When you’re a designer, you tend to have colloquial names for the art we use on covers, especially when they are in a series. Sometimes they’re innocuously referred to, such as “women in beautiful dresses.” But sometimes, well, we use more caution when referring to them.

If you’ve ever read Dean Wesley Smith’s Thunder Mountain series, you’ll notice an art theme. Horses. Generally, cowboys on horses. To see all the Thunder Mountain covers and read more about the books, click here.

But inside the WMG offices, they’re referred to as the horse’s ass series. Because, well, a lot of them show the ass end of a horse. And we have a bit of a juvenile sense of humor sometimes.

Now that Dean lives in Vegas, he comes across all sorts of fascinating things. And wouldn’t you know it, he and Kris found a giant horse at the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden—decorated for Christmas no less—and Kris had Dean pose for pictures. Naturally, Kris and Dean sent me some.  

(click the images to enlarge)

As you can see, horse’s ass pictures are even funnier with the author in them. What a wonderful gift for the holidays. I just hope that’s not what they meant by “Christmas bonus.” <grin>

Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.