Sep 10
Click for full imageLauren’s Art Direction: I want explosions! And glowing auras! And giant lizards in cloaks! And some hot kids who go to the gym on a regular basis! Oh, and throw in a scorpion, there’s a sale on the stock photo site.
Published 2011
(Average: 8.63 out of 10)
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September 10th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Ah, remember those playsets you used to get where you rubbed the transfers onto the background provided to create your own pictures of Star Wars or Batman or… sorry, just getting nostalgic.
September 10th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Assssssssination Anxiety
The McNen2i2 Files
Book Z
Damn. Now I have to find books A-Y as well.
And there’s something seriously wrong with those kids’ arms.
September 10th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
I’m vouching for the lizard man… He’s just out for a stroll around the ghetto and WHAM! Attacked by three crazyz teenagers.
September 10th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Published 2011? I would have guessed sometime in the 80s. This has all the feel of a Choose Your Own Adventure, or D.A.R.Y.L.
September 10th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
This is probably neither here nor there– but that thing isn’t a scorpion. It appears to be a huntsman spider with a scorpion’s tail. Odd.
September 10th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Let’s just say that I believe in the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” like I believe in Santa Claus.
September 10th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Assassination anxiety? Just put on a pair of McKenzie jeans and unleash your inner Booth. (Caution – do not attempt – professional jeans models on a closed course)
September 10th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
See, my first thought was that this was some sort of alternate universe for Saved By The Bell.
September 10th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
THX 1138, I had exactly the same thought about those rub-on transfers. So much so that I did some research and found a whole website dedicated to such things. Enjoy:
http://www.action-transfers.com/html/starwars/swmoseisley.shtml
September 10th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
@Phil: Letraset! Those were the guys! Thanks for the link! Ten minutes of play, but the fun, the artistry, the pride… lasted ten minutes. They were very moreish.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:07 am
I’d root for the Lizard Wizard and his minions to triumph in this battle, except for the fact that they don’t seem to be sharing the same spatial reality with those douchey kids.
September 11th, 2012 at 6:14 am
Hah! I have it now. This cover reminds me of a childrens’ came show I used to watch as a kid, where for the final round, the contestants got to play an arcade game from “inside” the video game — they were in front of a projection screen, or possibly some cheap-o green screen was used, I don’t remember.
Aside from the contestants always doing kind of badly because they were doing a lot of jumping and ducking while playing a game they could only see by looking up at the monitor in front of them, the thing about that show that stood out most was the kid standing out against the game-backdrop.
This looks a lot like that.
September 11th, 2012 at 10:54 am
@Jerk of All Trades: Knightmare? Are we talking early 80s and broadswords against skeletons sort of thing?
September 11th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Lizard man: “Puny human, your blue-ray has no effect on me. I am already blue…Hahahaha!”
September 12th, 2012 at 1:04 am
@Phil and THX1138: You had to say something! We had the same thing in the US, and I had to hunt down the name (which wasn’t Letraset and which I couldn’t remember either.)
Appropriately for this cover, it was Presto Magix.
(Seldom found in toy shops. Always found in drugstores and gas stations.)
Something seems to have gone wrong with the kids’ forcefield/time bubble, because Zappy the Wonder Teen’s left leg appears to be on backwards.
And I’ll agree with the “font problems” tag only because Countdown font does not deserve to be printed in beige and then airbrushed.
September 12th, 2012 at 4:29 am
@Tat
I think the show I saw was called Nick Arcade, but yeah, it was a lot like your description.
September 12th, 2012 at 5:50 am
Am I the only one who can’t stop staring at what appears to be a turtle with insect wings? And a helmet. And antennas. And then there’s a spider with a piece of intestine stuck on its back.
Also, thins is either a movie set, or that girl’s got super human strength or something, judging on how she is holding that big block of cement.
September 12th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Damn, how did I miss it? Is that an impaled armadillo?
September 14th, 2012 at 12:28 am
This cover just screams “self-published”.
September 17th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Teal and orange.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Argh, the poses… why are they all so awful and wooden and flat? I want that lizard as a pet, though.
March 27th, 2015 at 2:55 pm
“After putting the effort trying to decipher the text written with this nearly-unreadable font, no one’s going to bother looking at the pictures. Put a blue salamander man and an insect glowing red and three teenagers on a street. Oh, and a power ring shooting something blue. That’ll do.”
August 27th, 2015 at 2:55 am
My eyes are burning at the Photoshop fail I see before me. Ow.
March 24th, 2017 at 2:16 pm
Is it Assassinaion Ankiety: The McKenzie Files or Assassination Anxiety: The McXenzie Files?
We have the mother or all “font problems” book cover.
March 24th, 2017 at 2:27 pm
Colossus: The Forbin Project Font.
March 25th, 2017 at 2:03 am
This is certainly… special.
I might read it as
A88888IN8TION
Or possibly an A followed by 5 dice which are showing the two pip side.
Also McXenzie, for sure.
Perhaps the font problem was an attempt to distract from the bad MS Paint graphics made out of the less-desirable leftovers from a few Colorforms sets. Blind you with the letters, maybe you won’t notice the pictures.
March 25th, 2017 at 4:58 pm
This is one of the most horrible covers I’ve ever seen.
This is a description of the book–
“The three captured and reprogrammed Brelac Reploids have proved their worth to the Protectorate in a fierce battle against the powerful cybernetic weapon Succubus, developed by traitorous Dr. Fenlow. The Reploids, commissioned to form a special unit known as the Silencers under the jurisdiction of the military’s Central Intelligence Division, are back on Maseklos Prime, working at menial jobs while the CID keeps a close eye on them. That changes when President Drennan is almost killed in a bizarre assassination attempt.
Colin McKenzie and his team are ordered to uncover whoever’s behind the assassination attempt and to find and destroy the frightening weapons responsible for the horrible death and destruction at the President’s last election campaign address. After the first attempt on the President’s life, it’s certain more are sure to follow.
Meanwhile, Colin remains curious and wary about his dark past as a Vendetta operative formerly working against the Protectorate. The more he learns about his previous life, the less he likes it. Even more worrisome is the odd dreams he’s been having.
As Colin, Diane, and Kelly chase leads in their case, they realize they may be up against unstoppable weapons – but they are the Protectorate’s only hope.”
Gee I never would’ve guessed!
The first book in the series actually had a pretty decent cover, even if by the description it’s not my cup of tea.
http://bookreviewuniverse.com/mckenzie-files-barry-k-nelson/
I wonder what happened?
March 25th, 2017 at 10:22 pm
@tracy “menial jobs”? It looks like they just got off their shifts at the Gap. Explains a lot.
March 26th, 2017 at 1:56 pm
You’d never see a book series with the title “The Podznofsky Files”. Just sayin’.
March 27th, 2017 at 3:16 am
@AR: I believe that Dr. J. R. Asimov wrote The Podznofsky Files. Although it’s never been published, both Alice Munro and John Updike called the handwritten manuscript ‘…the best thing we have ever read, and we are John Updike and Alice Munro, like it says on our name tags, and you should take everything we say very seriously.’
Edit: in fact. Dr. J. R. Asimov wrote The Podznofsky Flies and I apologise most humbly for the confusion.