April 21, 2010

Midweek Miscellany

Woodlands Road 78

Ah, Wednesday. Somewhat deflated, but still afloat...


I've never read any of Hope Larson's graphics, but apparently they've won Eisner Awards, which are a big deal in the comics/graphics industry. (Nothing to do with Disney, either. I swear.) I'm glad this writer/illustrator is so well regarded, because she's treading on some almost sacred ground - she's making a graphic out of A Wrinkle in Time! From her blog:

"If you’re worried about me messing with a book that means so much to so many people, well, I understand. It’s impossible for an adaptation to capture everything that makes the original work so special. Please know that I’m treating the book with respect and sticking as close to the original as possible, while making the changes that need to be made so it sings as a graphic novel."


I'm always in favor of authors who know that they're dealing with a well-loved work; here's hoping her sensitivity stands her in good stead during. After all, it means more readers for L'Engle, and more people working on time traveling via tesseract. [Source: SF Signal.]

Okay, at some point, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Tim Burton, after being amused by the book trailer is allegedly turning the book Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, to film. Seriously.

The first mash-up was... original, thus briefly amusing. The next one felt a bit exploitative, and like people were making a quick buck off of the Austen estate. Now it's starting to feel ridiculously like this mashup thing is a Facebook meme gone real-world. Not sure that's a line that should be crossed...

Every week, the world gets just that much weirder.

To end on a more amusing note: Penguin Books Australia is advocating cannibalism in its cookbook division...!

Isabella Rosselini, not content with merely acting out the courtship rituals of insects with her last Sundance hit, has now taken on cuttlefish. Ducks. ...bedbugs... The animal world is disturbingly hilarious, as always.

Kelly Armstrong's third YA novel The Reckoning has a really interesting looking trailer,

And, Sir Terry Pratchett gives an update on Going Postal, Woot!

Yesterday being Earth Day, Julie Larios had the most beautiful picture postcard to the world at her site. Check it out.

Colleen's got the numbers for the Guys Lit Wire Book Drive thus far. I like how she puts it, "As harsh as this world can be, it's also fairly beautiful sometimes."

Word.

5 comments:

Sarah Stevenson said...

I've read two GNs by Hope Larson--Gray Horses and Chiggers--plus some graphic short stories in the Flight series, and I think she's a good choice to handle A Wrinkle in Time...anyway, I'll be eager to see it!

tanita✿davis said...

Oh, wait. Chiggers. Why does that sound so familiar???

I think you loaned that to me.

Anonymous said...

Amen on Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and the like.

Colleen said...

I have A LOT of respect for Larson - she is great and really "gets" the world of thoughtful teenage girls which is pretty critical for depicting Meg Murray. it's nice to see her addressing the gravity of the assignment though.

And thanks for the shout out for the book fair. It's awesome, isn't it?

Gail Gauthier said...

I loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was a unique idea, and I think the Bennett daughters being zombie fighters worked because in the context of the original book they lived in a world where women were "fighting" for mates. But the mad rush to imitate it seems like nothing but jumping on the bandwagon for a buck. Talk about an instant formula. So far I haven't been at all tempted to read another zombie mashup.

Perhaps I shouldn't say that because one day I may be jumping on a bandwagon for a buck. But not yet.