Cover Snark: We Have Llamas

Orc's Pride by Celeste King. A green, shirtless man with a belt strapped over his chest. His head looks both too big and too small for his frame. He has long, black hair and a beard, with little tusks peaking out from his lips.

From Syntha: I don’t know, but his head is proportionally wrong compared to his torso.

Sarah: This is a real conundrum from Syntha – is that the model’s original head (minus the tusks, though I could be wrong about that).

Elyse: I’m going to say no. The jaw and neck are both too long.

Tara: TIL that orcs can be crossfitters, too.

Sneezy: I hate puke green. He is beetle green, and somehow I still feel like puking when I look at him. The veins, the way the hair is rendered, definitely have a lot to do with it. Probably the proportions too, but I can’t look at it for more than two seconds.

Hoofin It by RJ Blain. A man with a glowing blue eye and carefully sculpted facial hair is casually leaning over a llama.

From Elizabeth: He is doing weird stuff to the tiny llama! And he’s a werewolf (I think?!?)

Sarah: STEP. AWAY. FROM. The Llama.

Or is that an alpaca?

Elyse: Omg is it…Llamageddon!?

Sarah: Nooooooooooo not Llamageddon!

Elyse:  I actually do recommend the movie Llamageddon for peak silliness. And it contains Chekhov’s combine

As in the farm equipment not the verb

Sarah: Come for the combine, stay for the silly?

Elyse: Yes

Sneezy: LLAMA LLAMA DUCK! You’re welcome for the ear worm. 😀

Asterion by Alessa Thorn. A grumpy shirtless dude is tied up with a fiery lasso in a lake of lava. Seems pretty normal to me!

From Pam: I hope you are staying warm. We are about to get slammed by icy meteorological drama. But I’ve recently tripped over some hot and cold running snark.

Although I have a sneaky affection for the pillars in the background, I can’t get past the guy in the middle with his great big pecs and his itty-bitty waist, the golden gimp he made at Camp Hades draped across his shoulders, and the nuclear blast out his ass(terion). Also, does he have pockets in his kidneys? Then there’s the hair. . . I’d look grumpy too.

Sarah: …how is his hair not on fire?

Sneezy: It’s a lesser known side effect of steroids. Along with hamster tongue.

Shana: It looks like his abs already got a little too close to the fire. Overcooking your meat is a rookie move.

Winter King by Juliana Haygert. A shirtless, slightly headless man with long, white hair appears to be coughing into his fist. There's a glowing orb at his belly button.

Also from Pam: And then the cold:

For instant relief of coughs and cold, I give you Peen-o-tussin!

Instantly soothes sneezing, sniffling and snake handling.*

*Peen-o-tussin should only be used according to the manufacturer’s direction by adult fae only. Overuse of Peen-o-tussin could cause hair to go up in smoke and actual peen to to ignite and launch. . . .”

Sarah: This cover is so subtle.

Elyse: Aw his belly button ring glows.

Sneezy: For this year’s finals: “Is the winter king’s belly button ring endothermic or exothermic? What effect does Peen-o-tussin have on its properties?”

Shana: What is going on behind his head? Is that a ghostly apparition?

Comments are Closed

  1. Trish says:

    Winter Kings hands are tiny. It’s a no for me.

  2. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    Orc’s belly button is a sentient thing: it sees all!

    I have to feel a little bit sorry for the models who posed for the original images from which these covers derived. I’ve seen that Winter King guy (minus the white hair and various accoutrements) on numerous covers. I’m sure on the day he took that picture, he never dreamed it would end like this. What hath photoshop wrought?

  3. Sandra says:

    I’ve read the Blain. Although it didn’t have that cover as it was part of an anthology. Lots of over the top silliness. The llama is grouchy and spits at everyone. The guy is a shifter, but not a wolf.

    As for the other three…. their proportions all seem to shrink from the top down, which sort of implies that there’s not much there, there.

  4. MelMc says:

    I remember about a decade or more ago there was a fad in advertising to take pictures from above so everyone had giant heads and tiny pig trotter feet. It was ugly and didn’t last long. Someone please tell these cover designers that the fad is long past.

  5. FashionablyEvil says:

    The Greek letters on ASTERION are killing me. That’s a sigma and a theta, not an E and an O.

    “Ths Cthurt Thf Ths Undsrwthld”

  6. Dee says:

    I have never seen 4 cover models questioning their choices like I do in this collection. Even the llama is over it all. They’re about to unionize and go on strike. (The models, not the llama.)

  7. Todd says:

    I read the Blain and it was enjoyable. And I think it’s supposed to be an alpaca, but that’s a minor quibble. Not to be confused with a tribble.

  8. Denise says:

    Poor llama, he should be on a farm, not in the city.

    And those tusks, ouch.

  9. Dee says:

    @DDD now I can’t get “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake..” out of my head because of the dang sentient belly button.

  10. EC Spurlock says:

    Why do I feel like these cover designers are Jason Momoa fans? (Except for the Robert Downey Jr fan with the llama.)

    Winter King must be seriously cold resistant, otherwise he’s about five minutes away from hypothermia.

  11. Betsydub says:

    “ASTERION: The Court of the Underworld”?

    More likely, “ASTERION: The Corset (Training) of the Underworld”.

  12. Barbara says:

    Who ever said Orcs are proportional

  13. Wait, what? says:

    The orc’s (badly photoshopped) tusks appear to be coming out of his upper lip rather than from his lower jaw, where all good orc tusks belong. And OMG the arm veins!! He looks like a plant, actually, like the veins in a leaf. And what actually *is* going on with his left arm? There doesn’t appear to be a wrist, or a tapered forearm, or a hand . . .

  14. OuchOuchOuch says:

    What…what is hamster tongue?

  15. Nancy says:

    There is an alien face peering out of the Winter King’s chest, his left eye bulging. He may have ingested ET!

  16. Amanda L. says:

    Is the Winter King supposed to be biting his hand, or did the cold make his lip stick to it like the frozen pole in A Christmas Story?

  17. Lovesotters says:

    All I see in that orc is green Christopher Meloni!

  18. @SB Sarah says:

    @LovesOtters THANK YOU THAT WAS BUGGING ME.

  19. Syntha says:

    Yay I’m SBTB famous now, but seriously the RJ Blain books are a hoot, I have them on preorder always

  20. Rae A says:

    I adore the RJ Blain rom-com series. That llama is amazing

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