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5 Book Adaptations That Shouldn’t Become Musicals

Okay, so for some reason a company has bought the stage rights to American Psycho and is planning to turn it into an ’80s musical. And we’ll be frank: we don’t understand this AT ALL.

Sure, some movies have worked on Broadway–Legally Blond, Shrek, The Producers–but those are all broad comedies. We’re talking about a movie that was adapted from an actual, no-pictures, BOOK. Two severed thumbs down, American Psycho: The Musical. And in case any of you would-be impresarios are considering adapting other books-that-became-movies into musicals, take our advice and don’t do it. Especially not these five book/movies…

A Bathing Ape Book Chronicles 15 Year History

It’s been 15 years since Japanese street fashion label A Bathing Ape chin-checked cool guys who thought they’d seen and worn everything. The brand still generates unmatched blog buzz with everything from key chains to varsity jackets, but now the first official chronicle of the company is coming to bookstores.

Aptly titled A Bathing Ape, the 368-page book takes a look back at Bape’s design history, through pictures of products like G-Shocks, all over printed hoodies, and sneakers, along with the celebrities like Kanye West, Pharrell and T.I who wear them. The book will be distributed by Rizzoli International Publications and will retail for $60.00 in November. Check some preview pages after the jump.

See Jeremy Fish’s Story In ‘Once Upon A Time’

The Fourth of July weekend is supposed to be about cookouts, fireworks, and sharking, but if you’ve had enough outdoor fun and want to post up at the crib with a good book, you could do worse than Jeremy Fish’s latest, Once Upon A Time…

The SF-based artist/skate mogul/Aesop Rock pal has compiled some of his favorite drawings, photographs, and paintings in a leather-bound tome that retails for $50. Highlights include a foreword by the aforementioned Def Juxer and a section devoted to photos of people who’ve gotten tatted up with Fish’s work. Pick it up at Upper Playground stores or online and check a few pages from the book after the jump.

Erotic Comics Book Puts The ‘Lust’ In ‘Illustration’

As longtime comic book heads, we’ve always had a place in our heart for a well-rendered female form, whether She-Hulk, Jean Grey, or Witchblade (big up to our dude Mike Choi!). Of course, mainstream comic art has its limits—limits that have long been crossed in erotic art from the Kama Sutra to R. Crumb and Playboy’s Little Annie Fanny. And now those transgressions have been lovingly cataloged by Tim Pilcher, whose Erotic Comics: A Graphic History from Tijuana Bibles to Underground Comix comes out this month.

More than just a visual history, the book reads like a labor of love; images from pre-Depression nudie comics to modern-day Mexican sensacionales are presented along with insightful essays that make the book perfectly suitable for a coffee-table centerpiece (albeit an intesnsely NSFW one). After the jump, check out some relatively tame images from inside the book.

Photo Book Exposes Phone Sex Operators

The age-old problem with any kind of virtual sex—phone, cyber, telegraph—is that you can’t actually see who you’re talking to. But would you really want to? Behind those sexy voices are real people, who are now being revealed in the new photography book by Phillip Toledano called Phone Sex. In the coffee-table book, all of the operators divulge some anecdote or philosophy they’ve gained while on the job. Read the thick lady above’s confessional after the jump, and see more eye-opening photos from the book that drops in July.

Hunter S. Thompson Explained In Gonzo Movie

If you’ve read or watched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, then you know the legend of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the innovative journalist whose wild drug-fueled adventures became just as famous as his manic, “gonzo”-style observations. But who was the real man behind the ether? Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney’s new documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson strives to profile the late writer like never before.

Narrated by HST’s close friend Johnny Depp, the film uses reenactments of his life, scenes from his movies and interviews with friends like President Jimmy Carter and Hell’s Angels bigwig Sonny Barger to unravel his outrageous life. The film hits theaters on July 4, so get familiar with the trailer below.

Charles Burns’ Art Gets Collected In Permagel

Whether or not you read Charles Burns‘ critically-acclaimed comic series Black Hole, you might have seen his surreal artwork. He did the cover for Iggy Pop’s 1990 album Brick By Brick and created the classic art for Coke’s short-lived OK! soda, along with a slew of other books and commercial work.

Now, French publisher United Dead Artists has collected some of his best frames for a new book called Permagel. The anthology includes 32 large-format printings of art from Black Hole, Big Baby and the rest of Burns’ work thorugh the years. Right now it’s only available in Europe, but a U.S. printing can’t be far behind. View more frames from the book below.

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People Is A Movie

Regardless of how the movie adaptation turns out, Toby Young’s 2003 memoir How To Lose Friends And Alienate People is one of the most hilarious accounts of the publishing world ever written. The story follows freewheeling British journalist Young, who moves to New York and spends five years at Vanity Fair magazine, where he tries to make it in high-pressure Conde Nast culture. As you probably gathered from the title, it doesn’t go so well.

The movie’s first trailer just leaked, and it seems to be lacking the subtle, snarky sense of humor that made the book such a success (although Jeff Bridges’ Graydon Carter impression looks solid). Still, it was directed by Curb Your Enthusiasm vet Robert Weide, so we’re willing to reserve judgement until we see more. The movie comes out on October 3, so watch the preview below.

Chuck Palahniuk’s “Snuff” Pushes Porn Trailers

From gruesome masterbation accidents to airplane-hijacking suicide cults, Chuck Palahniuk’s novels are always centered around some crazy shit. Most famous for writing Fight Club, Chuckie P. is gearing up to release his new book Snuff, which focuses in on the adult film industry.

The story follows fictional porn star Cassie Wright as she films a record-breaking sex scene with 600 men. As a promo for the book (which comes out on May 20), they’ve filmed fake trailers for a few of Cassie’s supposed movies, including The Wizard Of Ass and Chitty Chitty Gang Bang. Watch the hilarious results after the jump.

Herschel Walker Has Personalities To Spare

NFL nerds know that Herschel Walker helped jumpstart the Dallas Cowboys mid-’90s dynasty when he was traded for damn near half the Minnesota Vikings’ draft picks in 1989. It turns out maybe that trade wasn’t so one-sided after all. Today, Walker releases his memoir Breaking Free, where he talks about coping with multiple-personality disorder (politically correct terminology: “dissociative identity disorder”). Check a sample passage of Walker talking about the members of his “team”:

“I had a coachlike alter who would recognize what was going on…and he would point to one of the other alters on the bench…Not all of the alters knew of the existence of the others, but some did. For example, the Hero alter knew that the Consoler existed and was aware as well of the presence of the Fightened/Wounded alter. He didn’t much care for the weakness the Frightened/Wounded alter exhibited.”

After the jump, watch a video of a man struggling to live with D.I.D.: