Are we ready to Cover Snark?
Tara: Have we done this one yet?
Amanda: definitely not…
I feel like we should have seen a butt crack by now.
Carrie: That jaguar is so done with this shit
Lara: Maybe it’s the angle, but the curvature of that spine seems a bit off? It’s vaguely C-shaped. Also, which one is the assassin?
Maya: Totally, I’m like hey girl can I refer you to a chiropractor?
Sarah: My back hurts in sympathy.
Shana: Ok, but can we talk about the smoke? Is it coming from her butt?
Maya: It’s her assassin’s disappearing smoke bomb smoke! Poof, she can stand up straight again!
Susan: I’m not an expert, but that arse has to be from a different photo, right?
Although admittedly all that pose is making me think of is a very truncated centaur.
Carrie: I’m also wondering if the jaguar is going to shed all over that white dress (yes, it is).
Tara: Yes, Susan! I was wondering if she was part centaur, too!
From Lils: Giant floating single boob?
Claudia: I can’t decide if it’s a nipple or an Arctic seal’s nose.
Susan: Greyscale clown?
Carrie: Without the moon it would be cover awe. So near and yet so far.
Sneezy: I, too, am resolved to not be hit in the face by a planet or its moon.
Sarah: Why do you need resolve? That planet is smiling at you. It’s friendly!
Amanda: The position and title kill me.
Sarah: They’re working near here:
Shana: What is going on with her thigh? It looks tiny compared to her calf. I zoomed in on her crotch and I’m still confused about the anatomy here.
From Leah G: You know how people wear horse costumes for Halloween (in movies, I don’t believe this happens in real life). I feel like this bull is wearing a person costume.
Sarah: I think Leah may be on to something here.
Sneezy: Well. That looks uncomfortable.
Amanda: The skin texture is giving me beef jerky vibes.
I like the cow-boy! His texture reminds me of those flocked plastic horses that galloped across the carpet prairie in bygone days, complete with the spots that got worn off.
The image on this one isn’t up to Cover Snark WTFBBQ standards, but the typography jumped off a sale carousel and attacked me, so submitted for dishonorable mention:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-warrior-alpha-female
I can only hear “Cwathe rrior Ipha F E M A L E” in maximum Ferengi voice.
There’s a Tumblr called Escher Girls that mocked unrealistic drawings of women in comics, and they would name the various types of common poses, one type they call snake girl because of her seeming lack of spine and super duper long torso. That’s what the first cover is reminding me of.
So with a name like Serenity Snow all I can think of is George’s father in Seinfeld saying, “Serenity NOW!”
Also, I’ve never seen a woman’s back look like a man’s curved package – had to do a double take on that one.
And yes, unfortunately, I know 4 people that all donned horses heads for Halloween 5 years back. (My partner’s friends from college – his friends lol).
As always a diverting Snark line up, Thank You! = )
The Madam’s Lover: I misread the top line as “Overnight Publishing” and thought, Yeah, that explains a lot.
But wait! The longer I rack my brains, the more impossible it becomes to figure out which of Assassin’s Core and The Madam’s Lover is the series title and which the individual volume. Both seem equally impossible. And speaking of impossible, that figure seen from the back doesn’t belong on a book cover; it was obviously lifted from a video game made by and for the young-male demographic.
Resolve: Isn’t that Serena Joy? What’s she doing with the Death Star
In too Deep: Scrolling down, that swirly D made me think I was approaching the outer reaches of an old-fashioned wheelchair. Now that would have been a lovely cover for a historical.
The Minotaur Captain’s Mate: We’ve seen this series before, haven’t we? “The {random mythical beast}’s Mate” seems awfully familiar. And what’s that yellow thing on his shoulder? A portable non-electric torch, or is it supposed to be far behind him?
@Lena Brassard: If SBTB ever devoted a Cover Snark to font mismatches and/or gratuitously illegible covers and/or ruining a rather nifty design with bad typographic choices, that would be high up in the running. The Arrior Walpha? wtf?
@Louise, the first thing I thought of when I saw the Resolve cover was “That’s no moon…”
Is that minotaur furry? He kinda looks like and then again kinda not. He also looks like he’s deflating, cause those abs are rippling in weird ways. His navel’s gonna touch his spine any minute now.
I always get a kick out of this column! I just wanted to share an interesting article that ran in a Canadian magazine about the design book covers – not specific to a particular genre, but gave me some new insights into the challenges of design: https://thewalrus.ca/book-cover-confidential-a-roundtable-with-designers/
In the IN TOO DEEP cover, I agree with Shana, the leg/thigh situation is bothering me. It looks like bad photoshop where the proportions are all wrong. Instead of a thigh-to-knee flowing naturally into a lower leg, it looks more like an upper arm to elbow with a lower leg attached at the elbow. I swear I stared at it waaay too long.
@ JD: The cover to The Ghost Sequences is one of the more amazing book covers I’ve seen and should be shown in a Cover Awe post on SBTB. Thank you for including the link to the article in The Walrus where it is mentioned.
@dePizan OMG I needed Escher Girls in my life, with priceless phrases like “seran-wrapping boobsocks”!
The Serenity Snow cover reminds me of a 90s Liefeld drawing but it seems there’s a whole new generation of anatomy disasters.
Way back when, Jim Hines did a bunch of photographs where he spoofed unrealistic cover poses. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the photos have disappeared from his site, while the blog posts remain. SBTB linked to several of them, and once did a podcast with him. Here’s one. https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2012/12/links-to-jim-c-awesome-sir-hines-and-books-on-sale/