Fusenews: Free as a Tea

I’ve mentioned before that I was raised on comic books as a kid.  Harvey comics, Archie comics, Carl Barks comics, my dad’s old original Superboy and X-Men and my mom’s old Pep comics (which I destroyed in my fervor, undoubtedly costing my family hundreds of potential dollars in the process). So I was thrilled to hear about this Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, published earlier this month through Abrams by Art Spiegelman and his wife, Francoise Mouly.  It looks fantastic.  All kinds of old comics I’d love for kids today to get their hands on.  Just hope I can get my library system to buy it.

• Is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs the very first successful (and I mean that in both a box office and a critical p.o.v.) picture to film adaptation?  My husband suggested Jumanji and Zathura as potential contenders but Jumanji wasn’t really that great and Zathura didn’t make much money in the long run.  I had thought that Where the Wild Things Are might be the first, but that sneaky little Barrett book slipped in right under the finish line first.  That can mean only one thing: Hollywood is going to notice and start doing more of these.  Entertainment Weekly is already on the case with their blog’s post Classic children’s books we’d like to see receive Hollywood treatment.  The Goodnight, Moon adaptation is clearly the best of the lot, if only for saying, "Also, the Moon killed Smith’s family and he’s out for revenge. Sample Dialogue: ‘Say goodnight, Moon.’ *EXPLOSION*"  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

• Over in Boston, Kidlit Pie Night was a rousing success. I wonder if this is the start of bigger and better things.  What if we got every part of the country to host a Kidlit Drink/Pie/Local Delicacy Night?  We could have chapters in every state!  In different parts of the state!  Texas could have ten going at once!  Calm down, girl . . . calm . . calm.  In any case, Mitali Perkins has pictures of their Night up and running.  She even has a roster of attendees.  I never take down names, I’m afraid.  This is partly because I am simply terrible with names.  Nor am I particularly good with picture taking, but fortunately Mr. Greg Holch was on hand with pictures of his own.  Here (if I can get them up, which is questionable) you can see the pies and cakes made in honor of Cheryl’s birthday and my Boston Cream Pie (sans cream) in honor of the Bostonians.

And this is the closest I’ll get to a shot of the people who were in the background (from one side of the room, anyway).  This is of me and Monica Edinger with folks like Michael Stearns and Martha Mihalick behind.

• Diablo Cody to Adapt and Produce "Sweet Valley High".  Because, after all, Jennifer’s Body is doing so well. Fun Fact: Jennifer’s Body is not, in fact, doing very well.

• I had this theory about who Editorial Anonymous is.  I really had thought I’d cracked it.  I felt so proud that at the last Kidlit Drink Night I proposed my theory.  Folks listened, then made some very good cases for why I was probably wrong.  Consarn it.  In any case, old EA has a fun post up at the moment about the term "high concept" and what it means.

• Daily Image:

I have mad justification skillz.  Watch me go!  So, uh, lots of children’s librarians do origami programs right?  And my last name is "Bird".  So by logical extension . . .

Yup.  Origami tea bags in the shape of birds.  Thanks to BB-Blog for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews