Welcome back to Cover Snark, friends!
From Janet: Is that a TOILET behind her? And has she just flushed her head down it (wet hair)?
Sarah: Oh, no. That’s unfortunate.
And now every time I see one of these cover models with her skirts hiked up, I’m going to think, oh, did she just use the toilet, too? Let the poor person dress in peace.
Claudia: Hm, that does bring to mind the details of historical romance I’d rather not think about, LOL
Carrie: Bidets Gone Wild
Tara: Carrie wins the internet today.
Sarah: I just showed it to Adam without commentary and he asked almost immediately
“…Is she pooping?”
Elyse: Rich says her face looks more like she’s trying not to poop.
Sneezy: Lady, leaving your skirts under your ass isn’t the magic spell to not poop like you think it is.
Amanda: Something is wrong here
His chest looks 2D
Tara: Why is the hair growing only directly between his chesticles?
Elyse: He needs to see doctor nips.
Amanda: PAGING DOCTOR NIPS!
Maya: I can’t stop staring at her neck
Why is it?
Claudia: Is he supposed to look like Keanu?
Carrie: She looks like she’s presenting her breasts on a platter, like one of those Renaissance paintings of Saint Agatha.
Tara: Also, to me, her face looks likes a real person’s but his is giving me this kind of a vibe.
In 2016 we hired a photographer claiming he was the ‘master of light’ to do our company headshots.
An expert in photoshop… pic.twitter.com/klaYjvixku
— Joe Pohlen (@joepohlen) January 25, 2022
Sneezy: The dude looks like a dress up paper doll that thought he could make it in the 3D world, only his inflation procedure didn’t go well. That makes the gal his dealer maybe?
From Pam G: I know it’s not easy being green, but WHERE IS HIS HEAD?
Sarah: Yanked his own head clear off his neck like a Barbie doll
Pam G: He’s unscrewing it, isn’t he?
AJ: As a person who gets migraines number one is extremely relatable. I too have attempted to yank my own head off.
Amanda: Hard same, AJ. My body likes to give me PMS migraines now. A recent, fun and exciting new development!
Sneezy: I don’t suppose you can ask a manager for an exchange on that, Amanda.
From Karen: These covers totally creep me out. I really hate insects, especially ones that can kill me, and while I might be able to read a book about same, seeing a scorpion depicted on the cover makes me cringe.
Sarah: I totally flinched when this appeared on my screen.
Elyse: There’s not enough Raid in the world for that situation
Amanda: I can’t tell if the bug person is a buff lady or a man with gorgeous hair or you know, a non binary bug being who just went to the salon. Self-care is important!
Sneezy: Is that a fish or a lizard or a scorpion or a spider??? Gross!!!!
There’s obviously a need for an “Alien/Shifter/Bioengineered Nightmare Functional Anatomy, Stock Art, and You” workshop, but I doubt anyone who needs it would take it.
On the last one, I can’t figure out the experiment “b4hR.” before heR? before he Runs? Also, if that is a Red Dragon Planet, someone did not research dragons or the color red before submitting the cover.
Before the HR department?
I feel like in A SCOT IS NOT ENOUGH, he is examining her ear very seriously for some type of infection and she is smirking/flirting with the viewer while he’s distracted. Weird choice for a romance novel.
The woman on A SCOT IS NOT ENOUGH, she looks like she’s giving the camera a “Watch this!” glance before unhinging her jaw and biting off half of his face.
I keep staring at the last one trying to figure out what happened to the person’s waist/hips/legs. (Also, the hands and hair read as very feminine and the biceps as very masculine and it’s throwing me off.)
A Wallflower’s Guide to becoming a Birde: Is it just me or … did the editors go out of their way to be offensive? Did someone tell the erstwhile wallflower that the secret to snagging a husband is to do one of those black-leather-in-Grease transformations?
A Scot is not Enough: Has this lady, too, been up all night? Because that is not a day dress. And don’t leave us in suspense: did she escape an arranged marriage to an elderly laird and throw herself into the arms of the next passing non-Scot? Or did the author mean to imply that one Scot is insufficient, and what we see here is the rakish cousin?
Innovations’s Muse: It is too early in the morning, too early in the week to make any sense of this. Never mind the lurid green. What. On. Earth. is “truth’s harem” supposed to mean?
Experiment b4hR: If I may offer some kind advice to the experimenters: there are times when the best use of your time and resources–yes, including the grant you worked so hard to get–is to pull the plug and admit that the concept was fatally flawed. By my calculations–which I do not propose to check–No. b4hR is the 8988th in a series, assuming [a-z] * [0-9] * [a-z] * [A-R]. If the cover picture is typical of results to date, continuing through the whole 175,760 would take us far, far into Sunken Cost Fallacy territory.
Oops. Becoming a Bride. But, hey, turning into a tweetybird might have made a better plot–and would fit well with the shapeshifter theme of other covers.
Re: Innovation’s Muse – if that is meant to be a muse for innovation, I’ll stick with the old standards, thank you very much. I mean, what innovation would that actually inspire? It boggles the mind (at least mine).
Also Experiment B4hR was clearly a massive failure – back to the drawing board!
“Yanked his own head clear off his neck like a Barbie doll”
Can’t unsee
There are a lot of mismatched body parts in this group.
There’s the Adrian Henry look alike’s weirdly flat chest on A Scot is Not Enough. Particularly sad as Adrian Henry’s chest is very nice thank you.
There’s the incredibly thin neck compared to the rest of the muse’s body on Innovation’s Muse.
Finally there is the truly awful mishmash of the forearms and one of the hands compared to the other hand and triceps (I think?) of the strange creature on Experiment B4hR. And that’s without getting into what’s going on lower down that body . . .
A fine mess you have for us today!
Dear Miranda’s Publisher:
I know that title has “Experiment” in it. But that is not a good enough reason to let your cover artist experiment with either technique or intoxicating substances at work. And letting your twelve-year-old nephew who has just discovered Leetspeak proofread the cover was an equally poor decision.
I know it’s Monday, but Cover Snarkers Can Haz Standards.
Not only did INNOVATION’S MUSE pop his own head off, that diamond thingy between “Truth’s Harem”(?!) and “Book Two” appears to be his butthole. Worse, it’s just enough off-center to be utterly maddening.
For the first one, she looks constipated and the wet hair may be sweat from a futile attempt at trying too hard. From descriptions of those long dinners in regencies, there wasn’t much fiber in all that rich food.
The last one. Just no. No pooping insects. Not sexy. Can’t get past that to comment on the person’s appearance. And there is much to comment about.