Welcome back to Cover Snark!
From Shirley: At first glance the proportions of the cover warrior looked all wrong, shoulders too much and abs to waist too little.
Sarah: That looks like a barber’s drape cut into a wee caplet. Did he rip off the barber shop?
Amanda: It’s a Peter Pan collar for exotic dancers.
Sarah: Also, another abdomen is looking at me. This one seems rather unimpressed.
Elyse: I can’t make visual sense of this. Is her head on backwards?
Amanda: Yeah, those are some hyper flexible arms.
Sarah: I love the swirly skirt and the way it looks like water, but my shoulders hurt just looking at this.
From Pam G: This series–Vegan Vamp Mysteries–has apparently gone through several cover iterations with these being the most recent. They have a very rigid set of elements: fanged female with a thousand yard stare and something wounded from the produce aisle in her right hand, gigantic full moon, identical red doggy silhouette, and various spooky odds and ends floating around in the ether, e.g. random ectoplasmic booties.
Sarah: I do NOT understand the boots.
Lara: That vampire is a robot and I won’t be told otherwise.
Sarah: VampAIre?
Seriously. The glowing boots honestly baffle me. I figure they’re part of the story but it’s such a strange and intriguing detail to put on the cover AND CLEARLY IT’S WORKING BC I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.
Also from Pam G: This cover is so, so, so. . . fecund. So bountiful. And is that a young Martin Mull in the purple fright wig and sparse purple stache? Also, did one of them go to Jared? And finally, what is that flying around off to her left? A spaceborne bi-plane? An interdimensional turkey baster?
Sarah: Now every time I get a weird one, I’m looking at it like, IS THIS AI.
Also his forearm hair pattern is ALARMING but I absolutely love his commitment to adding piercings to his horn. Gorgeous ear jewelry.
I think that might be Pacey from Dawson’s Creek.
Amanda: I feel like Tasha Black’s books are Cover Snark royalty at this point. We should send her a fruit basket.
No 1. I immediately thought, “Aw, he gets tight shoulders too. He’s using his neck warmer”.
No. 4 What’s with the random stripe of green fur on his forearm? And did her belly ink appear when she got pregnant? Cause it’s not gonna look hot on the post-pregnancy belly.
Aw, that’s so sweet, they got matching fake tattoos.
On the first cover, I thought he was wearing a tree watering donut. Also, his nips and abs are making a very displeased face at me. Make it stop.
Naomi’s baby daddy is clearly very worried about her pregnancy. Is that a messenger bag falling off his shoulder on the right? And are they sharing a single pair of pants? That purple swoop looks like a waistband that encompasses both of them.
The Beast has clearly bailed in the middle of his salon appointment to take care of more pressing matters. I hope his dye job turns out ok.
Betrothed to the Beast: Funny, just yesterday I was catching up on smbc-comics, and there was one about a convocation of headless romance cover models. And–inevitable question–if this is #1 in a series, what on earth will the others be like? Married to the Beast, Separated from the Beast, Signing final Divorce Papers with the Beast, First Date with the Beast’s Attorney . . .
A Dress for the Wicked: Oh, what a shame. A single bad decision converts what should have been a Cover Awe into Cover Snark.
The Halloween Haunting: Thomas Gainsborough is turning over in his grave. When he said you can too use a cool color for your foreground, this isn’t what he meant.
Naomi: What, exactly, is she looking at? Her face says she’s two seconds away from saying “Don’t even think about it!”
@Pangolin: Agree on the nips. Dude, your high beam headlights are on.
Actually, it’s the small text here that leaves me wondering….I kinda want to know what a vegan vamp eats. Also, Alien Surrogacy Agency? I hope she asked a lot of detailed questions first and didn’t get suckered by his purple hair.
The glowy electric boots are leftovers from an Elton John concert in the 70s (“Benny and the Jets”). That makes more sense than the rest of the cover; why would a vampire be shopping the produce aisle right next to the garlic? In a 1950s house dress?