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This was Hack’s second Shakespearean adaptation after Puglet, once again featuring his cover artist Jonny M.’s pug Boris in the title role. This novel proved to be as unlucky as the play it was based on because three times Hack sent Boris the only existing manuscript for approval and all three times the pug urinated on it until it shriveled into pulp. Boris swears it was an accident although his attorney did file a restraining order to try and stop its publication.
The Prisoner of Zenda is an adventure novel written by Anthony Hope in 1894 which became a theatrical warhorse in the early 20th century and was adapted into many movie versions, the best of which is a 1937 film starring Ronald Colman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and directed by John Cromwell (father of Babe star James Cromwell). It has an insane plot in which an Englishman on a Ruritarian holiday discovers that he is the exact double for the country’s prince, a charming fellow but a desperate alcoholic who is kidnapped on the eve of his coronation as part of a coup by his evil brother, so the Englishman must step in to save the day. We’ve all seen ripoffs of the concept in movies from The Great Dictator to Dave (and a marvelous satire in a large section of The Great Race) but this is what started it all, and it’s still highly enjoyable.
Hack wrote this version when he ordered coffee at a diner and threw a tantrum to end all tantrums when the only sweetener they had was Splenda. The wild thing is that even though it has almost the exact same plot of The Prisoner of Zenda, he had never heard of the story before and was greatly surprised when he was the subject of a plagiarism suit by the Halliburton Corporation, which had somehow become the owner of Hope’s copyright.
Happy heavenly birthday to the immortal Vivian Leigh!
The book opens:
“They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, I’ve never had my dick come close to being cut off by a pen.That’s a round about way of introducing you to my writer’s group. We met every Thursday in a little bar in noho near the strip club where the woman I am in love with works. I intend to marry her, once I can figure out how to get the judge to remove the restraining order.
There were seven of us in the group, all professional writers. I was the best and most accomplished writer, though JK and Stephen King would say otherwise. I hated them both and the feeling was mutual. I was always sure that one of them would be the one to try to cut off my dick, not Dave Barry. I thought he was a fruit who didn’t have the balls to try something like that, to be quite candid.
That’s ironic, because when this sorted little story ends, as you’ll see, he’ll have more balls in his hands than he started with.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. “
As many of you know, Hack lives in a van parked behind the Shakey’s pizza restaurant on Laurel Canyon Blvd. in Los Angeles. Once when the van was impounded, Hack was forced to sleep on his cover artist Jonny M.’s floor and he couldn’t help but notice Jonny’s pug Boris’ obsession with food (especially when Boris tried to eat his face as he slept one night). The experience inspired Hack to write this gothic epic poem about a ravenous pug, which only after it was published did he realize was a transparent rip-off of Poe’s The Raven. Hack was sued for copyright infringement and had to pay a massive settlement, which surprised legal experts because Poe died in 1849 and the poem had been in public domain for 150 years.
Happy National Comic Book Day!