Fusenews: Eat Delicious Lead

• Magazine cartoonist Mike Lynch recently put up some high-res scans of a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as penned by a Mr. Art Seiden.  Some nice mid-50s images to be found here, if you’ve a yen for that kind of thing.  I just like the expression on Snow White’s face on the cover.  She’s not casually skipping through the picturesque woods.  She is friggin’ booking it for her life, and these doggone little men keep getting in her way.  Thanks to Drawn for the link.

• There’s a new Edge of the Forest out for March/April.  For those of you unaware of the online serial, it’s a blogger run look at kidlit in a bi-monthly format.  Very cool stuff is always to be found there.

• I’m not much of an anime fan myself, but this was intriguing.  Walter Minkel at The Monkey Speaks managed to locate something called The Library War.  Says the site, "The action comedy anime adapts Hiro Arikawa’s popular novel about battles fought to preserve libraries when a new law threatens to clamp down on freedom of expression in 2019."  Sounds about right to me.

• As Kelly Herold said herself when she posted a link to this, this isn’t strictly children’s literature.  Still, it’s pretty exciting getting to look at some of the panels from his upcoming graphic novel A People’s History of American Empire.  The panels look a little out of order, but this will clearly be a book to watch out for.  You can see a YouTube video narrated by Viggo Mortensen, using panels from the title. Thanks to Big A little a for the link.

• If you recently looked at the New York Times article New HarperCollins Unit to Try to Cut Writer Advancesand thought, "Huh?", I recommend that you read the Oz and Ends piece Running the Numbers on a New Publishing Model.  Scary stuff.

• Thoughts on the recent Independent article Bestselling boys’ adventure book set for big and small screens, which discusses various works of children’s literature currently being turned into films.

The Dangerous Book for Boys – Oh heavens, please no.

The Wee Free Men – Please don’t screw this up.  Please oh please oh please oh please DON’T screw this up.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson I trust.  He loves him his Dahl.

The Witches – Wait . . . what?  They’re doing another one?  Probably a good idea since the last one had a tacked on happy ended that always bugged me.  So who’s gonna direct. . . . oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!  Del Toro?  Guillermo Del Toro?  Mr. Pan’s Labyrinth Del Toro?  Right-o.  New plan.  You go and see that movie and meanwhile I will lie quivering under my bedsheets until it all goes away.

Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• No one writes this sort of thing without knowing perfectly well that people are going to complain.  Yes, this week The Telegraph produced a list of 110 books: The perfect library.  At least there even is a children’s book section.  It consists of: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (the Famous Five are very big these days),The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, The Lord of the Rings by J.R. R. Tolkien, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, Babar by Jean de Brunhoff (the only out-and-out picture book), The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I’m sure they felt very daring with Rowling and Pullman.  Not a very exciting list, in the end.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• Drop Everything and Read Day is nigh.  D.E.A.R., a day in honor of Beverly Cleary, is going to be on April 12th, apparently.  For those of you in New York, here’s the skinny on celebrating in that big green thing that takes up so much retail space in the center of our island.  Say they the, "’Drop Everything and Read’ Central Park Challenge will be held on Saturday, April 12, from 8AM-6PM, in Central Park’s ‘Norman’s Landscape’, along Central Park West, between 86th and 90th St. (take the A, C, B, D Train to 86th St. station).  With crowds up to 10-20,000 expected throughout the day, adults, children and families are encouraged to bring a book, a blanket and a snack to ‘Drop Everything and Read!’" (Norman’s Landscape?)  Knicks center Randolph Morris, former NBA All-Star John Starks and former WNBA All-Star, and New York Liberty center Kym Hampton will all be there.  I don’t know who any of those people are myself, but if you do maybe you’ll be interested.

• The world was stunned on Sunday when The New York Times announced that bloggers don’t live forever.  Time to move to Plan B: Cryogenically freeze head.  I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.

• And finally, ever chew your pencils in school?  Ever want to start?  Eh, voila!  Delicious chocolate pencils. 
  

I suppose the idea is to make the shavings into pretty little designs on your dessert.  My pencils wouldn’t get that far.  Ticonderoga deliciousness!  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews