fine whine

I just finished reading Gary (K?) Wolf's 1981 book Who censored Roger Rabbit?, which, I have to admit was quite good, if not almost completely different from the film we all loved (1988's Who framed Roger Rabbit?), which recently was re-released on dvd. It's a competent detective novel with one foot firmly rooted in the first-person tradition, and the other foot waaaay outside the lines in a cartoon limbo.

So anyway, I'm trying to track down a URL for the guy, and discover two surprising facts. First, there is (or was) a WFRR sequel in pretty serious development... and now it's in development hell, likely to never even see the light of day as a straight-to-video. Admittedly the gee-whiz aspect of cartoons and people together on the screen has lost a lot of its punch in these days of Jar-Jar Binks and his CGI ilk, but the ideas in the film and book were original enough to have given me second thought renting a sequel. The other fact concerns Disney's dealings with Mr. Wolf, as apparently in February it was decided that The Mouse could get away with screwing Gary out of his share of money from the film and its abundant merchandising. First they edited out the racier footage from the movie, and they tried to screw the guy out of his money? He created the characters and had the idea after all. Something doesn't quite smell right with the whole thing.

Oh, and if anybody wants to see the unedited version (complete with Baby Herman 'fingering' a very surprised dame), drop by some time and watch it on my laserdisc player. Old technology *does* have its uses, apparently.