Odds and Ends

Stark's Parker gets 'drawn' out

Richard Stark's (aka Donald Westlake), character Parker is set to be adapted into comic form. Darwyn Cook told fans at this year's Comic-Con that he will be adapting Stark's first four novels (The Hunter (aka Point Blank), The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit, and The Mourner) into graphic novels, the first of which is scheduled to be released late in 2009.

Potter's Fairytales
J.K. Rowling announced this past Thursday that she will publish a book of wizarding fairytales. Rowling originally produced only seven copies of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard." Each were bound in Moroccan leather and decorated with silver moonstones. Six were given to people involved with the Potter books while the seventh copy was bought at auction for roughly $4 million.

Saved By the Bell
Joining the ranks of celebrity tell-all books is Dustin "Screech" Diamond. You have to read this one for yourselves, 'cause I really have nothing to say, except yikes.

Harry Potter and the Rare Prequel

As reported by The Associated Press, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling wrote an 800-word prequel to her popular series about the boy wizard. The prequel is hand written on both sides of an A5 sized card (slightly bigger than a post card) and will be auctioned off for charity by Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd. in London. Waterson's said that they distributed 13 of the A5 cards to people including Rowling, playwright Tom Stoppard, graphic novelist and author Neil Gaiman, and Sebastian Faulks, whose Bond novel The Devil May Care was released last week.