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Post by Dante on Jan 27, 2012 10:20:41 GMT -5
If it is coming out this autumn, ought we not to know a bit more by now - possibly a title? The title and theme of WWBU were announced in the summer of 2010, more than a year before it appeared. It depends on how they choose to market such things. We didn't have a concrete title or cover for The End for a few months before it was released, for instance; ditto for TGG (TPP doesn't count because the promotional campaign for that was based around not revealing its title or cover until the release date itself). Something like Why We Broke Up is contextless and it doesn't really influence hype levels or spoil people if you reveal things like a title or a cover. In fact, you could argue that the earlier you get such things out the better, as there's no pre-existing pull to the text. For what is essentially an ASoUE prequel, though, it's a different matter; there's already a lot of awareness of the context and a lot of pre-existing interest, and so they have to control the build-up a lot more carefully. At least, that's my theory. They want people to be excited for the release date, not already complacent. Edit: That, and I wouldn't be surprised if WWBU was delayed at one point; I seem to recall the release date shifting a bit. Handler never seems very certain when a lot of his books are going to come out, but for a Snicket series there's clearly a much more rigid plan.
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Post by B. on Jan 27, 2012 10:59:26 GMT -5
So we know that it will most probably be set at a time when Lemony was a child, even if it doesn't center around him. Since it is defiantly going to be written "by Lemony Snicket" we can expect that the writing will be in Lemony's same characteristic style. It seems unlike the character of Lemony to write about himself (he doesn't appear to have a lot of self esteem,) so I suspect Lemony won't be the main character, as such. The idea of the story of Beatrice, seems like a plausible theory. I was also wondering- do you think the series will be illustrated by Brett Helquist? Or are we getting a new artists spin on his writings?
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Post by Dante on Jan 27, 2012 12:22:17 GMT -5
It's really hard to say. I would honestly have thought Helquist would be the top choice, simply because his art style is very strong and also very closely associated with ASoUE. There's a distinct possibility that people might look at a new series illustrated by someone else and think of it as not looking like that familiar world, not looking like the same product at all. And it's not the same product, but it is linked, of course. But on the other hand, Handler's been experimenting with a lot of different illustrators over the past couple of years, and for a different time and different characters they might've thought it would be best to have different illustrations. It's hard to say if the publisher switch will have affected how they can deal with Helquist, too. I guess my money - and hopes - would be on Helquist, but it's hard to say for sure.
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Post by Tiago James Squalor on Jan 27, 2012 15:04:44 GMT -5
I hope that, given Daniel Handler's statement that the new series is mostly centered around Lemony, that we'll learn more of the schism and get to know more characters that appear for only a book or two in ASoUE such as Jacques and Kit Snicket as well as to learn what Beatrice senior's personality was really like. I can't wait for the next fall and to get my own copy which I will most definetely be ordering from Amazon. I do hope that Brett Helquist is the illustrator, as I feel having another do the illustrations to anything even remotely connected to ASoUE would be jarring, considering how well his style adapts and lends a sense of identity to the series.
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Post by Dante on Jan 27, 2012 15:28:41 GMT -5
I agree, Tiago; I do feel that Helquist's illustrations are really tightly bound-up with the identity of the series; even for something whose links to ASoUE might not be obvious (but then again they might be), it wouldn't feel quite right to have a different illustrator. But perhaps we shouldn't get our hopes up too early in case we find out soon that they'll be frustrated. I'm trying to keep an open mind, since we have no idea what we can legitimately expect. Like I said before, four books is a lot of time for various characters to appear, assuming they're a decent length, which I personally think they will be (around the length of the books in the second half of the series, I should think), so even if we read the first book and there's nobody we recognise, the last book might be packed with familiar names.
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Post by B. on Jan 27, 2012 17:15:45 GMT -5
Yes, I agree. I also hope Brett Helqist illustrates the series- the illustrations have almost become part as much a part of ASOUE. Looking at ones done by a different artist would either end up looking fantastic and changing our perspective on the series or looking like a bad piece of fanart. Who knows.
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Post by blakegriplingph on Jan 28, 2012 5:19:40 GMT -5
Sounds more or less like a prequel imo.
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