741. RT Rewind: June 2007 Ads & Features

3 hours ago 1

It’s time machine time! We’re going back to June 2007 to look at the Ads & Features in Romantic Times magazine. This one’s got some gawdawful letters to the editor and some equally heinous responses, and we are prepped for battle.

First, we talk about cereal. As you do.

And I have a Content Warning! At about 20 minutes into our conversation, we start talking about this awful letter to the editor. Please be advised there is some rank homophobia on display here.

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Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:

Visual Aids? But of course!

There are three versions of this cover and each one is more surprising than the last.

Two naked men, one standing to the side with his arms up, and another seated with legs bent, while behind them a woman in a strapless gown or a bedsheet looks at both of them.

Ok, definitely naked.

Three people in black and white, a man in dark trousers is embracing a man from the side who appears to be nude, and to the right is a woman reaching for them both

Still naked.

oh hey it’s a historical? A man in a burgundy vest, cravat and cutaway coat is dancing with a blonde woman in a purple gown in an ornate ballroom. No one is naked.

Wait, this is a historical?? Would you have guessed that from the prior covers, without reading the cover copy?

A man with long black hair is shirtless in some kind of stone dungeon (it’s clearly copy and paste with some outer glow enabled). He’s got jeans? On? And a sword, but right in the middle of his chest is a tattoo of a dragon shaped like an S.

First, that tattoo had to hurt like hell.

Second, it looks like Trogdor.

Third, we think he looks like a dad who is up at 3 am questioning all his life choices in allowing a sleepover at their house.

Dance of the Seven Veils by Cris Anton - a black and white photo of an abdomen I think bending backwards but only visible from the ribs to the hip, with some kind of black fabric over top. It could be a finger, a leg, a peen, it’s a mystery.

It took me more than a few seconds to figure out what I was looking at.

Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess by Gracie C McKeever - a collage cover with a shirtless, hairless white man’s chest above a snow scene with a car. He is next to a close up of a wolf, and in the lower right corner is a Black woman who looks bewildered.

So that’s a title. And a disturbing collage.

A cartoon illustration of a baseball player with his arm out about to catch a ball in his glove, while embracing a woman who is ridiculously thinly drawn. Like her neck is 1/8th of an inch wide? And she’s wearing a blue crop top and jean shorts with hearts on the bum, but she is stretched out so very much. It’s very Betty Spaghetti.

A close up of a sweaty man’s shirtless abs in a baseball uniform trouser with a bat over his shoulders. It looks very similar to the Play by Play covers by Jaci Burton.

This is another before and after. QUITE DIFFERENT, huh? We were fascinated by how impossibly thin her neck is.

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