Pay no Attention

This is not about the cat. The cat is not the thing on the cover about which I've chosen to blog today. I know that the cat is TOTALLY FREAKY!, and kinda glows, and I know that I'm gonna see those eyes in MY FUCKING NIGHTMARES, but this is not about the cat.

This is about the M.C. Esheresque Stonehenge that's in the background. That thing cannot possibly exist if we're operating inside the laws of physics. Learn some perspective!

Okay, you caught me. This is totally about the cat.

Calling a spade a spade, er...

Finally! A book cover admits it all! The gun really isn't a gun, it's ... um ... his "gun"....

Ok, ok, I'm cheating. This is actually from a collection of spoof book covers at http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2009m5d19-Top-20-funniest-spoof-book-covers.

Quite hilarious. This one and Horton Hires a Ho really cracked me up.

Enjoy!

Mammary Monday Sneaks One In

Putting aside the big phallicy things in the background (Devil's Tower, a twister, AND broken penis towers? Overkill!), and the super-cheesy superhero getup, I have one question for you, dear Judge a Book readers, my only friends, my dear ones...

Are those nipples???

Word!

So yesterday I'm helping Maughta with her off-day book processing at the county library where she works (on holidays [Happy 4th!] they send some schlub in to go through the book drop so it doesn't get overloaded by the time the library opens again), and I come across this horrif...I mean...charming little number for the kiddoes:
...Dum dee dum dee GAAAAAAH!

In 1949 the great psychologist and evolutionary biologist Konrad Lorenz speculated that human nurturing instincts are triggered by infantile features, including heads that are large in proportion to the body, but COME ON, there's something to be said about too much of a good thing. Methinks Word Bird (the blue one on the right) must have one helluva chronic neck ache. That's an acre or two of prime real estate up top. And the duck ain't doin' so well herself.

A more recent edition of this classic has reduced our heroes' heads to a more manageable size:


Sadly it's also done away with the whimsical '70s font and border stylage that made the original cover so much more friendly and inviting. The new one, while assuaging my worry over Word Bird's chiropractic bill, seems cold and clinical in comparison with its older version. Or maybe I'm just instinctively drawn by Word Bird's ginormous noggin.

Phallic Phriday Early phor the Phorth

So I have tomorrow off, which means that Phallic Phriday is coming a little early. *giggle*

Say you were a book publisher, or editor, or whomsoever it is who makes the call on covers, and you're thinking to yourself, "Self, how can I get my cover on Judge a Book? Perhaps I should have a subtle (or not so subtle) pun in the title? And have a naked hero on the cover caressing his naked sword in such a way to suggest that he's into autoeroticism? Maybe that'll get me noticed in the blogosphere?"

Well guess what, Mr(s) book editor/publisher/guru, your wish is granted! Happy Phorth from Maughta.

Pop Sensation Contest: "PAPERBACK 250"

Cross-posted from "Pop Sensation"

Welcome to "Pop Sensation"'s "PAPERBACK 250 CONTEST"
[see Contest Rules, below]

Paperback 250: Bantam 718 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Death Warmed Over
Author: Mary Collins
Cover artist: Gilbert Fullington


Contest Rules:

• Best comment or caption in 140 characters (or fewer) wins not only this book, but Paperbacks 251 and 252 as well.
• Contest will run from now until 8 a.m. EDT, Friday, July 3, 2009.
• One entry per contestant, please.
• Contestants are encouraged to submit entries as Tweets on Twitter (@rexparker), but emails to rexparker [at] mac [dot] com will also be accepted (please send any questions about contest to that email address as well).
• Keep in mind that a "character" is any single letter, punctuation mark, or blank space. Concision is your friend. But feel free to get creative with the abbreviations.
• Comments will be disabled for the duration of the contest.
• Winner and first and second runners-up will be announced by noon Friday, at which time the best entries (and possibly all entries, depending on how many there are) will be posted for all to see.

Your Panel of Judges:

• Me
• Maughta, creator of the fabulous blog for book cover lovers/haters, "Judge a Book By Its Cover"
• Michael 5000, creator of the fabulous blog for the dork lifestyle, "The Life and Times of Michael 5000"

Prizes:

• Grand Prize: Paperbacks 250, 251, and 252
• 1st Runner-up: two cool but very beat-up paperbacks from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"
• 2nd Runner-up: one cool but very beat-up paperback from outside my official collection + 1 copy of the recent comic "Barack the Barbarian"

Best of luck, and tell a friend...

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Sultry Sunday #30 - The weekly "Pop Sensation" crossover

Hope you like French whores ...

Paperback 248: Pennant Books P24 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Murder Won't Out
Author: Russel Crouse (... and somewhere, a letter "L" runs free ...)
Cover artist: Charles Binger



Best things about this cover:

• That's the French whoriest French whore that ever French whored her way from here to French Whoretown. Not sure how she ended up in NYC.
• "Tiny trashcans for sale! ... who will buy ze tiny trashcans? ... I call zem 'Can Cans' ... yes, zat is why I'm dressed like zis ... clevair, no?"
• After "Nights in Rodanthe," Diane Lane decided to start taking much darker roles.
  
• "Murder Will Out" is an old phrase — Chaucerian old — in case you weren't sure what the title was going for here.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Yes, but what's the book about?

Page 123~

It was no longer the Broadway of the Lombardy poplars and the convivial taverns. The trees had long since given way to lamp posts to light its darkest corner. The Great White Way, to coin a phrase, as somebody had once upon a time.

That passage starts out OK, but the wheels really come off in that last "sentence." "... as it were, so to speak, as they say ..."

~RP

Whoops!

Wow, this guy is sooooo boring, he can put you to sleep!! I once dated a guy like that.


Maybe if you use his guided hypnosis CD, the subtitle that the cover designer forgot to add will become clear to you?


Awesomeness!

Owl Pellets

Holy crap that's a big owl!!! What does it eat, beavers?? And how, pray tell, is that man's arm not broken? He's got to have quite the gun show to keep that thing up!!

Suck it, Hedgwig!

Real Doll Young Adult Style

Is something wrong with me that this looks like a sex toy?

Is something wrong with my library that this is in the YA (young adult) section??

Phinally, they admit it!

For quite some time now, Maughta has been bringing you Phallic Phriday book covers (and the occasional Turgid Tuesday), where we infer that some element of the picture (a sword, a banana, etc.) is meant to represent the male member. But is it a fair inference, or our own dirty minds?

Wonder no more! They mean it.

Special Turgid Tuesday link for you

The gals over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books are honing in on my turf, yo (and doing it rather well). They're having a Caption That Cover contest; slide your sword on into that scabbard!

Sultry Sunday #29 - The weekly "Pop Sensation" crossover

Paperback 234: Monarch 466 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Diagnosis: Love
Author: Barbara Bonham
Cover artist: Lou Marchetti



Best things about this cover:

• The long awaited prequel to "Diagnosis: Murder"
• Whatever was going on in "their private lives," it apparently involved massive amounts of nitrous oxide
• "Take off that clown make-up. This is a hospital, not a whorehouse!" / "Oh fuck you, Steve. Perform the appendectomy yourself. I'm going outside to smoke ... and maybe talk to Larry. That's right, I said 'Larry.' Asshole."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Garnet?"
• "Chad!" - that's more like it.
• " ... a strange malady ..." - later diagnosed as "hot pants"

Page 123 (last page!)~

He took the thermometer from her and glanced at it quickly. "Normal. No germs here. It would be perfectly safe to kiss you." He pulled her up into his arms.

I really hope that thermometer was in her mouth.

~RP

Phallic Phriday Would Be A Good Name For A Heavy Metal Band

So it's Phallic Phriday and once again we have a Baen title. Oh, Baen, you never cease to amuse me.

Yes, yes, phallic phlying of the phreindly astro-phields. But it's not the bulbous ship entering the ovuloid planet (ooh er) that is the silliest thing on this cover.

No, it's the stylized title/author's name that really gets stuck in my craw (ooh er). That looks nothing so much as something a pimply teenaged boy would draw for his favorite metal band, Charles Sheffield, and the band's new album Convergent Series. When it takes me several seconds of staring at the cover to make out that name (and trying to parse Seires), well, that right there is a cover fail. Ooh er.

Sunscreen Is Our Friend

I'm sorry, chica, but the real enemy is not "SATAN" (those quotes represent Dana Carvey as the Church Lady doing finger quotes, by the way....work with me here, people, being funny in print is so much harder than in-person snark!)...where was I? Oh, yeah. The real enemy is the sun. That great big ball of flaming gas in the sky is don't terrible things to your skin. Sheesh, you look like you've been rode hard and put away wet, girlfriend. I don't care if you're on the cover of a Christian novel, put a little moisturizer around those eyes. Jesus will forgive you for "tarting" up.

Then maybe we can talk about your lip gloss color...

Sultry Sunday #28 - The weekly "Pop Sensation" crossover

Hey all. I'm back from a month+-long disappearance. Invent your own fantastic reasons for why I was away. While you're doing that, enjoy this:

----

Paperback 230: Midnight Reader MR 419 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Lust Cult
Author: Don Elliott (pseud. of Robert Silverberg)
Cover artist: uncredited



Best things about this cover:

• What the hell happened to her torso. It's like taffy ... or krazy bread. Yikes. Everything from the bottom of her breast to the middle of her ass needs to be ReDone!
• When Thing isn't hanging out with the Addams Family ...
• This is actually a nicely designed cover, as sleaze covers go. Like the rectangular segments - very mid-century modern.

Best things about this back cover:

• I can tell you that, compared to the back covers of many sleaze novels, this one is remarkably lucid. That is, it doesn't sound it was translated from English into Urdu by a Swede and then back into English by a half-witted Czech.
• "I'm gonna be late again tonight, honey ... yeah, I've got that damned Sin Meeting I was telling you about ... yeah. Boss really wants us new acolytes to work hard pushing his new 'Shrine of Evil' theme parks ... OK, I'll call you when we're done Embracing Lust!"

Page 123~ (this better be good)

His hands went to her blouse, cupping the ripe thrusts of her breasts.

Oh yeah. That's the stuff. OK, I cheated - that's page 124. But page 123 was all descriptions of driving. Just ... driving. No fun.

I have to believe that if I google "ripe thrusts" right now I get exactly zero hits. . . 71 hits! That's insane. They appear to be all porn sites, although hit 1 appears to be about some kind of lemon. I'm not clicking through to find out.

~RP

Not so subtle

I don't know if you've caught an episode of Sesame Street lately, but apparently Cookie Monster is being morphed into a fruit and veggie eating monster. His new slogan is "Cookies are a sometimes food." WTF? Seriously? Cookies are an anytime food!!!! Screw veggies!

Apparently to help make the point, Cookie Monster is now being drawn as morbidly obese in order to drill home to kids that fruit is better than cookies.

Heresy!

Contest!

A free bit of absolutely nothing* to the first person who can tell me what the fuck that thing on the cover is. Extra points if you make me laugh and throw up a little in my mouth (which is what happened when I first looked at the cover).

Seriously, what is that?? Mucus sushi?

*besides my gratitude and whatever fame you get from being clever on a blog...which is a lot, right???!

Cover to MY sorrow!

Ode to Baen

Your covers delight me,

I always look twice.

A flautist and metal band,

isn't that nice?

It isn't the fire,

or the flaming red hair,

It's just that it seems

your artists' minds are not there!

But in case you're worried

that it's all a big waste,

De gustibus non est disputandum:

There's no accounting for taste!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

*maughta runs screaming out of the room.

This is even more scary in person.