by SB Sarah • Monday, May 05, 2008 at 03:07 AM
It’s that time of year again: the 2007 slate of covers in the Cover Cafe’s annual Cover Controversy contest are up, ready for your votes and comments. If ever I’m having a shittastic day, I go back into past cover contests and gaze at the wonderment of covers gone horribly horribly wrong.
This year, the slate of worst covers is pretty damn good, and by “good” I mean, “Eager to make you say WTF were they THINKING?” Kensington Publishing, you are getting a monster load of publicity out of this year’s contest, lemme tell you, because damn. And whoa. And holy crap. So here we have Candy and Sarah trying to figure out which one gets their vote for the worst cover of 2007.
Sarah: There were some gawdawful covers last year. I can think of a few that turned my stomach to an even deeper yogic twist than some of these, but I have to say, as a slate of terrible, this slate is pretty good. Not great - there were plenty that were much, much worse - but on the whole, not bad for badness. I didn’t upload every single one, since some of them weren’t really poor enough to be among the worst. So here’s our slate.
Candy: I’ve seen worse, to be honest, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand: it really does seem like publishers are finally learning and moving away from the fug. Some of the Worst Cover nominees from 2006 and 2005, for example, I actually liked--but then I dig the comic book look and don’t find comics embarrassing the way some of the commentators apparently do. On the other hand: I derive a certain measure of delicious masochistic pain from the terrible covers, and lots of belly laughs from the ensuing commentary in the contest. Less fug = less fun. The genre wins, but my selfish side wants the cheap laugh, goddammit.
That said: There are still quite a few gems from this particular batch.
Also: when you’re done looking at the snark, head over to Cover Cafe and cast your vote.
Candy: So THIS is what it looks like when Cousin Itt gets a trim and tries to fuck a tribble! Hawt!
Sarah: Nothing says “oh yeah” like necking in the fiery depths of the earth’s core while feeling your skin slowly melt from your body. Hawt indeed!
Candy: Great. You know Cinemax is starting to run low on ideas when they start resorting to “When PR Interns Go Wild” for the late night softcore offerings.
Sarah: The car! The car is tilting at a not-even-closer-to-horizontal dizzying angle and they’re about to roll off the cliff into a fiery oblivion! Wait, apparently they’ve identified the problem and are going out with a bang. You’d think they’d hurry up and get themselves horizontal already.
Candy: Holy shit! My first thought: Post-op tranny love. And goddamn, that sister wasn’t shy about specifying exactly how big she wanted her bazooms to be.
Sarah: We’re moments away from knowing all there is to know about The Crying Game, with bonus DVD features, like this instructional shot that demonstrates how to grab one’s falsie like Wilson Phillips and hold on.
Candy: We’ve snarked this cover in the past, and I want to reiterate: Come on, Kensington. FOR SHAME. If you advertise big, spankable asses, we want big, spankable asses. We want thunderclap-worthy asses. (Warning: video mildly not-work-safe.) That ass? Not even worthy of a static shock.
Sarah: Not big. Not spankable. Not even close. And if the problem is with the title and not so much the cover image, then I expect “Baby of Shame” to make next year’s slate.
Candy: Oh my God. Between the contrast of the unnaturally perky, clean-cut blonde chick being groped by Gomez Addams’ creepy younger brother (I get the impression he sells used Kias for a living) and the looming house in the background, it’s like Amityville Horror meets the Osmonds.
Make the screaming in my head stop, mommy. Please?
Sarah: Apparently, after the wedding, someone went on a meth bender while operating Photoshop without a license, and this was the result. A bonafide disaster.
Candy: You know, other than the fact that that’s way more skin than I want on the front cover of my book, there’s nothing too horribly wrong with this cover. It’s soft-focus softcore cheesy, and I can practically hear the smooth jazz playing in the background and breathy moans as I look at this, but compared to the other covers, my sensibilities haven’t been ripped out, ripped into shreds, danced upon with three-inch stiletto heels and set on fire.
Sarah: Nothing says, “This book has sex in it” like two people on the cover having sex. Thank you to this book for making it that much more difficult for me to defend accusations that romance = porn.
Especially with the jizztastic explosion of water going on behind her, there. If he orgasms that forcefully in real life, well, no wonder he has to hold onto her by the longhairs. She probably doesn’t have any short ones.
Candy: Touch of Madness? Well, yes, I believe necrophilia is typically a sign of SOME sort of pathology--especially when you start going for the ones who are starting to rot.
Sarah: I can hear the book trailer now: He’s creepy and he’s cooked -EEE!. She’s zombified and ookey. This sure don’t look like nookie. Clamp and Adams, scaring me.
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 10:24 AM
Some old-school cover gems from the woman who perfected the “If she can tell the difference between the identical twins, it must be twu wuv!” schtick in Romancelandia.
Sarah: Ah, yes, the historical version of “Before He Cheats.” Instead of digging a car key into the door of a pretty souped-up four-wheel drive, she’s going to put his head through his own lute because he got way, WAY too merry with his band of merry men.
Candy:: He thinks she’s paralyzed with desire; she’s just hoping that this George Hamilton wannabe’s sunless bronzer doesn’t rub off on her skin or her clothing.
Sarah: Nothing says ‘Historical romance’ like a poly-cotton nightgown from JC Penneys, circa 1982.
Candy: He looks mildly brain-damaged. She looks like a Real Doll. It’s a match made in heaven!
Sarah: There had so better be a disclaimer at the back of that book stating that no horses were harmed in the creation of the cover art, because it looks like they’re dropping to the earth from about 30,000 feet up and the horse is the only one who has recognized their imminent landing.
Candy: I’ve talked before about the bizarre physics at work in romance novels and how it affects hair. This one just straight-up confounds me. Unless the guy is a humanoid Van de Graaf generator, I’m at a loss to explain the heroine’s hair. (The hero’s hair--and appearance in general--can pretty much be explained by an inordinate love of man-sauce, I think.)
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Inspired by snarkhunter’s comment in our last cover snark, and clamored for by many, including me despite my own exceptionally poor OMG Bad Photoshop skillz (they are not uber uber l33t by a longshot), behold: a contest to kick off our new site design. I give you: LOL COVER SNARK!
The rules: add your LOLCoverSnark to the comments, and we’ll judge in the comment thread itself for the best of the group. You can your vote if you don’t like to comment (Hi Lurkers! Hayadoin?). Comments will close in 24 48 hours (G’day Australia!) and winners will get books and a Romance Novel magnetic poetry set for their very own.
And now, our samples, let us show you them.
by Candy • Wednesday, April 09, 2008 at 01:25 PM
This may sound odd, but...I was looking for new fodder for cover snark, and after looking for several minutes at appalling computer-generated images, I found myself longing for simpler days--days when a woman didn’t have hair, she had tresses, and they flowed, oh how they flowed. Days when a man proclaimed his masculinity by daring to tuck his unbuttoned shirt into his belt. Days when a woman knew her place: kneeling at a man’s feet, gazing up in supplication, the froth of her skirts throwing themselves with gentle futility against his rock-hard thews.
Only one thing could assuage my hunger.
Clinch covers. Up on the chopping block this week: Avon Romance.
That’s right, kittens. Grab your panniers and set your hairspray to “Stun.”
Candy: It just occurred to me that clinch covers are where bad bridesmaid dresses go when they die. WHY exactly these two clowns are attempting to stretch this woman’s hip flexors while she’s wearing one is a question for the ages.
Sarah: Behold, the Avon checklist: Mullet? Check. Black pants, no shirt? Check. Heroine with absurdedy big, absurdedly curly hair? Check. Off the shoulder dress with possibly surgically augmented boobs about to burst forth in nippulous delight? Check and double check. Barefoot and showing of flexed calf? Check. Ribbons flying out in a flirty approximation of girly erection? Check.
The only difference is the whispered inner monologue of the posing heroine. In the first one: “I got my shoes at Payless’s Buy-One-Get-One Sale. But I only got one. Wonder what I did wrong?”
Candy: Is there some sort of modified Bernoulli’s Principle at work on romance novel covers? Seriously, look at how crazy her ribbon is going, while his hair is baaaarely fluttering...in the opposite direction. Is there some sort of low-pressure system that magically manifests itself underneath ribbons and hair flowing tresses? Unless the woman had just run full-tilt-boogie into the dude.
Sarah: “And if I look at him from this angle… nope. It’s still a mullet.”
Candy: I take my crack about bad bridesmaid’s dresses back.
Clinch covers are where bad 80s prom dresses go to die.
Also bad 80s prom hairstyles.
Sarah: “You’d think he’d lay down his shirt for me so I wouldn’t get grass stains. Then again, this dress is the color of bile.”
Candy: Porn-stache-tacular! I also love the vaguely angry look on the guy’s face. “GODDAMN SKIRTS, GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY SHIT. RRRRRRRRGGGHHHH. HULK SMASH.”
Sarah: “What is he doing with my dress? Hiding a dribble spot? I’m closing my eyes and thinking of...anything but that.”
by Candy • Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 11:48 AM
Ahoy, mateys! The embarrassment of riches plundered from a Google search for “erotic romance” is not nearly exhausted yet, oh no! Brace yourselves, ye crew of the good ship Holy Shit What The Fuck, and man the eyewash stations.
Sarah: Ah, one of the seven signs of retirement for an aging CG erotica cover model: when your vahooey is so stretched out that fire departments park their hook & ladder trucks in it.
Candy: Gives a compelling new visual variant to the old “like throwing a pencil down the Holland Tunnel” comparison, doesn’t it?
Candy: Every time I look at this cover, the smooth jazz starts playing, and then you find out that the woman is actually this guy’s long-lost sister and they’ve been engaging in accidental incest for the last three seasons of the show, and all of this came to light only because their mother woke up out of a 10-year coma. Man, the things they do for sweeps week.
Sarah: Behold the powers of my divination! This man is not thinking about sex. Or secrets. He’s thinking about basketball, specifically as to whether he can use her head to shoot 3’s.
Sarah: She walks, a hooker in the night,
the moon a torso in the skies.
with floating handcuffs to her right
and methamphetamine in her eyes.
Candy: OK, goddammit, Sarah wins this one. There’s no way I can match that.
