Maybe I'm missing the point?
io9 informs me that artist Thomas Lebrun is re-drawing Hergé’s most controversial Tintin comic, Tintin in the Congo. Hergé’s original story is infamous for its racist images, but Lebrun has a different focus—he is re-drawing Tintin as nude from the knees up in every panel...
Yet again
According to the Huffington Post, Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic series is getting yet another reboot, despite the fact...
Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead
This is going to sound a little random, but Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger reminds me of a young-reader take on Jennifer Crusie's wonderful romance novel Bet Me. Both books focus on the various forms of love (familial, platonic, romantic), and both are simultaneously incredibly sweet and unexpectedly profound...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead
This week's Book Giveaway is Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm already impressed by Stead's ability to capture the overwhelming emotional messiness of being a middle-schooler...
A yearly gift
And the best part of summer has arrived: the "winners" of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced! They're all pretty great, but here's a small sampling of my favorites...
The bell tolls for Vertigo?
io9 just posted a rather grim essay about the future of Vertigo Comics, DC's imprint for adults. I started reading Vertigo comics when I was in high school, and I've been an issue-or-two-per-month reader ever since...
I need to re-read this.
The BBC is making a miniseries adaptation of War and Peace, and THR has some early images of the production. The pictures are elegant and tasteful (if totally boring), although I'm still a little confused about the broadcasting schedule...
WOW.
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Day (August 9th), Bic Pens' South African division released an impressively tone-deaf ad that reads "Look like a girl/Act like a lady/Think like a man/Work like a boss. #HappyWomensDay" This jaw-dropping misstep...
Evil twins
Ugh. According to THR, there's going to be an Archie musical, written by Anchorman writer-director (and Funny or Die co-founder) Adam McKay. The dude has an impressive résumé, but I don't care: as far as I'm concerned, Archie is an un-salvageable property, unless...
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, by Stephan Pastis
While people usually compare Stephan Pastis's Timmy Failure series to Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, they're missing an even closer relation: the Timmy Failure books are basically a novel-length version of Marjorie Sharmat's Nate the Great series, albeit with racier humor and a stupider protagonist...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, by Stephan Pastis
This week's Book Giveaway is Stephan Pastis's Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. I chose it both because I'm fond of Pastis's Pearls Before Swine comic strip, and because I'm hoping it will be a less excruciating but thematically-similar version of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. A full review will follow later today...
I keep falling for it!
Jezebel recently posted a really nice interview with author Meg Cabot. I'm always a little disappointed by Cabot's books—I think she has the talent to write something truly spectacular, but too often falls back on "Eh, it's cute enough to justify the cover price"—but this interview is so charming...
The umlaut really adds something.
Deadline informs me that Fox has hired Josh Schwartz (of The O.C., Gossip Girl, Chuck fame) to develop an hourlong "dramedy" inspired by Grady Hendrix's supernatural mystery novel Horrorstör...
London omake
According to the design blog Creative Review, London's Tube passengers can currently take advantage of a limited-time offer from Penguin UK: from August 3 - 28, commuters with wi-fi can read "exclusive excerpts from novels, as well as author interviews and audio content" via the website...
I have no self control.
The Penguin Classics Deluxe line continues to quietly release reprints of classic novels with cover art that ranges from "totally respectable" to "I COVET THEE"...
No Billboard of Destiny, though?
According to NPR, The Strand editor Andrew Gulli has hunted down a previously unpublished F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called "Temperature", which appears in the current issue of his magazine...
The Raven's Child, by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Thomas E. Sniegoski's standalone graphic novel The Raven's Child has all the right ingredients for an epic fantasy: an inspiring protagonist, a memorable cast of evildoers, and a detailed, visually striking world...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Raven's Child, by Thomas E. Sniegoski
This week's Book Giveaway is Thomas E. Sniegoski's graphic novel The Raven's Child. I'm pretty excited about this one; the artwork isn't exactly my style*, but Sniegoski is apparently the only writer to work on Jeff Smith's Bone series (apart from Smith himself, obviously)...
Gross, creepy, no thank you.
This is... discomfiting. Newsweek informs me that the College Board has bowed to conservative political pressure, and is revising their A.P. U.S. History standards to "emphasize American Exceptionalism"...
Oh, the cover art
Hey, finally! At long last, NPR has released the list they compiled of 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances. I've been waiting for this all summer, and I'm genuinely impressed by a lot of their choices...
Genre-riffic
There's a long and loving tribute to Wordcandy favorite Mary Stewart over on Jezebel. I don't agree with the author's suggestion that the 60s-era paperback covers always did a Grade-A job of conveying the charms of Ms. Stewart's mid-century Gothics...
Maybe they could hire a woman? For something?
According to THR, novelist Michael Chabon is in talks to work on Disney’s Bob the Musical, a movie that has been languishing in development hell for more than a decade...
Dead Ice, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Laurell K. Hamilton has a gift. You wouldn't think a novel featuring vampires, werewolves, necromancers, polyamory, and—no joke—zombie porn could be dead boring, but somehow, inexplicably, Ms. Hamilton is capable of proving you wrong...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Dead Ice, by Laurell K. Hamilton
There's a 98% chance I'm going to regret this, but it's time for me to woman up: this week's Book Giveaway is Laurell K. Hamilton's Dead Ice. A full review will follow shortly, which means I'm going to have to actually read it...
Unexpectedly apropos
WELL THEN. According to AnimeNewsNetwork, there was apparently enough demand to justify not one but two(!!!) lines of Sailor Moon-themed feminine hygiene products...
Next up: hovercars
In another recent NPR post, there's a discussion of an early childhood test that claims to be a clear indicator of a person's eventual reading ability...
Modern classics?
NPR recently featured a list of books that various colleges have chosen as required reading for their incoming college freshmen. I am only familiar with one of them—Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, which I found highly overrated...
Agree, like, 1000%
NYMag's "Science of Us" section published an article earlier this month about the small but growing number of schools and professors who have chosen to ban laptops and smartphones from their classrooms, feeling that the technology is more of a hindrance than a help...
Spot on
Mallory Ortberg's literary tributes over at The Toast are always a pleasure to read, but I was particularly excited about her latest effort, "The Sequel To Rebecca The Second Mrs. de Winter Deserves"...