Hey, hello! Welcome back to Cover Snark!
From Jfhobbit in the SBTB Patreon Discord: I have a submission to Cover Snark, entirely on the basis of their expressions mid-embrace. He looks confused? She looks like she’s trying to imagine she is anywhere else.
Amanda: Definitely a “did I leave the hair straightener on” look.
Elyse: Or hearing the cat start to puke
Tara: He looks like he doesn’t know where he is and she’s considering if the edible she took was a little stronger than she’d thought.
Sarah: “…was that 10mg or 100 mg?”
From Jen: This has to be the worst photoshop I’ve seen in awhile.
Sarah: Cannot stop laughing
I was prepared by Jen’s comment that something was going to be weird with his head BUT I DID NOT EXPECT THAT.
Amanda: He looks like the wayward son who has to work in his parent’s Italian NY deli
Oh and he’s also an alien
Sarah: “No, no, you don’t WEAR the capicola.”
Amanda: Zerberu Gabagool
Sarah: Somewhere a deli is unable to make a full italian sub and they’re all very sad.
Tara: I need him to be a himbo so bad.
Sarah: A hot guy who is obsessed with cold cuts.
Elyse: I scrolled up and actually let out a startled noise that scared the cat.
From Gloriamarie: Is her gift that awakened the gift of pyromania?
Amanda: But also the bottom half of her looks like it’s covered in dirt? Also she looks so bored of setting buildings on fire.
Sarah: Did she just explode out of the earth after setting off a gas fire in a house?
Elyse: That’s Groot, isn’t it
Sarah: Or someone had some feelings for the leshen in Witcher III: Wild Hunt
Tara: I’m deep into Baldurs Gate 3 and that looks like someone I might meet here.
Carrie: Hey Groot is hot.
Cover number two looks like he has a neck injury, someone get him a neck brace!
Cover number one she’s thinking “he left the toilet seat up again”.
Mr. Zippidy-doo looks like a PSA on a superhero world. “Please make sure your tattoo artist is appropriately licensed. While glowing tattoos sound fun they are often mutagenic and you could end up like Zippy with a neck on only one side and giant lizard arms, unable to ever comb your hair again.”
I think I’ve seen #2, hot cold cut guy, on some hockey romance covers. He looks much better without the cold cuts.
Found him on Kate Meader’s Coming In Hot, a Rookie Chicago Firefighter!
YUP that’s him. Oh my gosh!
Carrie: Hey Groot is hot. Literally, in this case. It looks like he’s going up in flames. I think I’d do something about trimming that elbow point, too. It’s got to always be catching on things, not to mention poking holes in his sleeves.
Re: meatboy’s alter ego
I remember my momma talking about how Scahlett had an 18″ waist that a man could span with his hands.(This is what you tell your teenager when their waist is 24+”.) Many years later, I found out about those 19th century ladies who had their ribs surgically removed to meet these ridonkadonk standards. That is all I can think of when I see these Shoulder&pec&bicep-meisters with the 18″ waists. I’m like “Oh, honey, no!”
Also, The blurb for The Orphan and the Coachman explains a whole lot about that cover. Spankin’ and not the good kind.
@PamG The whole ‘surgically removing ribs’ would be a historical myth though, if it were true there would be a lot more dead women considering how bad surgery was at the time. Hell the whole ‘tighten the corset until you can’t breath’ thing is a myth too. Most women would wear a corset comfortably, but then add bustles and the like to make their waists appear even smaller.
Bernadette Banner has an excellent video on YT about it called ‘How the Victorians faked tiny waists’
This may no longer be true tomorrow, but I admire the way the four covers are interspersed with three identical snark-worthy ads. Made of Wyoming somehow does not sound appetizing. Admittedly I’m not a bourbon drinker, but it isn’t supposed to taste like dust and fossils, is it?
Scarlett O’Hara’s waist was seventeen inches. I know this because I read Gone with the Wind five and a half times as a teenager. (Halfway through the sixth reading, the racism caught up to me and I haven’t been able to open the book since.)
Another batch of winners!
@Louise, @Kael—
Thank you, ladies, for setting me (and my mom) straight. Though I still maintain that the waist to upper body ratios on some of the male cover models are ridonkadonk and kinda early Barbie-like.
I guess with the Entwives gone, the Ents have to settle…
(I’m so happy to be able to make an Entwives joke)
The guy from number one is on A LOT of historical romance covers – and quite a few times too with that same female model.
I have a whole Romance Cover Model Bingo Pinterest board, because once you start looking at historical romance covers, you can’t unsee the fact that it always seems to be the same 5 guys… or something like that! https://www.pinterest.ch/willynillies/romance-cover-model-bingo/
1: “I told him slender tampons. He got me megamaxipads. Again.” (Which also explains his look of confusion: “It was the right brand, wasn’t it?”)
2: Wins the prize for “most inconsistent photoshop pieces in third-grade art.” In the class for untalented third-grade artists.
3: Somehow, I can’t match the blue hydrogen flames around her with the spray-painted-on campfire tones of the house behind her. Or with the dirt.
4: One hopes the author’s vocabulistics are better than “I am Groot.” In that order. Based on the cover, I have no reason to be overoptimistic.
I keep seeing a tiny hand on her back on the Gifted cover. It’s freaking me out.
In #1, is the Coachman trying to put a Vulcan Nerve Pinch on her?
The Orphan’s head doesn’t look like it belongs with her body. Maybe that explains the Coachman’s look. He’s trying to remain calm as he holds her head on, but he’s screaming inside.
THE ORPHAN AND THE COACHMAN: She farted.
ZERBURU: That’s no alien — that’s a mad scientist’s project!
GIFTED AWAKENING: Someone gifted her some polyester clothing, and the static electricity from them (you can see it all around her!) unluckily ignited a gas leak.
STARLIGHT JEWEL: Oh Maude, another tree dude droning on at a party. (Also there is fire and icy fog swirling about the floor. Why did I come to this party?)
Along with everything else lizard lunch guy made me think of, I kept reading Zerbert rather than Zerberu. Which is somehow perfect, since a zerbert is the sound you make when you blow a raspberry on someone’s skin.
The Orphan and the Coachman look like they’re both exasperated by something off-cover to the left. “Every time we try to have a nice snuggle, someone knocks on the door – again!”
THE ORPHAN AND THE COACHMAN: I just zoomed in to read the signs on the building and noticed there seems to be an image of a woman with bare breasts under the “HOTEL” sign. Racy! (Seems to be inspired by ancient art; she’s carrying a water jug.)
…Or maybe she’s facing the other way and what I’m reading as a nipple is a nail. Hard to tell at that size, and the arrangement is wonky either way.
Cover 2 – “what hump?”
It just occurred to me that the first cover looks really like he’s considering whether he wants to snap her neck or not. And now that’s all I see!!
The COACHMAN: What are these things I feel on her neck…bolts?
THE ORPHAN: Sigh Time for this discussion again…