Fusenews: Deja Lu

• There’s a great round-up over at Publishers Weekly about a recent debate regarding women superheroes and their current status in terms of film and publishing.  Can I put in my two cents?  I want a good female superhero movie, sure.  But you know the only way that that’s going to work, don’t you?  Think about it.  Who are the best female superheroes out there?  Don’t say Wonder Woman either, please.  Wonder Woman had camp, but she’s essentially uninteresting.  Like She-Ra, we dressed up like her once, but she was cute.  Not butt-kicking.  No, the best superheroes in my book are Xena and Buffy.  Why?  Because they friggin’ had a sense of humor!!  Until Hollywood realizes that we want women who can kick AND be a bit wry, we’re going to get the same sad characters over and over and over again.  And the boys will say we don’t really want to watch superhero movies, and around the debate will go.  Failing that, I’ll settle for the great storytelling.  I’m easy.  Heck, just make a Supervillain movie if that’s what it takes.  I’ll watch Harley Quinn.  I’m not picky.

• A marketing blog, eh?  I’d heard of Shrinking Violets and their marketing site for introverts.  But a new blog I’d not yet heard of that also covers the marketing sphere is Market My Words.  It’s primarily YA (hence why it has never come to my attention before) but it offers plenty of good advice for any kind of author, regardless of age range.  I was particularly taken with the blogroll.  To my mind, a good blogroll is worth its weight in gold, and this one looks particularly well tended.

• Let us call it The Great Madeline Slip-Up.  A typo, of sorts, that has gone unchecked for decades.  Have you ever seen it?

• This happens less often, but have you ever found yourself staring at an image from a book from your youth that you had completely and utterly forgotten about?  I like to call it deja lit.  Already read.  Or would that be deja lire?  These past few years I have been systematically finding and tracking down those picture books that I read as a child, allowing myself to indulge in re-enjoying a couple odd and wonderful titles.  But when I went over to Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves I was shocked to find this image staring me in the face:

I had no idea I read something called The Together Book as a child, but I definitely had this when young.  As a kid I was mildly obsessed with food, as portrayed in picture books.  Cupcakes usually, but anything this big and chocolaty was bound to retain my interest as well.  Amazing.  Sidenote: Why aren’t there more books with luscious drawings of food in them these days?  Seems everything I read is trying to gross kids out instead.  Bring back the gigantic chocolate milkshakes!

• Do you ever want to warn someone that they’re in for a world of pain?  Take a look at this contest coming from New York’s McNally Jackson bookstore.  I cannot help but think that they have no idea what they’re in for.  New Yorkers love this type of thing. Thanks to Brian Floca for the link.

• Ron at Galleycat recently reported on Hollywood Scribes Staking a Kid-Lit Claim.  You may have heard something about this earlier last year.  It’s just your standard Hollywood screenwriters creating a children’s literary imprint story.  I’ll keep an eye on them to see how they do.  It’s an interesting experiment in any case.  Can a new imprint make it if all the authors are children’s literary unknowns?  And who the heck are their illustrators?  Hm.

• The New York Times attempts to get all snobby on our favorite Wimpy Kid but Lisa Von Drasek is having none of it.  Particularly when they started talking about visual images.  Go, Lisa, go!

• I don’t suppose I ever noticed it before, but Edgar Allen Poe really needed that moustache.  I mean look at the man’s face.  The moustache really holds the whole thing together.  Otherwise he’d just look like your average last 19th century schlub, and where’s the fun in that?  My two moustached cents.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• Daily Image:

Life is too short not to enjoy a good Hermione Granger mouse once in a while. 

This comes via The House of Mouse, so you may purchase her if you’ve half a mind to.  I wonder if they have a Desperaux?  I suppose that might defeat the point.  Thanks to Children’s Illustration for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews