Welcome back to Cover Snark!
Amanda: Does she have to pee?
Claudia: Yes! Also, his left pant leg is missing?
Sarah: Why is the perspective weird? Their legs look so short and their heads are so large?
Okay taking another look, I think the angle of her hip looks too low.
So it looks like her legs are short and her midsection is bizarro long, and her head is sized correctly, just looks out of whack with the leg.
Sarah: So frame one is where her hips likely are, and frame two is where it looks like her hips are because of her leg position.
Elyse: That’s like the walk you do when your period gushed and you’re trying to get to the potty without spillage.
Sarah: COME ON. YOU’RE NOT EVEN TRYING.
Tara: This is so bad it might actually be…perfect?
Sarah: It reminds me so much of 2010s web design when folks were going for an 80s aesthetic updated.
Tara: It also feels like one of those “which mood are you?” memes. Yesterday I was a bottom right, but today I’m a bottom left.
Sarah: Oh my gosh you are RIGHT.
A continuation from last Snark’s Hanover Square romance:
From Susie: Do all these heroes in this series have a Leg Thing? I mean, no shame, but that last one is giving me pause. Like even that horse is offended.
Sarah: She’s not really on that horse, is she?
Elyse: The horse is like “WTF. Why am I involved in this?”
She is floating in the air next to that horse.
Amanda: Pall Mall like in the cigarettes?
Sarah: OH MY GOOD GOD HOLY HELL
Y’all are not going to believe this one.
LOOK at that fucking guy.
Elyse: How long is her upper leg? How is her knee attached? What in the orthopedic hell is happening here?
How. Just how.
Sarah: this is going to be a “trying to figure out how legs work’ cover snark
The outward curve of purple fabric near or at her hip is disorienting.
Elyse: Maybe she has backwards knees like the horse her sister is inexplicably floating next to it.
Sarah: All these folks have leg fetishes. Or specifically behind-the-knee fetishes.
Elyse: Has this artist not actually seen a human leg before?
Sarah: The over-the-shoulder, fondling the back of her knee cover is giving me SO MUCH ICK.
Kiki: Is she even conscious?!
Amanda: Well, I admire the consistency.
I think the mugshots would be alright if they didn’t STARE INTO YOUR SOUL quite so much
The last three–specifically the green one–my eyes struggle to recognize that there’s a second human being on the cover at all. Like, the purple one, obviously The Leg(TM) is front and center, but it still reads as a mannequin or a weird statue to me; the teal one looks like a puffy satin drape over his suit (side note, I hate the ‘woman bent over a man’s shoulder’ pose in all its forms, it ALWAYS gives me The Ick); the green one I needed to see the flowing hair before the various limbs made sense as a person wearing a green dress instead of a green background with disembodied legs, arms, and neck floating around
And what is that dog thing doing over the two N’s in her name.
Also, that last one looks either like he’s killed her, or is about to give her a good slapped bottom
@cat_blue Same. These are all Dismembered Mannequins, as far as my brain is concerned. The green one has a wig floating next to the mannequin to trick us, but the wig doesn’t look attached to anything either. Also it took me way too long to figure out that the teal mannequin is wearing matching shoes rather than having a nonsensical dress fold over its feet.
I admit to occasionally staring at my own legs in confusion. Like, were my lower legs always attached at this angle? Did they change? Is that how they’re supposed to look? Am I put together wrong?????
So the purple one makes me feel vaguely reassured. At least my lower legs are decidedly connected to my upper legs. I’m pretty sure purple mannequin’s are not.
On the last cover the guy lost the top half of his mannequin somewhere because there isn’t enough height above the shoulder for there to be a human torso bent over it. I guess when you’re in the leg fetishist club you don’t worry about minor details like that.
Upon consideration of the smarmy expression on his face I’m guessing that, like a lizard tail, the woman shed her own legs to escape.
On Love, the Duke’s cover I at first thought she had Barbie feet, but then on closer inspection realized that she’s wearing peep-toe pumps. Did they have peep-toe pumps in the Regency (?) period?
Amanda:
Your question about Pall Mall got me wondering. According to Wikipaedia (which we all know is never wrong), Pall Mall is a fashionable street in London, particularely known in the 19th century for fashion, the War Office, and some Royal Family housing. It also notes, “The cigarette manufacturer Rothmans has its head office at No. 65 Pall Mall”. The name “Rothmans” is a link, clicking on which takes you to the “Rothmans International” page, which has on its “Products and Brands” listing, Pall Mall. That takes you to the “Pall Mall (cigarette)” page, which tells us it was a “premiere cigarette”, named for the street.
And now you know why I’m not allowed to answer questions any more.
@MelMc, something is also really off about the legs proportion-wise, it might just be camera angle, but they feel…compressed somehow?
@Gill ~ I think the little dog might be my favorite thing on each cover!
I didn’t think the Making Friends cover was that bad. Am I alone in my lack of taste?
@Gill – thank you for pointing out the little dog! It is adorable!
Oh no no no those last 3 covers! Looks like 3 books about serial killers. Possibly the cover artist is also a serial killer, and I’m afraid to speculate about the publisher/proofreader/agents
In the purple dress Legs™ cover (Fleet Street) it looks like she is standing sassily behind him hips cocked, her natural legs straight and both feet on the ground, and a fake leg tossed over his shoulder for his weird fetish.
Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
@Julian, I like that cover, too. Each woman shows a specific characteristic and I am intrigued to look further. I love that the woman I’ve decided is a judge is looking up. Very much a Hollywood Squares vibe.
Pall Mall: a dear friend from Exeter floored me when he pronounced both words with a long (I think?) A. Like Pal Mal? It’s a mal, not a mall or a maul? I have to assume he was correct, England born and bred. It will never not sound strange in my head though. I’m going to the mal, back in an hour.
My word, those last three covers are comedy GOLD!!! You know how a kid will say or do something gross and then double down if you call them on their shit? That’s what that series reminds me of. Like “If you think that was bad, get a load of THIS!”
Also I’m sorry to see that Ms Green was forced to trade in her Rothies for a second hand pair of Roy Rogers cowboy boots. Cheap bastids couldn’t even spring for Dale Evans boots.
Pall Mall Peer: First thought: Are all her N’s sharing a tilde? Answer: No, it’s a dachshund. But … but why?? (@Gill, I see I am not the only one to ask.) Frankly, by the end of today’s list I would be more interested in a Dashing Dachshunds series.
Fleet Street Scoundrel: This is not something I say every day, but I do not want to hear the rest of the titles in the series. And, sorry, Cover Model Guy, but that is not the face of a scoundrel. In fact he puts me in mind of Doctor Mike.
Bond Street Bachelor: Did I, or did I not, just get through saying I don’t want to know.
@DangerNoodle: Funny how we always assume a historical romance is Regency, unless and until we are given hard evidence to the contrary. (Like, say, the opening scene is Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. OK, I guess this won’t be a Regency.) Heaven knows, the covers don’t give much clue. Come to think of it, there are one or two Bernadette Banner videos where she redraws cover paintings to make them conform to the actual content of the books.
MAKING FRIENDS CAN BE MURDER: The illustrator has heard your complaints about faceless covers and has prepared this middle finger for you. I’m curious why they’re all holding the same name (which isn’t the author’s).
THE RAKES OF ROTTEN ROW sure like to carry women in physically implausible ways! The PALL MALL PEER takes the cake here, holding his chosen woman like a ballon while the horse is like, “I’m *right here*, she can ride on me. That probably hurts her leg”. I can’t help but read the BOND STREET BACHELOR as a serial killer name like “the Hillside Strangler”. I think the person he’s carrying isn’t the heroine but his latest victim, and the look on his face says, “You’re next, honey.” MelMc’s lizard tail theory seems very solid.
@Randall M: Right there with you! I had vague memories that it was related to the word pell-mell, but it’s not — it’s just pronounced the same. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/the-history-of-the-word-mall
The Making Friends title design feels vaguely 70s-ish? Or it’s a side project by the guy who did the Kroger rebrand.
Many of these covers would have been more realistic with either AKC “German Shepherds” or England-bred Labrador Retrievers — everybody expects hip dysplasia in them.
Will the next installment of Cover Snark feature a set of covers with sexy orthopedic surgeons, regardless of gender? Or species?
Fleet Street guy reminds me of Steve Nedoroscik (Olympian in Pommel Horse).
Isn’t Pall Mall the game they play in Bridgerton, the one I think of as croquet
@DangerNoodle good spooting! There were no peeptoe pumps in the Regency (or Victorian) era. They only became a thing in the 1930s.
I 100% read Fleet Street as Feet Street, and just went with it. Legs, feet, they’re all the same to these guys.
Oh my god, the over the shoulder woman, I thought that green dress was her HAIR for a solid few seconds and I was SO CONFUSED until I sorted it out.
Those Annabel Anders covers could be used for the What Not To Do cover design class – but that dachshund in the name is beautiful and it’s a pity that the rest of the design didn’t live up to this.
Why is the Bond Street Bachelor carrying around the bottom half of a mannequin? That woman clearly does not have a top half!!
Out of all the things wrong with the Pall Mall Peer cover, don’t ask me why this stood out but…why is one single strand of her hair blowing in the wind?
Barbara:
Indeed it was! That Pall-mall was a precursor to Croquet and according to my friends at the wiki, the show has led to an increase in croquet sales.
I’m starting to feel obliged to read the book, since it has led to me learning so much.