They're reaching for your money. note
This is an instance where, on a cover, poster, or something of the sort, a character's arm is stretched out towards the audience, with the character's hand in full focus. Typically this is done to make the cover more action packed and intense, while also not requiring any form of real motion, explosions, or anything else that could potentially make it harder to read.
It's not enough for a character to simply have their hand slightly ahead in the picture. The hand needs to be either the dominant focus point, or one of the dominant focus points, of the image. Otherwise, it's just rather inconsequential.
A Sister Trope to Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You. Can be related to an Ass Kicking Pose, but not always. Compare Film the Hand, which can use a similar pose, but functions very differently in the story.
Examples:
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Anime
- Certain promotional art for Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), as well as the manga on which it was based show Ed reaching for the Philosopher's Stone, a major goal of the Elric brothers early in the story.
- The poster of Iron Man: Rise of Technovore.
- With Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, both the DVD cover and the movie posters have Professor Layton pointing to the audience.
Comic Books
- Jack Kirby was famous for drawing characters with their hands outstretched toward the readers. Typically, if you're looking at a comic form the 60's or 70's and you see this, it's a good chance Kirby did it.
- She-Hulk: On the cover of issue #22
of the 2005 series, She-Hulk reaches out of the cover and pulls the reader's arm.
- Marvelman Classic: The first issue of Marvel Comics' reprint series shows MM floating in space, reaching a hand out towards the reader.
- One of the covers for Cage Vol. 2 # 1 is almost entirely his fist.◊
- The cover for Flashpoint (DC Comics) #12 has the Flash running towards the cover, hand outstretched ahead.
- Transformers character art created in the Dreamwave house style was typically in a squatting pose with one arm outstretched toward the reader — a pose known in the fandom as "_____ is about to snatch your purse".
Films — Animation
- In Turning Red, the poster Abby has for the 4*Town concert features Robaire in this pose.
Films — Live-Action
- The main promotional poster for The Avengers has Tony Stark's hand glowing in the foreground.
- The poster for Spanking the Monkey.
- The poster for Phenomenon has George reaching his hand out as if to aim his telekinetic ability.
- 2 of the 3 main posters for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have Harry or a group with Harry pointing their wands at the screen. One doubles as Harry Potter is about the shoot you, while the other is just a foreground wand.
- Hulk has most of the poster taken up by the Hulk's huge green hand which is reaching directly for the viewer.
Literature
- Isaac Asimov's The Complete Robot: The only artwork on the Science Fiction Book Club cover merges with the title; a robotic claw coming from the side and forming the 'C' in "COMPLETE".
Live-Action TV
- The Doctor Who promotional image for the 12th Doctor's outfit has his actor, Peter Capaldi, reaching towards the camera, exactly like this trope describes.
- Many official posters and DVD covers for Merlin have Merlin's hand in the foreground, lighting up with magic.
- It's practically a rule at this point to have Eleven extending her hand in nearly every Stranger Things poster or promotional image. Justified in that extending her hand is often how she uses her powers In-Universe.
Music
- Rea from Reamonn does this gesture in the music video for "Through the Eyes of a Child" when he sings the line "please take my hand".
Video Games
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow's box art. Played up even more in its promotional art.
- Devil Survivor 2 has the protagonist extending his hand towards the audience on the cover. The Updated Re-release changed the cover, removing this aspect.
- The box art of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat does it with Donkey Kong's fist instead of a palm.
- Trauma Center: Under the Knife's box art.
- Ace Attorney
- The franchise frequently uses posters with the main character pointing into the screen. The franchises logo even has a disproportionately large pointing hand dominating it.
- And, as such, the box art for the crossover game Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney has both Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton pointing to the audience.
- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's cover art.
- Punch-Out!! Wii's cover art.
- Devil May Cry 4: Nero gets a Slo-Mo Big Air with this kind of shot just after he was dogpiled by a bunch of Bianco Angelo. The one he was trying to reach for (with his Devil Bringer, which made the shot even more impressive) is actually Kyrie, who was being taken by Sanctus, but he was only able to grab her pendant. This scene is featured prominently in the vanilla and Special Edition openings.
- Various covers of Wario Land 3 have Wario holding his hand towards the cover, with three fingers pointed up, forming a "W".
- Sonic Unleashed has the titular character reaching out with his Werehog hand.
Web Comics
- Sleepless Domain: The cover◊ of the first print volume, The Price of Magic, features Undine Wells reaching out with one hand towards the audience, as she falls through the crumbling background and into a purple abyss.
Western Animation
- Certain box art for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- One version of the movie poster for Don Bluth's Titan A.E. has protagonist Cale Tucker reaching into the foreground with his right hand. Visible within the palm of that hand is the star map which will guide them to the Titan, a world-building spacecraft built by Cale's father.
- The DVD art for Beware the Batman.
- Smiling Friends: Mr. Peanut does this with both hands when gesturing about how Mr. Boss needs to do a "peanut-jig" of his own.
Real Life
- Many military recruitment posters use this trope, such as the iconic "I Want You" Uncle Sam poster, or others as seen here.
