The Cloistered Vandal

Hail to the King

Posted on June 8th, 2015

Filed under: Fidelia, Stephen King, Tim Robbins

Book title: Different Seasons

Author: Stephen King

Film director: Rob Reiner, Frank Darabont, Bryan Singer, respectively

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: Sa-Ten, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 7/5/2015

References: Original Stand by Me | Original Shawshank Redemption | Original Apt Pupil | Non-horrible cover

Note: Stephen King's book Different Seasons appeared in bookstores in 1982. He states in the afterword that after he wrote each of Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Dead Zone, and Firestarter, he had "just enough gas in the tank to blow off one good-sized novella." He collected these four novellas into one volume and assigned each of them to a season of the year to which it was thematically associated:

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

SUMMER OF CORRUPTION: Apt Pupil

FALL FROM INNOCENCE: The Body

A WINTER'S TALE: The Breathing Method

We consider all four of these novellas to be great achievements in literature. Three of them eventually spawned movie adaptations, two of which we consider to be great achievements in film. (None of us has seen Apt Pupil, so we cannot comment on its quality, though the novella inspired nightmares in at least one of us.) Publishers, of course, felt they had to create movie tie-ins because, apparently, Stephen King's name alone was not enough to get the books to sell.

And so we see a book titled Apt Pupil, though that title applies to only one of four stories. Another book announces THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, which does not even accurately reflect the name of the story in the book. And then we see STAND BY ME, a book whose title does not even appear in the book itself apart from the cover, since the story on which it is based is called The Body.

As of 2012, media outlets were reporting that The Breathing Method would join the other three novellas in undergoing film treatment. We do not want to see this happen because 1) though it is a chilling story, it would make a terrible movie, 2) we do not want to see even a hint of romance between (this is pure speculation) Emma Stone and Tom Hanks, and 3) a studio executive would likely rename it Headless in Seattle. The bright side of such an atrocity would be one final addition to this post.

Displeasure

Posted on June 4th, 2015

Filed under: Bibamus, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas

Book title: Disclosure

Author: Michael Chrichton

Film director: Barry Levinson

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Arusha's Coffee, Belton, TX

Bookdrop date: 6/28/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: Some of us here at the Crosspatch Collective have read this book, and others have seen the movie. None of us has any idea what might be going on in the movie tie-in cover of Disclosure. Demi Moore has her mouth open and she is leaning toward nothing in particular. Michael Douglas seems to disapprove of her nose. We believe the addition of a hamster actually reconciles all the visual nonsense into a bit of perfectly reasonable surrealism.

The World According to Mork

Posted on June 1st, 2015

Filed under: Bibamus, Robin Williams

Book title: The World According to Garp

Author: John Irving

Film director: George Roy Hill

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Trianon Coffee, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 6/7/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: This movie tie-in cover is one of more tasteful ones we've seen. That does not mean we find it to be in good taste. It simply means it falls on the promising end of the crassness scale.

The Descenders

Posted on May 28th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, George Clooney

Book title: The Descendants

Author: Kaui Hart Hemmings

Film director: Alexander Payne

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Summermoon Coffee, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 5/31/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We like to think that George Clooney, beyond being a handsome-beyond-belief, extravagantly-and-multi-talented, legendarily charming A-list-leading-man and Cary-Grant-successor, is also an obsessive typography geek.

Team Dumbo

Posted on May 21st, 2015

Filed under: Fidelia, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, Robert Pattinson

Book title: Water for Elephants

Author: Sara Gruen

Film director: Francis Lawrence

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: Hardin House, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 5/23/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We attended a screening of this movie with Fidelia during its theatrical run. When Robert Pattinson appeared on screen a few minutes into the film, she leaned over to us and said, "Is that what's-his-Twilight?" Indeed it was.

He Is DJ...

Posted on May 18th, 2015

Filed under: Fidelia, Will Smith

Book title: I Am Legend

Author: Richard Matheson

Film director: Francis Lawrence

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: Epoch Coffee, Austin, Tx

Bookdrop date: 5/29/2015

Reference: Original

Note: We ran into some difficulty attempting to find a Non-Horrible Cover to which we might link. We generally define "Non-Horrible" as "a cover design that would not prevent us from purchasing the book." An image search on Google failed to provide us with even one such cover, though it did yield some interesting results. Our favorite of these covers accompanies an article about Richard Matheson's attempt to adapt his book into a screenplay. It is a story which sheds a bit of light on another cover for Richard Matheson's censored and unproduced I Am Legend screenplay, which is the only publication we have ever seen trumpeting its own censored nature.

A post on the blog Too Much Horror Fiction collects a few of the covers this book has been subjected to. Notable among them is a movie tie-in from the 1971 Charlton Heston film The Omega Man which, of course, features the movie title and the actor's face more prominently than the book's actual title.

Also, our younger readers—who may not understand what we are referencing with this particular cover art—would do well to educate themselves on Will Smith's hobbies prior to his inclusion on the Hollywood A-List.

Thomas and the Round House Rules

Posted on May 14th, 2015

Filed under: Fidelia, Toby Maguire

Book title: The Cider House Rules

Author: John Irving

Film director: Lasse Hallström

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: Lucky Bakery, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 5/17/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: Thomas had always enjoyed transporting passengers from place to place, and he had always thought that everyone enjoyed their own jobs as well. But one morning, he noticed that Sodor's mayor, Sir Toby Hatt, seemed unhappy. "I wonder about this pensive expression on your face, Sir Toby," Thomas said. Sir Toby replied, "Thomas, sometimes I feel that I should not be here. I feel that I should perhaps use my spider-like abilities for something more than being mayor."

"That's a wonderful idea, Mr. Mayor," said Thomas. "I would be glad to take over your job for you. The motto of my office will be: With great potency comes great accountability."

"I think I shall stay right where I am, Thomas," said Sir Toby Hatt, a touch too quickly.

Hannibal the Great and Powerful

Posted on May 10th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton

Book title: Red Dragon

Author: Thomas Harris

Film director: Brett Ratner

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Joel's Coffee Shop, Austin, Tx

Bookdrop date: 5/18/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: The link for the non-horrible cover shows the cover of the first edition, and it is one of the few covers of this book that does not contain some version of the phrase "by the author of The Silence of the Lambs" or (and in this case, and) the borderline-nonsensical "Meet Hannibal Lecter for the first time." Making Anthony Hopkins look like the Wizard proved more difficult than we anticipated, but we get a strange and disturbing pleasure from seeing Edward Norton in a Dorothy dress.

Big Trouble

Posted on May 7th, 2015

Filed under: Bibamus, Tim Allen

Book title: Big Trouble

Author: Dave Barry

Film director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Flight Path Coffee House, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 5/12/15

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We are usually offended by a burst on the cover of a book declaring "Now a Major Motion Picture from Maudlin Studios!" The burst's very existence, of course, veers toward abomination, but we find it especially galling due to the fact that a studio's PR department feels the need to put its name on a book it neither wrote nor produced, refer to the film as a "motion picture" as if that is how people refer to movies, call it "major" when no film is ever referred to as "minor," and specify redundantly that it is "now" when the cover clearly would not exist otherwise. This particular cover (unintentionally?) doubles down on the nonsense by referring to the time as "Soon to be." We cannot decide if Touchstone/Penguin deserve credit for breaking from the standard format or censure for creating built-in obsolescence, but we feel the issue is worth discussion in either case.

Also, we very much enjoy the idea of a toad in a bowling alley.

The Scarlet Potter

Posted on May 4th, 2015

Filed under: Fidelia, Demi Moore, Gary Oldman

Book title: The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Film director: Roland Joffé

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: It's a Grind, Austin, Tx

Bookdrop date: 5/10/15

Reference: Various other covers

Note: Most of us in The Crosspatch Collective read this book in high school English. None of us has seen this movie. However, given that its Rotten Tomatoes rating is 14%, we do not need to see it in order to know it did not feature a scene involving a pottery wheel... and that it should have.