Cover Snark: Hair Speedos

You all look like you need some Cover Snark!

Wrak - Ayya by Leigh Roberts. A caveman stands in front of the opening to a cave. It looks like he's wearing underpants made of hair.

From Peggy. Thanks, Peggy!

Sarah: I keep reading the title as “Walk Away.” Yes. Walk away. Slowly. Get outta there.

Tara:

via GIPHY

Amanda: No thank you.

Carrie: Aww finally Cousin Itt gets his own story!

Shana: That’s gonna give me nightmares

Carrie: A Man and his Merkin: A Un-hygenic Love Story.

Sneezy: Huh. Been a while since that cut of bikini bottoms were in. This one looks itchy.

Unless all of that’s his pubic hair.

Catherine: That was my first thought too and now I need to scrub my eyeballs.

Sarah: Stay tuned for potential sequels that are now stuck in my head: Wrak-Ayya: Amadeus (Amadeus Amadeus. Amadeus. Come on Wrak-Ayya Amadeus!)

A Don't Disappoint by Love Journey. A shirtless man is picking up a woman in low rise jeans and a crop top. Lots of shiny skin is rubbing together.

Shana: The more I look at this, the more it bothers me.

Tara: I thought the boobs were hers at first.

Shana: Same. Also, what’s happening to his head?

Carrie: I think TV Tropes calls that marshmallow death!

Sneezy: I’m very distracted by his boobs. They look…strangely truncated???

Lara: I was so distracted by the image that I’ve only just noticed the title…. “I don’t disappoint”… going in with the hard sell, my guy.

Surrounded by Temptation by Mandy Harbin. A man wielding an axe handle is just chilling in the forest with a cougar. The animal, not an older woman.

Amanda: Is the man the temptation because he’s about to be eaten?

Or is the cougar the temptation because he wants to smooch it?

Elyse: I would boop the shit outta that cougar.

Catherine: …is he tempted by the cougar? (Hey, I just accidentally came up with a book title!) If so, I have concerns. Both ethical and practical ones.

Sneezy: I…I wanna boop the cougar’s nosie too!!!!!!

Catherine: …have you ever met anything even somewhat near cat-shaped whose nose you didn’t want to boop, though?

Sneezy: No!!! Same with dog-shaped things!!!! THEY ARE ALL FLUFFKINS AND I LOVE THEM ALL!!!!!!!!

Tara: You’d all get to boop its nose once. Make it good.

Sneezy: *signs will with flourish* I have no regrets!!!!

Sarah: I think he’s meant to be tempted by all the trees given his one tool (heh) is an axe, but I agree, the temptation is really booping the snoot. (Ill advised boopery, no question.)

Susan: I think this one cover took out half of us just through the boopability of that cougar!

The Pirate Prince by Michelle M. Pillow. A man with lots of eyeliner, a tribal tattoo, and a leather jacket looms before a barren wasteland. There's also a ghost tiger.

Amanda: We haven’t had some heroes in eyeliner for a while.

Tara: Is he a pirate or a magician in Vegas?

Amanda: Why not both!

Tara: Now I’m imagining magicians in Vegas turn to pirating in the apocalypse. Someone write me that book.

Amanda: Or maybe a pirate who annoyed their crew with magic tricks and then was like “Fuck it, pirating does not spark joy and I’m going to pursue my real dreams!”

Tara: I would also read that book!

Sarah: At first glance I thought he was challenging me to a dance off (which he would win, easily) but former pirate magician story is MUCH better.

Sneezy: Wait, is he vanishing into the horizon? Is he the sun??? Is he the last three legged crow???

Catherine: Sarah, he is definitely challenging you to a dance off, and this is the music.

Comments are Closed

  1. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Khon’tor stole grandma’s standing lamp and lampshade!

  2. LisaM says:

    Is that laundry hanging under Khon’tor’s Wrath – maybe the missing underwear out to dry? Or a portal?

  3. FashionablyEvil says:

    I am stuck on words with these covers. What is “AMBW Romance”? Is AMBW supposed to stand for something?

    Also, how on earth does one pronounce “Qurilixen”?

  4. FashionablyEvil says:

    Wait, and is Khon’tor pronounced like contour?

  5. Heather M says:

    I really hate that I had this thought…so now of course I have to share it…does Khon’tor kind of look like a hairy Aquaman to anyone else?

    That is truly a cursed image if I’ve ever seen one.

  6. Argie says:

    @FashionablyEvil – the internet says AMBW = Asian Man Black Woman. New to me acronym too…

  7. Penny says:

    Watching those music videos made my morning!

  8. Merle says:

    Where is that pirate? The background looks to me like weirdly distorted church steeple behind some yurts or teepees on 1 side, with an odd dome (Epcot?) on the other side… And why is he holding a tiger’s head in his elbow? Where is the rest of the tiger? Is his jacket made out of rubber?

    Neither man nor cougar look tempted. Both have very jaded expressions, and they are not looking at each other.

    The pubic hair on book 1 looks oddly flat. Does he have no genitals? Why is he holding a giant ceremonial toilet brush?

  9. sweetfa says:

    Khontor doesn’t look wrathful to me. Khontor looks like he’s very uncomfortable, standing barefoot on barnacles.
    @HeatherM yes, definitely.

  10. Musette says:

    Khon’tor has Baby Fists…. hmmm.

    and you Bitches need to STAHP! I can’t be howling this early on Monday!

    xoxoxo

  11. PamG says:

    Thank you, Sarah, I’ll never again see a picture of Hunter Biden without that flyaway pastel wig.

  12. Erica says:

    I think the Pirate King looks like he just needs a good night’s sleep. Or maybe I’m projecting my own needs… 😀

  13. Julia F says:

    The Pirate King looks to me like he’s got the tiger in a headlock…

  14. Darlynne says:

    My first thought: the pirate looks like a young George Harrison if he raided Johnny Depp’s makeup stash and stole Gene Simmons’ hair. But that’s just me.

  15. Mintaka14 says:

    Looking at the Wrak-Ayya cover, all I can think is ‘A wizard’s staff has a knob on the end’

  16. Louise says:

    Wrak-Ayya: Khon’tor’s Wrath: Now, it that really an apostrophe, representing an elided syllable, or was it supposed to be facing the other direction to represent a ‘ glottal stop–in which case, how the heck do you pronounce it between two consonants? And speaking of pronunciation, when did you last meet an English speaker able to handle word-initial “Wr”? Is Khon-something-tor wrathful because nobody in the village can get his name right?

    I Don’t Disappoint: Not long ago, in a different venue, I observed that one rule of snarkworthy covers is that some piece of essential information–preferably the title, though the author will do in a pinch–has to be in a font prone to misreading if not outright illegibility. In this case, I didn’t even realize that was supposed to be an “I” rather than a decorative squiggle. Who, exactly, doesn’t disappoint? Clearly not the cover model’s costumer, since top and jeans are both several sizes too small. (I am glad someone looked up AMBW romance, freeing me from trying to figure out if it was supposed to be a(n) MBW romance instead. Kerning is hard, folks.)

    Surrounded by Temptation: I want to know what is just offscreen that is holding both man and cougar spellbound. It makes me think of when you’re walking past a field of cows and they all turn to look at you, being the most exciting thing they’ll encounter that day.

    Thanks to reading the commentary before looking more closely at the cover text, I read it as “Boop Three”. Which, again, implies there is something tempting over there to the right.

    The Pirate Prince: Is it just me, or does “Lords of the Var” sound as if it was meant to be “Lords of the Something Polysyllabic” and it got truncated in layout? Perhaps the tiger ate the rest of the word. For all we know, it could be the Var-a-qurilixen–which makes two entries this month in the Hopelessly Unpronounceable category. This head-scratcher almost-but-not-quite caused me to overlook the inexplicable little fairy-wing growing from the back of his neck.

    And, finally: . . . a pirate who annoyed their crew with magic tricks and then was like “Fuck it, pirating does not spark joy and I’m going to pursue my real dreams!” I believe that role was played by Robert De Niro a few years back.

  17. Kris Bock says:

    I also noticed the fairy wing behind the pirate magician. So is he a fae pirate magician? Or is he a pirate magician with a fairy hiding behind his head clinging to his hair? Does adding fairies make the pirate magician more or less appealing? I’m thinking less. We don’t want to get silly now.

  18. denise says:

    The Pirate Prince is definitely channeling an 80s hairband.

  19. Christina says:

    Will no one bring up the fact that the Pirate Prince has that tiger in a head lock? I feel like that’s important to bring up.

  20. batgirl says:

    I’m not sure whether Khon’tor is carrying a standing lamp or a strangely-proportioned parasol. Maybe he is wrathy because his parasol provides insufficient shade, or because he can’t find a plug for his lamp.

  21. ECSpurlock says:

    Khon’tor does not look wrathful to me as much as painfully picking his way through sharp pebbles on that cave floor with bare feet. I’m sure he will be wrathful with whoever sent him there by the time he gets out.

    “Wrak-Ayya!” the sound of your curse
    Your feet go on and on across the Legos…

  22. Ashley says:

    I think the dance off music would be version instead.

    You’re welcome.

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