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The book that helped to launch the adult coloring book craze is being reprinted:
In 1955, Harold and the Purple Crayon, a children's book about a four-year-old and his titular instrument, promised kids a world of unbridled creative potential, an infinitely flexible reality produced from their imaginations. Six years later, three ad executives in Chicago offered a counterpoint with The Executive Coloring Book, a dispatch from the adult world that offered bleak instructions like, "This is my suit. Color it gray or I will lose my job." This was a coloring book, but one that eschewed innocence for the corporate hamster wheel and landscapes of elevators, sales charts, and company cars. Even the odd dash of color was grim: pink for the pill that "makes me not care," and mahogany deskware ("I wish I were mahogany").
Written by—and dedicated to—Marcia Hans, Martin A. Cohen, and Dennis Altman, The Executive Coloring Book is an artifact from the Mad Men era that also has the distinction of being the first adult coloring book. Since then, coloring books for grown-ups have become a fad—over 24 million of these books were sold in the last two years alone. Titles have included Die Hard: The Authorized Color and Activity Book, Color Your Own Dutch Masters, and the Cunt Coloring Book from houses as prestigious as HarperCollins and artists like Tony Millionaire (David Bowie: Color the Starman). These books mostly have a twee, feel-good Punky Brewster sort of vibe. A cult of the eternal child, in other words.
Previously: Adult Coloring Books are Big Business
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday April 03 2017, @07:32PM (1 child)
This is an example of the bullcrap expansion of copyright law to extremes that were never meant or envisioned. They make a few insignificant changes to a 56 year old book, and get to slap a fresh copyright notice on the reprints. Its copyright ought to be expired by now, as it's been over 50 years since it was published. Of the 3 original authors, only Altman is still living. Martin Cohen died in 2000. Marcie Hans died in 1975. (The correct Marcie Hans was harder to track down, as there are at least 2 of the right age.) Yet somehow, it is copyright 2017 by all 3 authors..
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-11-28/news/0011280281_1_mr-cohen-martin-cohen-grey-advertising [chicagotribune.com]
http://reelyredd.com/1102fueled.htm [reelyredd.com]
I tried to find a free downloadable copy, and came across one of those scam kind of sites that has a "download now" button that doesn't download now. It first asks the visitor to create accounts, give them email addresses, and the like, implying that then the visitor will be able to download the free copy. Almost certainly they lie about that. The visitor who follows through will not be able to download anything, just redirected to more and more requests for registration and contact info. I tried to follow one of those once, using fake info, to see how deep that rabbit hole went, and after visiting about the 10th distinct website gave up.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:45AM
Try doing a search on Bing for "Executive Coloring Book site:scribd.com" — at least one user has uploaded a copy that can be downloaded for free using one of their freebie accounts. I'd post an exact link here, but don't want to risk getting SN into trouble.
(For some reason I always have more luck doing piracy-related searches on Bing than on Google.)