SwBook-It 'o13! Book #28
Sep. 30th, 2013 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year four! (Years one, two, three, and four just in case you're curious.) This was a secondhand find.
Title: Girl Talk: Telling It Like It Is by Hallmark
Details: Copyright 2006, Hallmark Licensing Inc
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Women have a language all their own. And why shouldn't we? Girl talk is all about making connections, a way of keeping our friends close and our secrets secret.
Hallmark humor writers have given these vintage photographs a modern twist with their hysterically loose interpretation of what women share and how they share it. So sit back, open this book (and a pint of ice cream), and have a little fun with your feminine side."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'm a well-known enthusiast of Bluntcard and a well-meaning family member thought I'd enjoy this book.
How I Liked It: It's a tough note to strike, surprisingly. What seems like home-run comedy (affixing salacious captions/quotations on staid "classic" portraits from a more socially conservative time that never really existed) is actually pretty difficult. Finding just the right amount of words with just the right sentiment since the photographs have so much personality (which is why they're being used) is tricky and Bluntcard's creator is (on Facebook, anyway) quite honest about his several-takes progress.
When you add in the fact that this isn't a real humor book, it's a Hallmark throwaway with a certain Hallmark standard, things become even more complicated. Exactly how salacious can these captions get? When you have a standard of "shocking" a fairly family audience, the humor dries up pretty quickly.
The "girl talk" angle could've and should've been a great, specific angle of parody (watch how it's done properly) is instead made for a kind of half-hearted specificality of photographs (ones with women and girls in them).
A concept ripe for hilarity (and it can be done) but unfortunately withered under a Hallmark filter.
Notable: I always wonder what the rights and licensing process is with these kinds of images and although the book offers no credit in that weird, book-written-and-produced-by-a-faceless-corporation kind of way, I did recognize one of the images, a 1934 Life Magazine fashion shot. In the book, the picture is chopped in half and zoomed, the LIFE watermark gone.
The book captions the woman on the left with
"Here's to filthy-rich men, dirty martinis, and talking trash."
Bluntcard captions illustrations (the hokier the better), not photographs (at least, none that I recall), but I'm fairly certain they would've been able to pull up something at least mildly amusing (never mind the fact this isn't camp advertising/stock from the quirkier post-war era, as the cover of the book suggests it all will be, it's a "slice of life" fashion shot from the '30s, but still).
Title: Girl Talk: Telling It Like It Is by Hallmark
Details: Copyright 2006, Hallmark Licensing Inc
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Women have a language all their own. And why shouldn't we? Girl talk is all about making connections, a way of keeping our friends close and our secrets secret.
Hallmark humor writers have given these vintage photographs a modern twist with their hysterically loose interpretation of what women share and how they share it. So sit back, open this book (and a pint of ice cream), and have a little fun with your feminine side."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'm a well-known enthusiast of Bluntcard and a well-meaning family member thought I'd enjoy this book.
How I Liked It: It's a tough note to strike, surprisingly. What seems like home-run comedy (affixing salacious captions/quotations on staid "classic" portraits from a more socially conservative time that never really existed) is actually pretty difficult. Finding just the right amount of words with just the right sentiment since the photographs have so much personality (which is why they're being used) is tricky and Bluntcard's creator is (on Facebook, anyway) quite honest about his several-takes progress.
When you add in the fact that this isn't a real humor book, it's a Hallmark throwaway with a certain Hallmark standard, things become even more complicated. Exactly how salacious can these captions get? When you have a standard of "shocking" a fairly family audience, the humor dries up pretty quickly.
The "girl talk" angle could've and should've been a great, specific angle of parody (watch how it's done properly) is instead made for a kind of half-hearted specificality of photographs (ones with women and girls in them).
A concept ripe for hilarity (and it can be done) but unfortunately withered under a Hallmark filter.
Notable: I always wonder what the rights and licensing process is with these kinds of images and although the book offers no credit in that weird, book-written-and-produced-by-a-faceless-corporation kind of way, I did recognize one of the images, a 1934 Life Magazine fashion shot. In the book, the picture is chopped in half and zoomed, the LIFE watermark gone.
The book captions the woman on the left with
"Here's to filthy-rich men, dirty martinis, and talking trash."
Bluntcard captions illustrations (the hokier the better), not photographs (at least, none that I recall), but I'm fairly certain they would've been able to pull up something at least mildly amusing (never mind the fact this isn't camp advertising/stock from the quirkier post-war era, as the cover of the book suggests it all will be, it's a "slice of life" fashion shot from the '30s, but still).
