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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Mar 10, 2013 19:06:32 GMT -5
I think "Why" is most likely to be the WH-question to be left out. The first two books have very specific questions for titles, and "Why" always makes for a rather a broad question, like you're dwelling upon something, rather than asking it almost reactively (but of course there are exceptions). Also one possibility for the last book may be "What was that noise if there's nothing out there?"
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Mar 11, 2013 13:51:56 GMT -5
I think one of the books might simply be called - ?
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Post by Dante on Mar 11, 2013 14:20:38 GMT -5
I'm not the only one who would be extremely impressed by such a title. I've had an idea, personally, that the ink might run so low in future books that letters and words start to vanish from the narrative, requiring us to fill in the gaps ourselves. That might be better-suited to a supplementary volume, though.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Mar 11, 2013 14:35:44 GMT -5
As fascinating such a title might be, I don't foresee a major divergence in titling patterns in this series given its relatively short length. The titling of The End was effective because it had twelve books that followed an established formula to precede it. This series has four volumes, two of which have already been named - Who Could That Be At This Hour? and When Did You See Her Last? are both humorous in their specificity, yet mysterious in their ambiguity. I think Questions Three and Four will continue to follow this naming scheme, without deviating from formula the way The End did. (It did occur to me that the titles may grow a word shorter with each installment, but upon reflection I find it unlikely that form will ever take precedence over content in a work such as this. There's also no clear answer as to what the point would be, besides the obvious stylistic effect.) I'm not the only one who would be extremely impressed by such a title. I've had an idea, personally, that the ink might run so low in future books that letters and words start to vanish from the narrative, requiring us to fill in the gaps ourselves. That might be better-suited to a supplementary volume, though. Or perhaps in the very last installment, right as the narrator is about to spell out the solution to the mystery that had for four books haunted us all ... but alas, the final supply of ink went toward printing a Lost Kitten ad instead.
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Post by Charlie on Mar 12, 2013 4:22:50 GMT -5
I think that would legitimately bring on a rain of angst towards Lemony. I don't care how, but I'd direct it at him.
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eescorpius
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 58
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Post by eescorpius on Apr 24, 2013 21:48:58 GMT -5
One thing I think is interesting is that some of our concerns about ?1's early announcement period seem to have been addressed. As I noted above, a lot of us thought ?1's cover art was a bit too simplistic in relation to the rest of Seth's work on the volume, and a lot of the entertaining announcement material for ?1 was buried in private press releases that we had a hard time finding. This time, the cover's far more detailed and all the announcement material has been made public. Very much a good sign! Also of note is that the first Snicketmail for ?1 came the day after Handler's birthday; this year, it's on his birthday... Mr. Handler's birthday will evidently be the day to watch in the coming years. Also, with ?1 blue and ?2 purple, does it seem reasonable to assume that ?3 and ?4 will be green and red, possibly respectively? Edit: Silly numerical speculation: ?1 has a seven-word title and a six-panel cover. ?2 has a six-word title and a five-panel cover. Could ?3 have a five-word title and four-panel cover, and ?4 a four-word title and three-panel cover? Probably not, but it's worth thinking about! A red cover would fit a "arson" themed book perfectly!
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Post by Dante on Apr 25, 2013 1:20:04 GMT -5
Yes, it would be satisfying in much the same way as TPP was able to employ a fiery-shaded spine on both the HarperCollins and Egmont editions. Although I suppose it would also fit for a murder book, wouldn't it? My speculation is more simply that it's natural for the cover colours to swap, though - ?1 had blue with orange boxes and ?2 purple with green boxes, and the colours are already inverses of each other, incidentally, so a green book with purple boxes or a red book with blue boxes seems natural, especially to fill out some of the more obvious colours for interior illustrations. I suppose they might also go for black and grey for the final book, the quintessential shades of noir, but that would be perhaps less interesting than the colours available in previous volumes.
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eescorpius
Catastrophic Captain
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Post by eescorpius on Apr 25, 2013 15:46:42 GMT -5
That makes sense. A black and grey cover for the last book just like how "The End" broke the book title patterns.
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Post by Dante on Apr 25, 2013 15:52:48 GMT -5
Funnily enough, at one point a placeholder cover for The End was released in monochrome. (Another was released with TBB's spine colour.)
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