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What’s Your Favorite Off the Wall Old Skool Cover?


Next week I’m going to be recording a very fun podcast episode with royal commentator and art historian Amanda Matta. You might know her as @matta_of_fact from TT, or IG, or her podcast “Off with their Headlines,” or her OTHER podcast “Art of History.”

Inspired by her “Art of History” podcast, I wanted to talk with Amanda about what the old school covers communicate from an art history perspective.

For example: The Beloved One, a favorite of Candy’s.

The Beloved One - a White guy with his shirt open and a pony tail and his shirt tucked in and unbuttoned with massive sleeves and a woman with giant masses of black hair kneeling at his feet in an off the shoulder dress, with columns. GIANT ERECT COLUMNS behind them both.

Yes, the castle/tower/rock formation/gazebo is phallic, but what else is going on? Other than the incipient, uh, honking of the bobo.

So, here’s my request. Obviously I have a few on file already, but I’d love to know: what is YOUR favorite most bonkers, off the wall, truly bizarre old skool romance cover?

For example, the original art for The Lion and the Lark hangs in my office:

The Lion and the Lark by Doreen Owens Malek has John desalvo with long flower dark hair and a very pink galdiator toga grasping the warm of a woman wit hred hair and a bright yellow gown with astonishing cleavage

There’s a Very Erect Folly in the background, but that didn’t make the cover. What a shame.

Or then there’s The Raider, and the hair.

The original cover for the raider. More than half of the illustration is her giant, swirling pink skirt. Her hair, which is blonde, is reaching out from her head in a giant fan, like an octopus almost, and the dude, and no idea HOW he is on this horse, is holding her around the waist. he's got a black suit and a mask over his eyes. The horse behind him has its mouth open and looks appalled.

I’m pretty sure Rumor Has It by Cindi Myers was submitted for the AAR Cover Contest one year. And I STILL haven’t figured out what is happening on this cover.

I honestly can't xplain this one. Ok. So they're in a car, but probably the bck seat because there's a door handle and a window but no steering wheel. Leaning across the bottom third of the image is a shirtless man's back with a black belt and pants, and he's leaning toward the back? Trunk? No idea. You can see a woman's hand resting on his ribs. BUt then her legs are above his head? You can see her calves and ankles but they're up in the air. Maybe he's about to go down on her but he's miles away yet?

I’ve never understood why these two were determined to visit Bhone Towne on jagged rocks:

Edith Layton's For the Love of a Pirate, with an image of a shirtless man with long hair and black pants and boots kneeling before a blonde woman with an off the shoulder lavender dress. She has one leg bent and pressed against his waist. They are on some JAGGED ROCKS with a GIANT WAVE behind them.

There?! You’re doing the deed right there?

Or, the champion of covers:

A copy of castles in the air with the three arms

She’s my avatar in a bunch of different places.

Truly incredible – but I KNOW there are even weirder ones. Which ones should I include?

I may not be able to feature all of them, but I’ll be querying Amanda about as many as I can (poor Amanda).

Please feel welcome to post the image in the comments, or just the title. I’m enabling images for a bit in the comments but only one image per comment (the spam otherwise is mindblowing).

Someone you know wants to read this, right?





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