It’s a meeting of the comics-with-crossover-appeal minds: Heidi MacDonald reports that Sandman creator Neil Gaiman and his Beowulf collaborator Roger Avary are on tap to write the screenplay adaptation of Charles Burns’s graphic-novel horror masterpiece Black Hole, aka the book I will never, ever shut up about. I must confess that I’m all but completely ignorant of Gaiman’s work–you can’t read everything, you know?–but he is obviously a talented writer, as well as respectful (to say the least) of the comics medium, so a lot of my fears about adapting one of the four or five best comics of all time to the screen just evaporated. The movie’s to be directed by Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes); you can read more about Gaiman’s potential involvement on his blog. And you should buy the book.
Speaking of genre gone legit, Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and the excellent Flesh and Blood, has written a genre novel called Specimen Days, which alternately tackles horror, crime, and sci-fi. This was brought to my attention by Bookgasm’s Rod Lott, who didn’t think much of the book. Still, I’m intrigued.
Finally, turn your friends into zombies in just 11 easy steps! With photoshop, of course. What am I, Dr. Frankenstein? (Link courtesy of Bibi.)