Jan 06
Tom Noir’s Art Direction: I want a cover that oozes manliness from every pore! And I want to see those pores! I want to smell the musky odor of that manliness! I want to bathe in it as it drips down my naked, strapping torso beneath the scorching gaze of a skullsplosion! KABOOM!!!
Published 1988
January 6th, 2016 at 10:01 am
Did you know? Many copies of the book had to be thrown away during the UK release, because of all the naughty schoolchildren who scribbled a “G” over the “C” in the title with marker pens… or simply added a “K”.
There’s just no getting around the fatal goof here, is there? Just say the book title several times fast, and you wonder “What The Hell Were They Thinking?”…
January 6th, 2016 at 10:03 am
“BY THE POWER OF THE INVISIBLE SWORD OF MANFAC!!”
January 6th, 2016 at 10:18 am
Beyond bionics and into treatment of lumbago!
January 6th, 2016 at 11:18 am
Beyond armpit hair! Beyond butch!
January 6th, 2016 at 11:47 am
“Sir… your nipple is sweating again…”
January 6th, 2016 at 12:38 pm
A human skull in a mushroom cloud. As far as mushroom cloud art goes it’s a little above a laughing Satan in my opinion.
And the book lives down to the level of the cover. As if there was any doubt.
http://www.momentaryfascinations.com/books/tales%20of%20the%20self-indulgent/manfac.html
January 6th, 2016 at 12:57 pm
I’m guessing being told a ‘Manfac’ is a bit like ‘Mansplaining’, so here goes…
MANFAC: Men’s right activists’ boycott of ‘The Force Awakens’ successful; film declared major flop!
January 6th, 2016 at 1:13 pm
Should have injected more of that Human Growth Hormone into the left arm, to even things out.
Man-what-the-fac
January 6th, 2016 at 1:52 pm
“Now today class we will learn to draw the human triceps. Wait, where’s Bob? Oh, he got a paying gig to do a cover for Baen? Ah me, he left class too soon; he was not ready, and I fear the outcome.”
January 6th, 2016 at 3:29 pm
‘Manfac’ is of course an anagram for ‘Mac Fan’. Obviously this fellow on the cover is celebrating his acquisition of an Apple Lisa.
January 6th, 2016 at 4:06 pm
@A.R.Yngve: Beyond armpits!
January 6th, 2016 at 4:22 pm
Get a haircut, ya dirty hippie A-bomb.
January 6th, 2016 at 4:50 pm
@fred – A book review that includes its own Good Show Sir worthy credentials:
“The other reward from this book is the cover, presumably featuring Lance in his hunky Manfac suit. I read the book on a plane, and generally angled the cover away from onlookers, out of the hope that they wouldn’t get the wrong idea about what kind of book I was reading, or what kind of person I was, Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That.”
January 6th, 2016 at 5:22 pm
If you happen to be reading MANFAC in public, DO NOT hold your fingers across the title logo so that they obscure the second “A” and the space after “C”.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:24 pm
I think he’s got bionic nipples too.
January 6th, 2016 at 5:31 pm
What I want to know is, how does he put his arms down?
January 6th, 2016 at 5:32 pm
Perhaps a “Spung!” tag should be added.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:11 pm
I assume this man is supposed to be attractive. Well, I don’t know about you lot, but I have never found overmuscled bodybuilder physiques to be in any way attractive. And this guy here has muscles dripping out of his very pores. Eeh.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:33 pm
I am losing control. The more I look at this cover the weirder it is. I know I am a bit “pareidolia” obsessive, but I swear there’s a face in this guy’s chest. See the nipples as eyes and look down. But do not fear, Tag, I will not lobby for a “face in chest” tag.
January 6th, 2016 at 6:55 pm
Since the book is about a guy in a strongman suit, maybe the nipples are his eye holes.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:16 pm
If the nipples are eyes they’re really wonky – one is significantly higher than the other.
I saw a lionman face, with the shadows under his pecs as the furrowed brow of Alsan.
January 6th, 2016 at 7:34 pm
@ Tom Noir – You call that a strongman suit? This is a strongman suit.
January 6th, 2016 at 8:24 pm
@Tat—I too saw a feline cast to the chest face, but figured I was already pretty far out on the ledge, so didn’t want to push it.
January 6th, 2016 at 11:39 pm
He ain’t so tough – no mansuit’s really complete without fists for nipples.
January 7th, 2016 at 1:27 am
@Perry: and three Y chromosomes?
January 7th, 2016 at 1:51 am
In just seven days I can make you a …
Too bad the world ended when Joe won Mr. Universe.
January 7th, 2016 at 1:26 pm
It looks just like in the movie, but the actual posability is CRAP.
January 7th, 2016 at 9:08 pm
This is one of Miro’s iconic covers for the entire oeuvre of Martin Gaidin. This book, with this cover, is eminently collectible. If you find it in a second-hand bookshop, get it – it’s exceedingly rare and is worth about £200 on the current Gaidin market.
😀
January 7th, 2016 at 10:16 pm
Hot damn! I knew snapping up every paperback I saw that featured nipples would pay off!!
June 17th, 2016 at 11:22 pm
If you were to hold your finger over the F, you could claim that the title is ‘Maniac’…and the gentleman on the cover is a maniac, maniac on the floor, because he’s dancing like he (literally) has never danced before, and doesn’t know how it works. If.
August 22nd, 2016 at 5:42 pm
North Korea’s version of Netflix wouldn’t mention merit here…if it weren’t called Manbang.
I hope you’ll join me in calling for a Manbang in every North Korean home.
August 23rd, 2016 at 8:13 am
Only in North Korea can you get away with a name like “Manbang”, because anyone who laughs at it is sent away to a prison camp.
“Long live the people’s glorious new Manb… BWA HA HAAA!”
“All right, off you go… NEXT!”
“We thank our Dear Leader for bringing us the Great Manba… HA HA HA HAAAA!!”
“NEXT!!”
November 6th, 2016 at 9:48 pm
In hindsight, it should have been obvious that 2016 was to be a year of covers so bad that Flashback Fridays came into being, more as a necessity than merely a good idea. 😉
February 13th, 2022 at 12:35 pm
I GOOGLEed. The world seems to be free of Manfac fanfic.
February 13th, 2022 at 12:57 pm
You lads are all just jealous. I know I am….. um, was that over sharing ?
February 14th, 2022 at 12:20 am
Why in the world a publisher thought this title and this cover were a good idea, no one will ever know.
checks publisher’s name Ah. Yes. Well. QED.
Can we get a “weird pecs” tag? Why are his nipples at two different heights?
February 14th, 2022 at 3:20 am
@GSSxN: his nipples are at the correct height. He laughs at your puny conceptions of perspective. It is the Universe that’s at the wrong and Batmanesque angle. Man-FACT!
October 10th, 2022 at 4:29 pm
Is this an ad for steroids or a rejected Manowar cover?