The company that represents the Diary of a Wimpy Kid brand recently won a temporary restraining order against the publisher of two Wimpy Kid-parodying graphic novels: the "Wimpy Zombie" series by Fred Perry and David Hutchison. According to Publishers Weekly, the zombie books strongly resemble the originals, and their publishers didn't include a "parody" stamp.
I'm sorry for Mr. Kinney and all... but I'm so relieved they've run out of ways to "improve" upon Jane Austen. Way to move on to fresh blood, parody publishers! But you might want to hire a lawyer—unlike Jane Austen, living authors are lot more likely to sue.
According the Horn Book Blog, Akashic Books is releasing a G-rated version of their best-selling humor book Go the [Expletive] to Sleep entitled Seriously, Just Go to Sleep. This confuses me. My mom once told me about a gag book called The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew, which was, of course, filled with blank pages. This sounds like the equivalent of re-writing that book to contain the actual musings of Spiro T. Agnew.
Cinematical is linking Noomi Rapace (who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) to an upcoming American project called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Apparently, the movie will take place 15 years after the witch-killing brother and sister's first brush with death, and focus on their new line of work: supernatural bounty hunting. Now this could turn into something like the painfully bad Van Helsing, but with rumored stars like Rapace and Jeremy Renner, as well as director Tommy Wirkola (who made the Norwegians-battling-Nazi zombies film Dead Snow) it should be interesting—or at least fully embrace its campiness.
Ah, satirical advice from Disney's cartoon princesses! Check out these words of wisdom from "Belle" and "Ariel":
To be fair, I feel like cherry-picking objectionable messages from Disney films is like looking for potentially offensive stuff in the Bible: sure, it's there, but that's not really the whole story...
...although that nuanced viewpoint didn't stop me from grinning over these videos. Somebody should embroider "The lesson here is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder ... as long as the woman is good-looking" on a pillow!
How did I miss this? The 2010 Bulwer-Lytton contest results were released late last month, and this year's winner is (as they always are) a delight:
For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.
-Composed by Molly Ringle, of Seattle, WA
I'm also really enjoying the Bulwer-Lytton people's newest game, which involves celebrating bad sentences found in real, published books. My favorite?
"The possessiveness in his voice was deep and strong, its triumphant throb cutting through the layers of sexual delight as thoroughly as a knife through warm butter, and it hit her like a deluge of cold water."
Apparently, this comes from a book by someone named Helen Brooks called Husband by Contract. Now, for all I know, the rest of this book is fine... but that sentence? That sentence is a treasure.
AustenBlog has posted a generally-positive guest review by some dude named Douglas R. Burchill of the new Pride and Prejudice and Zombies video game for the iPhone. If you're looking for the short version, here goes: Mr. Burchill liked the game overall, but thought it was too short. However, for $2.99 you can't go too far wrong, can you?
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: the Graphic Novel, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
To misquote Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that an unexpectedly successful book will force its creators to keep milking it like a cash cow until it falls over dead. That's why Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith's best-selling parody of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, has spawned a prequel, an upcoming movie version, countlessimitators, and now a graphic novel adaptation.
For those of you who've managed to avoid this pop culture phenomenon, here's a quick rundown: In Grahame-Smith's take on Austen's classic romance, early 19th century England is overrun with brain-eating undead, and the upper classes have devoted themselves to exterminating the zombie scourge. While the five Bennet sisters are all expert warriors, quick-witted and sharp-tongued Elizabeth is the best fighter in the family... but even her dedication to the deadly arts is shaken when two wealthy, single, and extremely well-trained young men arrive in the area.
There were, admittedly, a few clever moments in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and even though most of the artwork looked strangely unfinished, it was still miles better than Marvel's recent Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Unfortunately, every flicker of wit was offset by a heavy-handed joke about zombies, ninjas, or Elizabeth holding Mr. Darcy's (musket) balls. While the end result would have been much improved by a ruthless editing job, I have to give this adaptation props for being slightly more fun than I expected. Admittedly, that's not saying much, but if you're a really devoted fan of both Pride and Prejudice and campy horror, you could probably do something worse with your hard-earned $14.99.
This reminds me of all those [classic novel] v. the monster books, only way more fun. Because unlike Jane Austen Beats Down the Werewolves (or whatever they're publishing next), Twilight would actually be improved by adding a hungry dinosaur.
The website Popcandy (no relation) is currently featuring a sneak peek of the upcoming graphic novel adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, due out May 4th. It all looks very "Barbie vs. the Monsters" to me, but what do I know?
And in other news, Disney has decided to go for a more dude-friendly take on the ol' fairytale genre: from here on out (says the Los Angeles Times), they don't want to be "put in a box" by making movies just for girls. Because there are already so many movies out there aimed at females, and Lord knows we'd want to be fair.
Man, not only are they making a movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it's going to star (and be produced by) Natalie Portman, an actress I have always found hugely overrated*. I don't think I would have seen this movie anyway, but this news officially kills any shot they had at weaseling $9 out of me.
*I don't think she's as irritating as, say, Scarlett Johansson... but when you've said that you've said everything.
Slate is currently featuring an essay called "How I wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", by Quirk Books author Ben H. Winters. I'm still not paying to read his book, but I have to give the man credit: he comes across as charming and funny, and does a better job of selling the material than I would have expected.
Charlize Theron has acquired the screen rights to Christopher Buckley's satirical novel Florence of Arabia, which is apparently about "a State Dept. employee (to be played by Theron) who, after watching her friend marry the prince of a Middle East country and subsequently get executed, fights for equal rights for the women of that country".
Apart from the friend's execution bit, that sounds exactly like a Harlequin romance novel I read once.
AustenBlog has just posted a review of a book called Prawn and Prejudice, and they seem to really like it... although I'd read it based on the title alone. I might be bored by the whole zombies/sea monsters/unicorns + Austen thing (note: okay, no unicorns yet, but you know it's only a matter of time), but prawns are something new and more impressively original. A tip of my hat to the author!
I'm still not thrilled by the [Jane Austen novel] + [random monster] formula*, but I have to give Quirk Classics credit: this is the best-quality book trailer I've ever seen.
*Seriously, choose a different author--one whose books actually needed improvement. Imagine how much better, say, a D. H. Lawrence novel would be with some zombies in it!
Amanda Grange, author of the novel Mr. Darcy's Diary, pictured at right (not to be confused with thisMr. Darcy's Diary), has written a delightful collection of diary entries featuring Miss Mary Bennet's take on the events of Pride and Prejudice. Best of all, you can read them FOR FREE--my favorite price!--at Historical Romance UK. Enjoy!
Note: Speaking of the *other* Mr. Darcy's Diary (the one by Maya Slater) mentioned above, did you guys know it's going to be released here in the US in June? They've reworked the title (The Private Diary of Mr. Darcy), but if you've always wanted to read about Austen's most well-known hero having sex with housemaids or hookers, now's your chance...
The company that represents the Diary of a Wimpy Kid brand recently won a temporary restraining order against the publisher of two Wimpy Kid-parodying graphic novels: the "Wimpy Zombie" series by Fred Perry and David Hutchison. According to Publishers Weekly, the zombie books strongly resemble the originals, and their publishers didn't include a "parody" stamp. 
