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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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @01:02PM (3 children)
Let the comments about millennials commence! Here, let me start.
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 03 2017, @03:27PM
Oh-kay - millenials blah blah blah.
I think coloring books are a little silly, but there was a time in my young adult life when someone bought me a paint-by-number set. Then she bought me another. They were kind of relaxing, so I'd smear some paint around in the evenings now and then just to make her happy. I probably did 8 or more of those things, before she got tired of them. Ehhhh - grab a beer, or pour some Scotch, sit down near the cat so you can tease him as he tries to sleep, and smear away. Pretty soon, you're ready for bed.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:49PM
That's not necessarily a bad thing under the right circumstances. Heavy hierarchies are arguably unnatural to humans. The "kingdom" is relatively recent in human evolution. Hunter-gatherer tribes, which is where humans spent most our evolution, were only mildly hierarchical. People are okay with some degree of hierarchy, but may be more willing to rebel against too much.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:00AM
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
למה הלילה הזה שונה מכל לילות אחרים (ma nishtana halaila hazeh).
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @02:13PM
A 1961 coloring book "helped launch" the current fad? Really?
(Score: 2, Funny) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Monday April 03 2017, @02:18PM (8 children)
My wife gave me a colouring book for my birthday. The "Divorce and Breakup Coloring Book" by Kate Harper. Yes, it's real.
I'm glad my wife has a healthy sense of humour.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Taibhsear on Monday April 03 2017, @03:18PM (2 children)
I'm glad my now estranged wife has a healthy sense of humour.
Fixed that for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @04:36PM
She was always strange - that's why they got along as well as they did.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @07:35PM
Does "estranged" mean the same thing as "disposed of"?
Asking for a friend.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Monday April 03 2017, @07:53PM (3 children)
Oh, Hahaha. Yes. I used to think my wife had a healthy sense of humor. That was before she graduated law school, became a divorce lawyer, then divorced me, sticking me with half of her eleven-years-worth of student loans, to the tune of $120,000 (with interest) as well as $40,000 of credit card debt. What a hoot!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:54PM
That's like launching into space with a pyrotechnic trainee.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:13AM
I'm not sure how divorcing you is supposed to mean that your ex doesn't have a good sense of humor, but people don't initiate divorce proceedings unless they're extremely unhappy in their marriage, and there's fairly logical rules that determine the financial outcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @07:34AM
Divorce/Alimony: "The screwin' you get for the screwin' you got."
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:25AM
My wife gave me a colouring book for my birthday. The "Divorce and Breakup Coloring Book" by Kate Harper. Yes, it's real.
Perhaps it's time for a new personal theme song [youtube.com]?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Monday April 03 2017, @03:06PM (9 children)
I was expecting a bit more tits and ass in the adult coloring books. Very disappointing ...
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nerdfest on Monday April 03 2017, @03:16PM (2 children)
"Adult Lifestyle Community" does not mean what you may think either. Colour me disappointed.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 03 2017, @08:45PM (1 child)
Sorry, I can't find that colour. Could you please give me the RGB values?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 04 2017, @12:21AM
rgb(102,51,0) or rgb(255,255,0)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday April 03 2017, @03:39PM (4 children)
I would imagine there's a photoshop filter to turn rando pr0n on the internet into coloring sheets.
I donno about the dutch masters (although I did day trip some distance to see actual pix like 10-20 years ago and they are super cool) but the Monet/Impressionist book came out last spring and my wife was working thru while my daughter works on the little mermaid coloring book. There's that click bait "reeeee" about psuedo-adults having a safe space to color in, but I bet at least some fraction of the population is parents coloring along with their kids tired of kid subject matter. So it would be awkward if my wife had a T+A coloring book while my daughter was working on the little mermaid "See thats how they look without the seashells" etc.
I will confess if they had "classic 1960/70s minicomputers from DEC/HP/IBM" I'd probably buy it and join right in. How about 60s era ham radio equipment coloring books, hey kids color your SB-102 "heathkit green" LOL. At least chassis pix could have resistor color codes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday April 03 2017, @03:46PM
I bet it looks like ass.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hoeferbe on Monday April 03 2017, @03:55PM (2 children)
Not 1960/70s minicomputers, but some jokers at Red Hat published a coloring book for SELinux [redhat.com]. I've also seen a Linux containers coloring book, but cannot find a link for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:58PM
A found a page from the Windows Coloring Book" [fineestateliquidation.com]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:22AM
Yikes, some of the drawings in that SELinux coloring book are seriously disturbing — like the evil Tux holding the dog's leash (several pages), druggy cat with one paw upside-down on 7, humpback dog on page 8...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:29AM
You're welcome [amazon.com].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by TrentDavey on Monday April 03 2017, @04:12PM
I can remember when I was about 10, my parents (I'm 57) having a Hospital Colouring book that had pages like "Here's your evening meal. Colour it grey" and "Here's the doctors' parking lot. They are all Cadillacs. Colour them black", etc.
Dave.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday April 03 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)
A couple thoughts:
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday April 03 2017, @06:01PM
Jesus Christ, apparently I can't even comprehend the summary of TFA. Yay for reprints!
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(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.)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @07:49PM
"Adult coloring books." Yet another reason to bring back the draft.
"PUT DOWN YOUR COLORING BOOKS, you unorganized grabasstic pieces of amphibian shit!!!"