Jim Henson Biography Gets a Release Date

MrBloogarFoobly

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http://brianjayjones.com/
From Brian Jay Jones' blog:

It’s a been a lonely year for this blog, I know. Looking back, I see I’ve written exactly five entries since January 2012–an anemic pace, to be sure. I wish I was one of those prolific blogging machines, but the truth is I’m not the multi-tasker I once was — and every time I’ve put butt in chair over the past year, it’s usually been to spend the next twelve hours or so writing about Jim Henson, rather than writing about writing about Jim Henson first and then going on to actually write about Jim Henson. You get the idea.
When I last left you, the first full draft was sitting on my desk in hard copy while an electronic copy had been whisked away over the emailz to my editor. Since that time, it’s been read and re-read and edited and redrafted two more times. As of November 30, it now looks like this (I knew you were coming, so I posed it among a photo montage just for fun):

The first draft came in at about 730 pages; this draft is a bit shorter — around 680 pages — but one of the really great things about working with a really great editor is that things not only get shorter, but they get tighter and better. (Editors are the great unsung heroes of most of the books you’ve read — and if you wanna know what else mine is up to, you can follow him over on Twitter at @RyanDoh). While it needs just a bit of fine tuning, it’s very nearly complete, and should be done before Christmas.
There. That catches you up on that part.
Next up, we’ll start deciding on the photos that’ll be used inside. I’ve already spent days poring over countless images from the Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop, trying to decide which ones might make the cut — a tough call, given that nearly every image is a keeper, and I haven’t even started going through the collection of images now owned by Disney. That should happen sometime in January — and we’re still right on track to have Jim’s story in your hands on his 77th birthday: September 24, 2013.
 

Hubert

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Awesome! I can't wait for this, and having it potentially out in less than a year sounds good to me. I especially like that rather than just throwing it out on a random date, they're aiming to choose one with some significance. :jim:
 

D'Snowth

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Between this, and the recent Guide to M*A*S*H book at 800+ pages, I seriously doubt I'll ever be able to finish books that I actually want to read in my lifetime.
 

Hubert

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I'm with you there, Snowth, I still haven't even finished Street Gang yet, let alone a 680 page Jim Henson biography. :stick_out_tongue:

This book should be really interesting though...I love to really be able to learn about Jim and his life and career, yet it seems like there's not always a lot of resources available on that. Hopefully this will fill that void up a bit.

EDIT: Mitchell apparently ziffeled me, but no, this is a book.
 

Muppet fan 123

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EDIT: Mitchell apparently ziffeled me, but no, this is a book.
How silly of me, I was not paying attention. Becuase it was announced a long time ago that there would be another Jim Henson biography movie..wan't there? Maybe I'm just imagining that. I thought this was it. :embarrassed:

But regardless, this is awesome. I can't wait for this to come out. This sounds like it'll be good. :smile:
 

Hubert

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Yeah, there was a Jim Henson biography movie that had been announced a while back (I wonder if that's still in development or extinct?), so I do understand your confusion there.
 

Muppet fan 123

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Great...so that means I'm not crazy.

Looking at that draft at the top of the thread...that's a whole lotta paper.
 

MrBloogarFoobly

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Sorry! I was worried the thread title wasn't clear enough, and I was right!

The Henson biopic was postponed indefinitely, for two reasons:
1) Too many inaccuracies with the script in question.
2) Too many conflicts with copyright between Henson Co, Disney, and Sesame Workshop.

Anyway, YAY book!
 

Hubert

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Ah, thanks for the info on the biopic. I had been wondering about that.
 

D'Snowth

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I'm with you there, Snowth, I still haven't even finished Street Gang yet, let alone a 680 page Jim Henson biography. :stick_out_tongue:
I had trouble reading that book, it was really dry reading, I couldn't really continue it myself; then a buddy of mine sent me a copy of the audio version read by Caroll Spinney when the library he works out was getting rid of some of their inventory: that helped.
 
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