarks often include unfeasibly muscled dudes whose lumps and bumps seem to be faces or other body parts stuck onto their chests? I’ve just found a cover with the ultimate “chest that looks like a face” and as soon as I saw it, I had to share it with you….

It might be smiling.

It might be indigestion.

Amanda: It definitely DEFINITELY looks like a face.

Elyse: Jesus. This is like looking at Slenderman or some shit.

Sarah: I am now making up voices for that face.

Amanda: I gave it the Cookie Monster voice.

“ME WANT COOKIE”

Sarah: Nah, he’s a gravely Elmo.

Carrie: It hates me, I can tell.

Sarah: No, no. That face REALLY LIKES YOU. A LOT.

Comments are Closed

  1. Jan says:

    That face looks like it came out of an episode of the “Twilight Zone”.

  2. Ren Benton says:

    I assume the last one is a paranormal because that’s the face of a vampire bat (which is not one of the more attractive bats—sorry your man doesn’t turn into a flying doggo who wraps himself in a stylish leather cape to hang out).

  3. Another Kate says:

    Cover #1 – I’m with Sarah on this one – top half of the hair is in a hipster man bun

    Cover #2 – Yeah… that’s not human anatomy there… though it is the red dragons MC, so maybe it’s shifter anatomy? (And my money is on “adores” for the chest tat.)

    Cover #4 – is honestly the most disturbing thing that I have ever seen. I can’t even scroll back up to have a closer look at it for anything more specific.

  4. Heberta says:

    Ren—now I want to read a fruit bat shifter romance. Will his insatiable lust for mangoes come between them?

  5. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Cover #1: David Spade really got bulked up for the sequel to “Joe Dirt”!

    Cover #4: I think we should have a Caption That Cover contest to figure out what that man-chest-face is saying.

  6. Jeannette says:

    The 4th one is just really really scary. now that I’ve seen the bat face, I can’t un-see it.

    Herberta – There is a fruit bat shifter romance – Batty For You by Zenina Masters (part of the Shifting Crossroads series) She’s a fruit bat, he’s a fox. Its short and sweet, like most of the series.

  7. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Oh—and, by the way, thanks a lot for making me see a face (where one shouldn’t be!) in what I’d previously thought was the hottest cover of all time:

    https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Bargain-Natasha-Knight/dp/1098898354/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=natasha+knight+devils+bargain&qid=1562593607&s=gateway&sprefix=natasha+knight+devil’s+bargain&sr=8-4

    I can never unsee that face!

  8. Heather M says:

    At first glance on #2 I thought there was someone hugging him from behind, so I almost think those weird tumory bits were once someone elses arms that got Photoshop mangled, with then his arms beefed up to make him appear proportionally bigger?

    Either that or an alien parasite.

  9. SusanE says:

    #2 reminds me of those pickup trucks with the extra wide tires sticking out the sides.

  10. Nina says:

    Thanks everyone. Now when I see chests on covers I keep seeing faces. The Devils Bargain looks like a wolf face to me. Maybe this is led to the rise of the single nip slow shirt reveal covers. Although those all look like wonky faces to me now.

    I propose a GoFundMe to provide Continuing Ed classes in human anatomy for cover designers.

  11. DonnaMarie says:

    That’s the face my neighbor’s pittie makes when she sees I’ve got a scoobie snack.

  12. Amanda says:

    No but really…what does #2’s chest tattoo say? I saw “idiots” first too but don’t see “adores.” I feel pretty certain the first letter is an “i.”

  13. RebeccaA says:

    I thought it was Calores, which I thought was Spanish that translates to hot in English. But with the help of Google I found that while calor means hot, calores means hot flashes. So no.
    But I definitely see ores, possibly dores.

  14. Tina says:

    #2 – All I could make out on the chest tattoo is either ‘Edibles’ or ‘Ulcers’ or ‘Idiots’

    #3 Where is the other half of his body? I see one leg and one arm and nothing where a butt should logically be. I know her dress is big, but we can see stair risers where logically something … a shadow even… should be.

  15. Julie B. says:

    At first glance, I thought the tattoo in #2 said “undies”….

  16. chacha1 says:

    “His body type reminds me of a spatchcocked chicken.”

    OMG srsly LOL

  17. PamG says:

    Solace?

    It might be the Grinch.

  18. EC Spurlock says:

    @DiscoDollyDeb, YES! David Spade was the first thing I thought of too!

    I would have sworn that chest tattoo said “idiotes” which would make it a Latino comment on our current immigration policies.

    And yes, that is one very happy torso. It reminds me of an old cartoon character: https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/Gossamer?file=WB_Gossamer_ModelSheet.jpg

  19. Zyva says:

    Wow, I can seriously read Kurrent better than the chest calligraphy. And my German is not that hot.

    Re chest-face: Sorry, but I imprinted on “The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek” as a kid and I find Diprotodons and other megafauna…kinda cuddly?
    So what I personally see in that Uncanny Valley face is “Dinotopia – Down Under”.
    …Not before time.

  20. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I must confess, I went to Amazon and read a sample of book #2 to see if there was any indication what the chest tattoo is supposed to say. No luck, but I did discover that the hero is 1/4 Native American, is in a motorcycle gang, has just been released from prison, and is on a road trip with his step-sister’s best friend (who he calls “Princess” because she drives an expensive car). I learned a lot, but not what the tattoo says.

  21. Kristen A. says:

    I find the tagline for the last one particularly appropriate, because we are definitely all bewildered.

  22. LauraL says:

    … and he is pulling his hair in frustration because no one “gets” his tattoo.

    If that is a mullet, Mr. Down & Dirty has some luxuriant hair going on! I am on the man-bun wagon here.

    Let me talk about that Nightingale cover as it has been bugging me. The hero looks a bit spidery in that pose, exuberant photo-shopping aside. And I can’t, can’t figure out if our lady with the enormous green dress is crouching or sitting on the hero’s squashed leg, or has somehow splayed herself on those slippery-looking steps. This is more important than some of the conference calls I’ve attended today.

    The My Solace face leaves me with no words.

  23. Karen H near Tampa says:

    I suspect the art director is the one who messed up the cover for “Nightingale” since the artist is James Griffin who is very talented and experienced. He would definitely put the correct perspective for the stair treads so they have a chance of supporting the man’s seat. But I can see someone at the publisher deciding a certain look was necessary and cutting things out and pasting in a generic staircase, not caring that it was the wrong size for the size of the people.

  24. Scifigirl1986 says:

    #4 looks like one of the Ah! Real Monsters.

  25. HeatherS says:

    Tattoo chest looks like it says “líderes” (leaders) to me.

  26. Maite says:

    For #2:
    I think mayhap hero did not want a tattoo, so he ordered a “Real Skin TM overlay” to paint the tatoo on. And that’s what he got, so he’s just acting “Everything’s normal, this has always been my chest, it’s always been this bulgy, any other differences are because the tattoo made my skin swell a bit, etc.”
    And yes, HeatherS, “Líderes” is the only word that fits.

    For #4:
    Somebody did a bet that “anything seems classy and/or scary in Black & White”. This is the result. I do say that after some study, it freaks me out less then #2.

  27. Louise says:

    No. 2, @RebeccaA
    while calor means hot, calores means hot flashes
    By weird coincidence, my brain keeps wanting to read it as “Midol”.

    No. 3
    Never mind his missing limbs: what on earth happened to her left arm? It’s half the size it ought to be. It was the first thing I noticed, and for a moment I dared hope that it’s a historical with a disabled heroine.

  28. Louise says:

    @LauraL
    This is more important than some of the conference calls I’ve attended today.
    A: Most things are more important than most conference calls.
    B: Cover Snark is more important than most things.
    There’s a syllogism in there somewhere.

  29. denise says:

    This cracked me up so much:

    His body type reminds me of a spatchcocked chicken.

  30. Andrea says:

    I strongly suspect that I’m alone here, but does anyone else look at the My Solace cover and see two adorable baby bunnies facing each other, mirror-image, cheek-to-cheek, with their little paws up over their noses? I would like to add that nobody’s chest and ab muscles should look like adorable bunnies but that is what I see there. They really are cute. Andrea’s Over-Active Imagination??

  31. Tina says:

    The nipples on cover 4 follow you.

  32. AlliK says:

    @Andrea I didn’t see it before, but now that you mention it…

  33. Stephanie says:

    OH MY GOD.

    That last one, his chest legit looks like the face of a beluga whale.

    Baby beluuuuuuuga, baby beluuuuuuuuuga…

  34. Dee says:

    The nips have eyes and remind me of the painting from Scooby Doo where the eyes follow you. Cousin It shaved and bulked up.

  35. cindy says:

    I just finished book #1, and it is indeed a badly illustrated man bun

  36. Quichepup says:

    Thanks for the snark! It’s been a long and difficult day. I laughed at the comments out loud, temporarily forgetting my stress.
    And #4, that’s a big smile, he must be glad to see you.

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