ParaNorman Promotional Swag

Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to ParaNorman? That would be a lot. The movie opens August 17, which can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. Why should you be excited? Well, besides the whole stop-motion coming-of-age zombie flick, there's this. Yes, that's a bit of promotional swag sent to one lucky toy reviewer. Marketing much?

By the way, if anybody at St. Martin's happens to be reading this and you want to do a similarly-themed Portlandtown promotion tie-in toy, I'm fine with that. Really, REALLY fine with that.

via Tomopop

Booklist's Portlandtown Review

Got another positive review, this time from Booklist. Much of the piece is an summary of the book (a pretty good one actually), but here’s a choice cut:

“Whoever said westerns are dead was wrong—they’re undead . . . If period zombies crawling out of the rainy muck is your kind of set piece, this is your western.”

Well, it’s my kind of set piece, so there you go. I’m glad to see reviewers are picking up on the rain element, which has to be an important part of any book set in Portland, Oregon, right?

ParaNorman Posters

Check out these seriously awesome posters for Laika’s new “coming-of-age zombie flick” ParaNorman courtesy of the fine folks at Mondo. Apparently, these posters are out in the wild and if you find one, take a picture of it, and tweet it with the hashtag #weirdwins something happens. Maybe you win the Internet, I don’t know. But cool posters.

Call Me...The Pimpkin!

So I tried something new this morning: pumpkin sex. No, I’m not talking about some weird gourd fetish. I just saw that our Cinderella Pumpkin plant needed a little help with the birds and the bees...minus the bees. (Apparently the bees can’t be trusted these days because of some colony wide die-off issues. Perhaps the Zom-bee Apocalypse? Har har.)

QUESTION: Did I feel the power of Ma Nature in the palm of my hand as I introduced male and female flower bits? Absolutely. FOLLOW-UP: Did I feel dirty afterwards? A little. Might have been the dirt.

Go Team Pumpkin!

Protect Your Brainz!

Don’t get caught out in the Zombie Apocalypse without some protection for your brain. These stylin’ embroidered hats are just what you need to keep your grey matters intact. No, seriously. No self-respecting zombie would dare bite into such a fine piece of contemporary sportswear. Probably. Plus I like hats, so...more fun for me (and you). You can find the whole set here.

Publisher's Weekly Portlandtown Review

A very nice review of Portlandtown just materialized courtesy of Publisher’s Weekly. An excerpt:

“DeBorde crafts an exhilarating hybrid of grit, guts, dusty cowpokes, and rotting flesh, honoring genre conventions without succumbing to cliché and anchoring black magic in realistic contexts of politics and family dynamics.”

Makes my cold zombie heart all warm inside. You can see the whole review here. (SPOILER ALERT: some basic plot point are revealed in the write-up. Nothing damning, just a word of warning to those who like to know as little as possible.)