Welcome back to Cover Snark!
Amanda: Look at those teeny tiny rings
I imagine she laid all these things out on the bed for her husband to come home to lol
Elyse: Are the rings for the babies after they’re born?
Sarah: The marketing message here is very confusing. Is there an order of operations here?
From Karen H: This cover isn’t awful except for the blonde. The guy looks like an actual photograph but she definitely looks like an AI image. That wouldn’t be so bad except her hands, especially the left one without the thumb, are pretty creepy in my opinion. Oh, wait, I just noticed the weird tattoo (or something) on his left arm below the swirly shoulder tattoo. It kind of looks like somebody just scratched some lines on there.
Sarah: Her hands are indeed weird, as is his tattoo, and now I’ve been staring so long I can see the whole cover when I close my eyes
Elyse: for some reason her part looks like a unicorn horn when I first glance at it.
Sarah: Looking at her left hand again, the one on the front of his shoulder…is she folding his pectoral and trapezius? Like is he a fold-up doll of some short? Does he roll up like a slippery sleeping bag?
From Leslie: Goldfinger is playing in the background. Big Bang is happening between them, a celestial explosion or a random firework display. Is she pushing him away because he looks like a random statue?
Sarah: He’s really tall. His neck is tall. Like I can’t stop staring at his neck.
Is his height all in the neck? Nah, his waistband is even with her bra. Egads he is a tall man.
Amanda: Sorry his name is Sheffrou?
Sarah: Also? Leslie is right. That “explosion” between them is…you know, I’m not even going to get into it.
From jfhobbit in our podcast patreon
Elyse: Florida Man
Tara: I’m sorry, but WHAT?!
Amanda: I thought the title was Fuck-o-dile.
Sarah: Fuck-o-dile is what I see too.
In related news: still hate this font.
Oh. OH! I get it now. It’s Fuak-o-dife!
That last cover reminds me of the ongoing debate about whether to teach cursive in schools. My opinion remains that considering how very unreadable a lot of cursive writing can be even to someone who know how to write and read it, the plans to teach it ought to be shelved until we can guarantee that people write it legibly. Right now lots of people can’t. As evidenced by the Freak-o-olile up there.
Oh my. So many opportunities to comment this week. Starting with the Cursed Mates — he looks constipated, and she looks like Ivanka Trump, which explains a lot.
Is Sheffrou related to Groot? Also, the font looks like the one we use on car tags in Florida. And due to the positioning of the title, I keep trying to insert a comma between the A and M in AM.
As for the last one… only in South Florida. And on a related note, Slate had an article recently that claims we’re all living in a Carl Hiaasen novel.
I was calmly musing that someone must have told cover designers that Four Fonts Is Too Many, so they’re all hypercorrecting and using just one (which is Too Few) … and then I arrived at the last title.
An erotic croc-shifter short
AN? As in, there are more of them? Is this a genre?
We won’t talk about the weird decision to capitalize only the first word, as if the typesetter were Scandinavian (“The united states” and similar).
Side note on cursive: If you have ever watched Finding Your Roots, you’ve seen close-ups of passenger manifests or census returns. This should forever lay to rest the fantasy that people in the Good Old Days learned how to write legibly.
For anyone who is stressed about orange events- Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen. Written during the first go-around, published in 2020
Oh there are definitely more Croc shifters! Chaos Croc, Croc on the Menu, Croc and the Fox, Cold Foot Croc, Croc’s Return, Between Two Crocs, The Crocodile Shifter’s Bride…. and I’m sure i missed a few more!
On the Cursed Fated Mate cover, her right thumb seems to be boneless? And her pinky on that hand is weird–like her nail is slowing sliding off. For some reason AI can never do thumbs or pinkies especially.
That guy also looks a little like Wentworth Miller. The woman looks like an actress too, but I can’t think of who right now. (Maybe Gillian Jacobs with a touch of Aubrey Plaza?)
The first cover isn’t totally bad, just looks like a picture of stuff that fell out of the heroine’s purse for some odd reason.
The cursed fated mates: I too see the unicorn horn part. I feel like her left thumb was fused into his chest in a freak AI accident, which is why it’s not totally visible. Also wtf is up with his right arm?
I Am Sheffrou: he looks like Taylor Lautner was face morphed with Hayden Christenson into one body with a skin tone that I can only describe as my pale self using the deepest fake tan bronzer cream known to man. (Not that I would because I have accept my paleness). Also, is his neck supposed to glow like that?
Freak-O-Dile or as I read it: Fuak-o-dife. The croc is just on his chest looking like a large version of one of those sticker temporary tattoos they give out at kid parties. Either that or a portal opened up in this guy’s ribs and pop came the croc. Imagine THAT ER reality show episode.
Croc gazing longingly at that nipple. Chomp chomp!
Interestingly, I just tried to look at the Cursed Fated Mate cover again to see what mysdeefyme was referring to about his right arm. But, since I first saw this cover and suggested it to SBTB last October, the cover has changed. Now both people look AI-generated. It’s better but her left hand on his chest looks very skeletal and creepy to me. Her right hand doesn’t look right either (I know, picky, picky).
And I cringed, too, when I originally saw Sheffrou’s neck. It doesn’t look like we’re going to run out of Cover Snark material anytime soon!
The Cursed Fated Mate looks like John Cena taking a hard dump. I would not stand where that woman is standing. Also, I think the main problem with her left hand is that it should be bending in the other direction; wrists do not bend that way normally.
Whoever designed that last cover must be a big ALIEN fan.
The cover designer matched the color of The title MISMATCHED to an item in the picture! Why would you do that?!
—
“Now, my CURSED FATED MATE, gaze upon your new home in the distance: my magic castle!”
CFM (Squinting): “I…don’t see it?”
Magic lady: “Ah, yes, I forget how weak your mortal human vision is. Well try again when we’re closer.”
The tattoo on his arm is weirdly compressed, which suggests that his arm can extend to a greater length.
—
“Oh, SHEFFROU, I adore your gold skin and look forward to learning your alien ways…but I don’t know if I can ever love a man who pulls his pants up that high.”
“But Earth-darling, I wear them like this for you, so you may easily reach the pants-latch.”
—
“Is that a gator in your abs, or are you just happy to see me?”
FREAK-A-DILE would be a great name for an ’80s synth R&B track, like if “Freak-A-Zoid” and “Centipede” had a baby. (Sorry, I know that sounds like a bad horror movie, and I can’t think of another animal themed song in the genre right now.)
Cursed Fated Mate: Her left wrist looks fluted and her extremely creepy hands appear to be very different sizes. And maybe I’m just disoriented after looking at her hands, but the wolf’s muzzle also appears to be twisted now.
Shefrou: He looks like he’s been bronzed like a baby shoe.
Freak-a-dile: The tiny crocodile head looks like it is being served on a platter, or a translucent frisbee. Also, why is the capital B wrapped around the guy’s belly button?