Welcome back to Cover Snark!
From Jazzlet: Him: “urghnnn . . .”
Her: “Are you fainting on me? Not AGAIN!
Sarah: Is he bored or gassy?
Amanda: One vote for gassy!
Kiki: You just know she was thinking “have you taken the picture yet? My neck can’t hold this position”. Also a second vote for gassy. He’s trying to fart sooooo quietly.
Lara: she is deeply unsure of him
Sneezy: My money’s on her punching him in the face.
From Lisa Y: This is a book about wolf shifters. Yes, the complete lack of wolves on the cover is a dead giveaway. I don’t mind hairless men (also a dead giveaway that this is a wolf shifter story), but Not-Patrick Dempsey is disturbingly smooth. Sandpaper is not for shaving!
Bonus: Lisa noted the designer, Eagle Eye Covers, and there are many winners.
Sarah: have you met Darin?
And Eudoros.
And Joe, and his pants.
Amanda: The full size of that image shows every pore in that man’s chest.
Kiki: “Can you BELIEVE this stuffed heart? On a Valentine’s book???”
Lara: I vote these 90s windows fonts are the worst part. Might as well be papyrus!
Sneezy: I agree, Lara! Only we mustn’t say it too loudly, or a junior high munchkin may stumble on the P font and inflict it for year on everyone around them!
From lils: Does he have prominent veins or that’s the zipper that allows him to remove his costume and turn into an alien?
Sarah: The extremely textured texture of his skin is making ME feel itchy.
Amanda: I read that as the “Alien’s Mercenary Scientist” and I was actually kind of interested.
Lara: that man has gymed his neck into oblivion
Sneezy: At first I thought he didn’t have hips or legs. Now I see he not only have hips and legs, he also has denim. Good to know jeans are choice wear for alien mercenaries.
From Pam G: Sometimes ya just gotta scratch. Also which leg is that?
Sarah: It’s hard to scratch that region subtly. I feel for her
Kiki: it’s giving “wearing converse under my wedding dress because I’m quirky!”
Sneezy: Is-is the wall eating her dress? Is she inside the stomach of a creature? Is it the stomach acid fumes that’s making her crotch itch?
The TUSSB cover makes me think she has to pee real bad.
I am convinced that the Valentine guy is wearing a body stocking with kitchen sponges stuck under it to vaguely represent muscles. They are way too square and flat to be human muscles. And all his friends will pretend not to notice the one that slipped to give him that weird Popeye forearm.
I now think the woman on TMTBH is at the end of her tether, he has fainted or fallen asleep on her one too many times, she’s told him again and again he needs to eat properly, as well as to get a decent nights sleep regularly, and she is just done being his mum, she wants a boyfriend, not a kid she has to nag.
Eagle Eye Covers, including this one, seem to feature a lot of men with improblable musculature. That and the oh so smooth skin is distinctly creepy, like he’s in a body suit made by an alien who didn’t have any good pictures of actual human males. The same as the AMS come to that. One can’t help wondering what will pop out when the suits inevitably split . . .
TUSSB lady is clearly a tom boy, you need to practice how to move in a fancy dress lady, you can’t just pull one on and go, you need to remember what not to do as well as learn how to swish that skirt properly.
You know, in 1998 or so, my primary school released a cookbook using many of the same fonts seen here.
Crystal Dawn? Really?
To Mend the Broken Fonted: My mind leapt straight to those Bernadette Banner videos where she takes a romance cover and redoes it to agree with the book’s (a) stated historical period and (b) description of its main characters.
A Book Cover to Forget: . . .
Alien Mercenary’s Scientist: Dear God, is this another series? Alien Mercenary’s Chef, Alien Mercenary’s Pediatrician, Alien Mercenary’s Uber Driver . . .
The Ugly Stepsister . . . has seen too many of those Restoration dramas where a teeny-weeny little eye mask renders the wearer utterly unrecognizable to even their nearest and dearest. (Kiki, I’m told that in costume pictures Bette Davis wore sneakers under her hoop skirts because, heck, nobody would see.)
You know, that first cover looks like so many I used to see on a spinner rack in the back corner of the Dollar General for $1 each.
I kinda like the last one. It’s fun!
I may have been unfair to Ugly Step-sis. She could have just completed the National Anthem a la Roseanne Barr. No doubt that would explain the footwear as well as her hand position.
I just realized that I read The Ugly Stepsister book back when it was new under a very different cover. All I have to say is that the cover model does not read as a 16/17 year old high school girl to me. More like the teacher who tries too hard to be cool.
Valentine’s Day is a good reminder to all of us indie writers why you need to take care if you do your own covers. Especially those of us who had a bit of a fling with Papyrus (guilty – but never on the cover!).
In fact, Cover Snark should be required reading for all those who do their own cover design as examples of what not to do.
@Molly: I thought her name was Caystal Dawn.
And the Alien’s body suit needs to be pressed. It has wrinkles.
Hi, I need contact info for Eagle Eye Covers so I can forward my next therapy bill. First off, the “Valentine’s Day to Remember” cover image’s aspect ratio is OFF—it’s been stretched vertically. Human heads do not come in that particular shape. The linked ones are also upsetting on multiple levels. But @Lara I have to disagree that it might as well be Papyrus; that’s the one thing that could possibly make this situation worse.
Thank you for balancing out that upsetting mess (lol I typed “upsettingness,” but autocorrect has a point) by making the other cover snarks so hilarious.
Lol I always find something I want to change *after* submitting a post. @Lara, to be clear, I’m not saying these fonts are OK and not atrocious. It’s just that imo Papyrus is even worse. I still see it upsettingly frequently at the library where I work 🙁
Not-Patrick Dempsey looked like he was missing his nipples for a moment, which immediately led to my brain screaming “Paging Dr. Nips! Can we get him to the top of the nipple transplant list STAT!”
I am genuinely worried about the state of Ugly Stepsister’s legs. Does she literally have two left feet?
I see AI Henry Cavill in the Alien Scientist one