At least the cover art is good

[olivermoss]

After all these years, the writer of Buckaroo Banzai is putting out Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League in novel form. This novel has been in the works for at least 7 years. When Moonstone did the Buckaroo Banzai comics they were ... not good. Not good in many ways. I don't know if it was due to the writer or if an editorial process was going on, but those comics had serious issues and massively retconned the film. The comics aren't popular even with most die hard fans.

Even if the novel is bad, or makes me want to throw it against the wall, I am glad to throw money at the author. He had what was basically a hit film and never saw the back end. The film's distribution was wide, but illegal. When it became available for legal sale it topped Amazon's sales chart for weeks. When the most recent TV deal happened that should have been worth millions and he didn't stand to make a cent off of it. The damn show got as far as having a writer's room open before rights problems shut it down again. For both the writer and the director, they've had to spend large parts of their lives just trying to keep on top of the film's legal issues.

The only reason I have some hope for the book is that Dark Horse is putting it out. They tend to be picky about what they publish. Moonstone is game to make money off of any IP however they can. Unless they've changed, Dark Horse wouldn't put out total garbage. On the other hand it's clear some retconning is going to happen.

But, it's got good cover art and may spark interest in the film again.



This is terrible, but I wish we were getting a TV show written by someone else than him finally putting out this book. Hopefully, I'll be eating my words in 7 months.

The film went back into rights hell after the TV deal. The book coming out may mean that the rights are clearing up? I wonder what the resolution was.

...oh hey Dark Horse isn't far from me. Maybe they will have promo posters that will need a new home at some point?

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I really know next to nothing about Buckaroo Banzai beyond having a vague association with "oh yeah, there was some messy legal stuff around that, wasn't there?"

But that is a cool cover! I hope it's good in an of itself, and means good things for the rights to other related media.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, the film is pretty much a textbook example of a cult classic. It got nation wide distribution in the US through analog piracy.

I really hope my lack of faith in unwarranted, but even in general things getting sequels after so long rarely goes well. At least I should get some more merch to collect or something.

[mistressofmuses]

I fondly remember analog piracy days, though that died out almost entirely while I was in high school, as torrenting and shady download sites became more accessible and widespread.

But there was a time where having a combination DVD/VCR player (and a second VCR that could be hooked to the first) meant that I copied an awful lot of movies and TV shows for friends, lol.

[olivermoss]

It was exciting, this feeling like there was cool stuff out there if you could find it. I looked for certain films for a long time. Mainstream entertainment was so much narrower, so getting outside it a bit was amazing.

[przed]

Well, that's going right at the top of my to buy list. Yay! Not a movie or TV show, but I'll take all the Banzai content I can get.

[olivermoss]

I hope it's good :)

[przed]

Me, too.