Bellybutton Baen Day!

Hey kids. It's midway between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday so you know what that means! Bellybutton Baen Day! Shall we see how far Baen has come?

Thanks to faithful reader Snow for suggesting these covers. They're chicks! They're in chainmail! And there must be a big fetish market for this, 'cause they made five compilations.

First up, the inaugural Chicks in Chainmail.

This is Baen at its classicist (notice I didn't say classiest? I can't even imagine Baen with a bit of class, myself). Yes, she's wearing waaaaay too little, but she's supposed to inspire wet dreams in fourteen-year-olds. At least she's got gauntlets and...ummm...leglets and a shield. Still she obviously kicks ass. Notice the dead guy.

I'm a fan of the title portrayal, too. Hot pink for the Chicks and metallic blue, solid looking CHAINMAIL just works for me.

A- on this cover. A fine effort.

Second in the series: Did You Say Chicks?!

Okay, so no one's dead this time, and the chick is wearing decidedly less armor, but that is the horniest looking elf I've ever seen. And the interrobang rocks (sounds dirty, too).

(DocTurtle says that books like this; a collection of short stories featuring Xena, Warrior Princessesque characters, should be illustrated. "What's the point," he asks, "of the book otherwise?" They have that, dear. It's called Penthouse.)

A fine contribution. A few points taken off for the lack of gore and the ugliness of the chick. I want my chicks in chainail to be smooooooookin'. A solid B+ for this one.

Our third installment is Chicks'n Chained Males.

Does anyone have to ask the grade? Absolute A+. TWO hot chicks, an awesome title, and a totally dippy grad-student-looking guy in chains. Can you ask for anything more? Great job, Baen! (Never thought I'd say that!)

#4 I include here just 'cause it's a funny title. The Chick is in the Mail.

That title buries the needle in the awsometer. Her chainmail is getting a little over the top, what with the boots and the belt, but DocTurtle just asked me why I don't look like that ('cause I don't have the boots, of course), so she must be doing something for someone. (DocTurtle is, of course, the most sensitive feminist-type guy I know, so the covers must really be working.)

A good job. A. Missing the plus only 'cause there're not two chicks.

And finally, the point of this whole exercise, Turn the Other Chick.

Uck. Did their good artist die? What is this shite? From the top: The font totally sucks. No more do we have the cool metallic font, now it's just boring standard-fantasy-font. Going lower, that chick looks like a man. An ugly man. She's no longer laughing and carefree, now she looks like she's going to go Lorena Bobbit on your ass. And she has the nice phallic sword to do it, too. Linebacker shoulderpads? Blech. Gratuitous panty shot is just, well, gratuitous.

This is just bad. Baen appears to be getting its artists from that matchbook "draw me" ad.

F.

And that's why Baen has sunk and should be mocked by all. Mock away.

Bellybutton Baen Day

What comes between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday? Bellybutton Baen Day, of course! Those of you who are new readers may not be familiar with the special place in our hearts we reserve for Baen covers. In fact, I typically assume that when I see a crazy sci-fi cover that it's gonna be a Baen. So I pooped round to Baen's website today, to see what kind of groovy crazy shit we can see today. Welcome, once again, to the wacky world of Baen!



He's holding something, but I don't think it's made of stone! Let's count the phallic images, shall we? We've got the sword, the castle in the background, the broken stumpy thing in the background, even the little old man's head looks kinda phallicky. Am I missing any?

Is anyone else thinking, "jump jump jump jump"? Quick question: How long do you think an unprotected human can last in the dead of space? No, I'm sorry Douglas Adams, the answer is not almost thirty seconds. Your blood would boil long before that. Cats, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. It's one of their little known evil powers.

And finally, a perfect example of why Baen gets its own day in between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday. Mammaries and phallicies in the same cover--SCORE! Okay, so it's not so much the painted-on suits or the chubby guns that have fascinated me about this cover. Rather, it's the fishbowl that she's clutching. They can paint on body armor suitable for space, but you still need a bubble-head helmet? Guess she doesn't want to mush her '90s perm.

Baen Does it Again!

Special Hump Day Edition.

Did you know that Wednesday is called Hump Day? I think it's because Wednesday is that last hump in the week before the slide on down to the weekend. More information about Hump Day can, I'm sure, be found on the internet. But here at Judge a Book by its Cover, we have a special use for Hump Day. It's midweek between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday, and as such I am tasked (well, I've tasked myself) with the...ummmm...task of finding a book that combines the best of Mammaries with a subtle hint of Phalluses. Phortunately, Baen comes through for me once again! Let's all give the artists chained in the basement of Baen a big round of applause, because I'm sure it's difficult for them to sleep at night after producing such dreck.

STOP! SISTER TIME!

Let's see....

Skintight pleather? Check.

Sexy long hair? Check.

Contorted position? Check.

Triple-F tits on a Barbie Doll body? Check.

Why, it must be a Baen heroine! Yes, combining every 14 year-old boy's fantasy with a large phallic gun and really generic futuristic city-scape background must be a formula that's working well for our friends at Baen. We certainly see it often enough.

(P. S. This post is supposed to have nice pagination and spacing, I swear! Why is blogger vexing me?!)

Boooo! Baen.

I just can't stop myself from picking on Baen. Seriously, what kind of leverage does the Baen house artist have that keeps him or her in a job? Naked pictures of the editorial staff in compromising positions? Tenure? Remind me, if I'm ever published, to put a BIG rider in the contract that I get to approve the art. Because surely these authors cringed when they first saw these.


Here we have aerobicizing angels*:





And here are some naked blue women dancing around a planet shaped like a woman's head. Nice makeup there.

In case you're wondering, Spider Robinson is one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors. His Callahan series is brilliant and funny and sexy and alcoholic...I mean, the two related locales are a bar and a whorehouse, what could be better?! But I would never, ever, ever, ever, in a million years, ever read this book if I just had to cover to go on.

And what is with the Baen ball? What is that, a squid? How do you pronounce Baen, anyway? These things keep me up at night.

*Thanks to diligent page Jeremy for showing me this cover. I am now scarred for life.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/spider-robinson/star-dancers.htm

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/robert-heinlein/menace-from-earth.htm

The Iceman Cometh, or, Baen of Our Existence

DocTurtle here with a Sunday night sampler.

"That cover is creepy!" says Maughta. "It's freaking me out, just a two-second glance at it."

C'mon, Maughta, isn't this kid the very picture of clean-cut American youth? Look at that chiseled jaw, that blond tuft of squared-off hair, those ox-like shoulders. This kid's a'ight.

I gotta admit that the tag-line ("Is he as cold as the ice he skates on?") is a nice bit of cornballery, but...nah, this one's just not doin' it for me. I've gotta find one with a little more oomph...

This is definitely creepier, if you ask me: identical (yet reflected) Yorkies and an eyeless blonde caryatid sloppily photoshopped onto a featureless field. It's a chick-lit version of The Fantastic Planet.

But no, still not feeling it...

Awright! Baen comes through for us again! What's not to love about this cover? How often do you get to see giant green meerkats sparring with mauve-caped swordsmen while a rogue's gallery of aliens looks on?

As regular readers of this blog should know, David Weber and Baen Books are the twin stars in a brilliant conjunction of cover art crappitude. For those who need a bit more convincing, check out Baen's on-line catalog of Weber's work, a litany of lousy artwork. My personal favorites are In Fury Born and Windrider's Oath, but Maughta likes War of Honor and 1633, the second of which she's already lampooned in an earlier post. Meanwhile, if it's laughable titles you're looking for, look no farther than Bolo!.

Belly Button Baen Day: The Laser Edition

I'm ba-a-a-a-ack! Yes, I finally escaped from the basement dungeon of Baen, where they evil overlords had locked me up for daring to make fun of their covers. My escape included a stick of gum, an easily tricked lackey, and a MacGyveresque device. Let the reader beware, lest it happens to you! From my dingy cell I could hear the scritchings of the Baen artists (chained to their dungeon desks) while their commander strode amongst them, cracking his whip and crying, "More breasts!" "Bigger!" "More explosions!" For the books in today's post, he must have been shouting, "MORE LASERS!!!!"




Giant robot chipmunks battle it out on Endor surrounded by, yes, lasers. Whosoever is shooting these lasers is a REALLY BAD SHOT! Of course, you probably can't kill your main character on your cover, where will you go from there?






What does this cover lack? You guessed it, Yellow Eyes. Or eyes of any kind. The robot chipmunks must use echolocation.




"Two lasers...coming out of my hands...Mom must be soooo proud!"



Yes, just what I want to see my heroes do: run away from the beast! I bet this makes fascinating storytelling...


The beast attacked! John activated his dual duelling laser Vorpal Blades, than TURNED TAIL AND RAN! The beast had NO IDEA what to do! This had never happened in a SF book before!


...and then the author ran out of exclamation points.













Huh huh! My laser's bigger than everyone else's laser! I win!

I wonder, is the lizard's brain splattered all over the spine of this book? I consider it a letdown if it isn't.



















Au contraire, mon Baen frere. I have waaaaay MORE lasers than you. I win!

Green and blue and purple and yellow lasers...Is there anything this cover lacks? Oh, yeah, perspective. And taste.

Mammary...Monday...in...Spaaaaaace!

Hey, kids! How's shakes? Maughta's been draggin' her heels long enough I thought I'd step in and get rid of those goldarned rabbits. What's say we beat up on Baen some more, huh? Like shootin' fish in a barrel...

Behold, The Death of Sleep:

What's not for bepimpled and undersexed fifteen-year-old boys to love about this classic Baen cover? A barely-clad bimbo in an impractically skin-tight spacesuit jetpacks provocatively in front of a Jovian planet, no doubt rocketing off to an extraterrestrial adventure that will require her to shed said impractical spacesuit and wander about some cold uncharted planetscape buck naked. Our heroine is so busy demonstrating the effects of zero gravity on breast orientation (one went east, one went west...) that she forgot to put her helmet on before leaving Europa.

Which might be why she looks so tired. I hope she doesn't get sucked into the eddy in the spacetime continuum that just popped up in the lower left.

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

With Baen around, it's all too easy.

This cover reminds me of Bladerunner, except Bladerunner doesn't suck. [Disclaimer: no, I have not read this book. In order to stave off angry letters from Wismer worshippers, I'll add that I'm sure the book is one of the greatest works of fiction crafted in the 20th century and I'm not worthy to clean the dog doo off of Don Wismer's riding boots. I must admit that with a metaphor as weak as "the sargasso of space" on the cover, I'm hardly tempted to read further. Besides, might I remind the gentle reader that the point of this blog is to destroy crappy covers?]

This cover looks like it was put together by Tom of Finland (NSFW link here), only its falls short of the requisite number of bulging penises. We do have a nice pornstache, though. I suppose this is what Clark Gable would have looked like if he'd lived long enough to play a private dick in a cyberpunk adventure, complete with black-trenchcoated femmes fatales and pseudo-Japanese neon signage.

Well, snark away, loyal minions! I hope this post will hold you off for a little while as I try to prod Maughta into giving you some more goods real soon-like.

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.

Non-related-mailbox-items Tuesday (alliteration is not my forte today)

Why yes, I am alive. Thanks for coming back even with the lack of a new post forever. It's so nice to be missed. Unfortunately sometimes life intrudes, and life in this case meant lying about on the beach in Virginia Beach and watching other people (DocTurtle) run 13.1 miles. Nothing I enjoy more than lazing about watching mostly naked men exert themselves. *sigh* And now it's back to the library with the homeless and the crazies and the tourists and the totally insane book covers. Like these from the mailbox:

First up is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. According to the Effing Librarian (shout out to an awesome blogger!), "I'm told the lightning is important, so the illustrator added it, I guess. But all I can do is yell, "get out from under those damn trees you stupid kids." But they don't listen and I think one of them dies. Probably the one closest to the white bolt. Couldn't he see it painted there? It's not like it's moving or anything. But you know kids. Tell them to go left and they go right. Dumb kid."

All I can say is this kid is obviously unable to defend a goal very well, 'cause there are three soccer balls (foot balls for my overseas pals) and one FOOT BALL ("American football" or "that stupid sport the Americans call Football 'cause they're too stupid to think up their own name" for my overseas pals) well inside the goal. I think Mr. Goalie should go back to the bench. At least someone's mother doesn't have to worry about the half-time snack as there are readily available tangerines (and apparently fried child) to eat.

Christians and Centaurs and Satyrs, oh my!

From Larry Lennhoff comes Thessalonica, another cover from Baen. I wouldn't have a site if it weren't for Baen, and for that we must thank them. For this cover, however, we must curse them.

Fellow librarian Anna tells me that she was embarrassed to check out the following book, Wyrms, out of the library. The things we do for our Orson Scott Card geekdom, eh? As Anna puts it, "Unfortunately, this is one of his earliest works and it shows. The penis tentacle is actually from the book!"

A special phallic cover for the middle of the week (no waiting for Phallic Phriday!). I'm just impressed by the wide-spread legs that are apparently on backwards. That and the tarantula hair really make this cover for me.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Keep up the e-mails and the comments (even long-as-hell, crazy, whacked-out, racist, mad-as-a-badger comments like the one on the previous post...Mr. Eng, I know you were unhappy we made fun of your cover, but damn!), and I will try to keep up with posting more than once a week.

No Brainers

Some books just scream for us to judge them by their covers. Take the following cover, found by intrepid judger-in-the-field, Snow. As Snow points out, it's like Baen is doing this just to fuck with us. They're trying to see just how bad their covers could possibly be. Is Jim Baen's taste that bad? Apparently!

Y'know, as someone who's married to someone who's last name is slang for testicles, I feel for people with unfortunate names. But that's the nice thing about being an author. There's a handy little thing called a pseudonym that one can use if one wants to write, say, romance novels, and one's name is synonymous with sex! Y'know, if one didn't want to be, oh, I don't know, made fun of on a blog. Nina, you're the joy of fifteen year old boys, and bane of librarians, everywhere.

And what is going on with that woman, anyway? Is that some sort of chitinous shell? Are we morphing from a cockroach? Heh heh. COCKroach. BANGS. One BITE Stand. Heh heh heh.

And finally, a book that faithful reader Michael points out, "should be judged solely on typography:"

Honor and Glory!

My readers rock. You know how I know this? 'Cause I've been nominated for a Book Blogger Appreciation Award in the best Special Interest Blog category. *sniff* I'm so chuffed. It's an honor to be nominated and be in such glorious company with Rex Parker's Pop Sensation and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, among others.


But! I need your help. I need to submit five of my posts that best represent my blog. Any suggestions? A Baen book, perhaps? Definitely have to throw in a Mammary Monday and a Phallic Phriday submission. But which? I'm stumped. What do you think??


In other news, look to the left------>


There's a link for my etsy store. I add new stuff all the time. Buy something and I will offer you the opportunity to guest blog a book cover or two. You know you want to. You can also scroll down for my Paypal "donate" link if you aren't feeling in the need of something crafty. If you've already bought something or donated something and would like to take advantage of this opportunity, throw me a line over at judgeabook@yahoo.com.


And, since I can't leave you alone without a book cover to snark on...Here's a note from my former supervisor along with a cover. Is her head on fire???

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!

RIP, Robert Jordan

Boy, it's not a good year to be a fantasy writer. First Madeline L'Engle pops off and now Robert Jordan succumbs to some freaky rare blood disease that, being the hypochondriac that I am, I'm now convinced I have. Not really, but I was trying to convince DocTurtle that I had histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder. What I really have is a shouldn't-be-allowed-to-look-at-the-wikipedia-entry-on-personality-disorders disorder. But I digress.

So, in tribute to Robert Jordan, I've chosen to mock the first four covers of the Wheel of Time series today. I hate these books, not because of their subject or anything to do with them as books (I find them kind of boringly typical epic fantasy bildungsromanen, and if you've read one, you've read them all), but because THEY DON'T FUCKING FIT THROUGH THE BOOKDROP!!! At least once a week I get a fourteen year-old boy with hygiene problems and a mullet bucking the check-out line to hand me a Robert Jordan book that won't fit in the drop. Dammit, Robert, did you have to write such tomes? I thought not.

But anyway, the covers are so typically traditionally epic fantasy'y that they really don't deserve too much in depth snark except to give new dialogue to the people on the covers. I give you ROBERT JORDAN IMPROV THEATRE! (I apologize in advance for my crappy crappy utilization of MS Paint. And the lameness of this post. But hey, that just means that this is your chance to snark on me!)




























P.S. Be sure to stop by Wednesday for our Baen Belly Button Day (Wednesday is halfway between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday, after all)*! And tune in next week when we resume Mammary Monday funness. And I promise never to do something as lame as this again. :)


P.P.S. Damn you, blogger, for screwing up my pagination again! It vexes me!



*Thanks to VembaTsith for making the name up!

Mailbag, lovely mailbag

Thanks to Lauren C., Stephanie H., and Your Neighborhood Librarian, P-dog, for the following suggestions. Seen a bad book cover? Send it to me at judgeabook(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Subtitle: When clipart gets colorized.

Ah, Baen, you're breaking my heart with these asterisks and ellipses! Let's fill in our own words, shall we?

"Superb...ly humorous attempt at actual writing..."
"hugely enjoyable...as a fire starter..."
"thrilling...when torn up for guinea pig fodder..."

As Lauren says, "Perhaps I can nail a review of the art to the publisher's door like a female Martin Luther without the religious ideals or the funky hat." Tell you what, Lauren. I'll buy the hammer.

Eeeek! Those eyes are freakin' creepy!!! But what I like most of all is the blurb from Best Sellers. It tells us that this book "Invites comparison to Tolkein's Lord of the Rings" Like, "Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is awesome. This book sucks."

Ack! Where'd her nipples go?! His seem to be missing, too. Guess the "primitive societies" don't need them.

Surely That's a Pen Name

I'll leave it up to you folks to make fun of the cover (and boy, is it ripe for derision...but then again, it's from Baen, so what do we expect), but I did want to point out that, when I went looking for a image of this cover for the blog I also found this blurb (thanks, Fantastic Fiction!):

A high-tech bioterrorist and the first true artificial intelligence hold the fate of humanity in the balance in this race-against-doomsday novel by a serving U.S. naval officer, Commander Tom Cool, patently one of the most gifted naval officers to write science fiction since Robert A. Heinlein. Full page ads in Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle.

I dare you to find one bit of this statement that doesn't make this guy sound like a raving egotistical asshole. Yup, sure makes me want to read it!

Celebrate! It's Pick-on-Marion-Zimmer-Bradley Day!!!

Don't you wish every day were Pick-on-Marion-Zimmer-Bradley day? I know I do! Although I guess I wouldn't have time to pick on Baen. Or bodice-ripping romances (yell at me now, Sarah from Smart Bitches, I said BODICE-RIPPER!!! Ah hah hah hah!!!). Okay, so I don't wish every day were Pick-on-Marion-Zimmer-Bradley day, but I sure am glad today is, 'cause we've been seeing a few stinkers around here, let me tell ya!



First up we see our hero wielding his sword in Land of the Giant Salt Shakers.





Hmmmm, that looks familiar to me. Where have I seen that before? Oh, I remember...






Ah, Phallic Phriday. Without you I would be bereft and 1000s of books with GIANT SHINY PHLAMING PHALLUSES on the cover would go unremarked.

And finally, we have...umm...

Play-Doh gone horribly awry! Words cannot express how creeped out I am by this cover. I need to go huddle under the blankies with the doggies now! Either that, or surf some Cute Overload. Or some Not-so-Cute Overload. Cheers!

Library Book Sale Gems

Fresh off my latest gig as a romance reviewer (I'll post the last words on Georgette Heyer's An infamous army in the next couple of days), I thought I'd come back to the meat 'n' potatoes of Judge a Book by its Cover for some good old fashioned cover snark.

Today's pair come courtesy of our afternoon's perusal of the Swannanoa (NC) Library's ongoing book sale. (If you're ever in Swannanoa, stop in and say hi to the branch manager, she's as cool as librarians come!)

For the first course, it's...


Beating up on Baen is like taking candy from a baby, but damn. I think I once saw this rendered on black velvet at a flea market.

What's there to be said here? I'll pull a Rex Parker and count 'em off:

1. Dude, Chuck Norris is ripped. And pissed. I would be too, if someone stole my pupils.

2. This could be a still from one of the cheesier episodes of the original Star Trek. You know, one of those wherein all of the Enterprise's crucial crew members got caught in a tachyon inversion field and got time warped into feudal Japan?

3. How much did Yuengling shell out for this spot?

I'm almost sorry that I didn't take a look at page 123.

For our second course, it's...


I love the fact that the reviewer's last name is "Sturgeon." Hee hee! Ah, bell-bottoms. John Travolta's lookin' pretty raw.

1. "Run! Run! The Fontainebleau is gonna blow!"

2. I wonder how the cover artist got the rights to use the trademarked "Choose Your Own Adventure" font?

3. I'm sure the dilithium crystal's gonna come in handy for the warp drive, but what possible use is the chick on the right gonna find for that trifold presentation board? "I've got to finish my study on the effects of zero-gravity on gerbil sex for tomorrow's shipwide Science Fair!"

That's all I've got right now, folks. What can you come up with?

Hands Across the Renaissance

So I love StatCounter. If you have a webpage and want to find out how many people go to your blog, and where they're from, and other bits of trivia, I highly recommend it. All this to tell you that I like to see where people have linked to me, and thanks to that circuitous trek through the blog universe, I've discovered what is, perhaps, the worst artwork on a romance novel ever. Thanks to people unknown (to me, at least, I'm sure they know themselves*), I give you Castles in the Air. All I have to say to you is: count the hands.

DocTurtle suggests that perhaps she is supposed to have a few too many appendages, but I pointed out that this is not a Baen cover, and he conceded to my superior intellect. Plus I bit him, which always wins me the argument.

-----------------------------------------

*Which begs the question: Can one ever really know oneself? I don't know. I hated Philosophy 101.

Guest Blogger Snow

Faithful reader Snow sent the following e-mail to me and it needs no embellishment.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hi Maughta!

Visiting bookstores is so much more fun now. Whenever I see a snarkworthy cover, I whip out my cellphone and snap a picture. (It does sort of freak out the clerks, though.)

Since I feel like we're going though combined Baen and John Ringo withdrawal, here's a double hit.

What have we here? Boobs, pointed ears, big hair, mismatched shinguards, sword, bow, things dangling from "the great unknown", dragons, and what? spaceships! Of course. It all makes sense now. A cover entirely filled with teenage boy wank fodder.

Not to let teenage boys have all of the fun, here's wank fodder for the mature-ish woman.

It's not just smut, it's expensive, big fancy paperback smut. Why pay $4.95 for your cheap-looking one-handed read, when you can get a pretty copy for $13.95? Just look at those boobs, I mean pecs! They're nearly life-sized.

Come on, Maughta, put this one in your reading queue. I can't wait to see what Maughtamom would have to say.

- Snow

--------------------------------------------------

Thanks, Snow! Readers, keep those suggestions coming.

Good Books, Lousy Covers

So there's been some call for me to stop picking easy targets (romance novels, Baen sci-fi covers, Christian chick lit) and profile some good books. *Sigh* You people demand so much from me! I hesitate to do this because sometimes it's hard to disassociate covers from novels, but here goes:

Billy Budd -- Good Book, Bad Cover

"Check me out, ladies. I've got a mullet, a pornstache*, and a rakishly-tilted kerchief round my neck...I'm ready for action!"

"No, no! Look at me, baby! I've got a tattoo! My kerchief is bigger, too! Of course, I've got this creepy guy staring over my shoulder..."

The Natural -- Good Book, Bad Cover

Clockwise from top:

• Creepy Clown
• Mysterious Ghostly Gypsy
• Basketball Players from a Different Book
• Ollie North
• Vampy Transvestite

And a host of others, all surrounding Dick Tracy at bat with a HUGE...peni...ummm...right thigh.


Anything by Anthony Trollope -- Good Book, Bad Cover

Drawn in ink and dipped in urine for your reading pleasure.

And finally, Good Book about Jesus -- Bad Cover

Jesus' disembodied head is staring at you!

Okay, confession time. I thought long and hard about this book 'cause it's written by my advisor from grad school, and she's super scary. But nowhere in the book does it say "Thanks to Maughta, without whom my life would have no meaning," so I feel justified in this scurrilous attack. Hell hath no fury like a graduate student scorned. A-J, if you're reading this, please don't hunt me down and kill me, but seriously, couldn't you have picked a better picture of Jesus?! Maybe one that looked Jewish? (Yeah, you'd maybe have to draw that yourself, but surely it'd be better!) Jesus's aquiline nose is frightening the bejeebus out of me. Amazingly good book, though.

In other news, just got a link in my e-mail from Pistil Books that you've got the check out: The Museum of Weird Books. I think you'll enjoy it!


*MaughtaMom and other easily confused people: pornstache means a mustache that looks like it should be on a porn star