Matt Flanagan

Writers are often asked where they get their ideas. I don't think Matt Flanagan needs to worry about getting that question though as his inspirations are exceedingly obvious. It's almost as if someone fed the trailers for the upcoming films Cocaine Bear and Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey into an AI content generator . . . though I suppose AI wouldn't produce so many misspellings and typos.

A stooooopid slasher movie in print, the conceit is that Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood instantly go on murderous rampages after accidentally consuming the cocaine from a crashed smuggler's plane. First they turn on each other, then they stalk a grown-up Christopher Robin who is returning to visit them with his fiancée. A group of young people looking to scavenge the drugs from the plane conveniently turn up to increase the body count.

This 57-page booklet is almost laughably bad with its increasingly over-the-top set pieces, but it's hard to forgive its lack of understanding of Milne's Pooh characters, treating them as very large real animals with claws and blood with no explanation except maybe implying a transformation because the cocaine is magic or laced with special toxins? And you'd think such an outrageous concept would have more humor instead of sticking to tired slasher movie tropes.

One has to wonder where this mashup / rip-off / cash-grab / satire / parody falls in the realm of copyright and trademark law. The first Winnie-the-Poooh book and its characters are in public domain, but Tigger, who doesn't enter public domain until Jan. 1, 2024, is included, and the cover image of Pooh on my ebook more closely resembles the trademarked Disney design than the public domain E.H. Shepard illustrations. Cocaine Bear meanwhile is based on a real story about a dead bear found in Georgia and nicknamed "Pablo Eskobear" (or "Escobear") because it overdosed -- sans rampage -- after consuming a stash of cocaine dropped from a smuggling plane passing overhead, so those story elements are probably up for grabs. And the idea of Pooh as a serial killer may be too generic and unimaginative to cause much concern for the lawyers behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.

(Update, Feb. 11, 2023: Amazon has reached into my Kindle app and changed the cover of the book to one that looks less like the Disney character. But I had taken a picture of it, so here it is in all its glory:

https://i.imgur.com/b1a3KsR.jpg

Of course, the new cover raises its own issues:

https://i.imgur.com/kYjqHaA.png

Will there be a third cover in our future?)

Flanagan's other book for sale right now, Evil Demon Robot Bitch, seems to be directly based on the recent movie, M3GAN. The book description: "Megan is an incredibly lifelike robot - a stunning marvel of AI programmed to be a young girl's best friend as well as the perfect nanny. But her ability to adapt leads to unimaginable consequences as she grows smarter, faster, and more powerful than any human ever could." His next book is entitled Scream and seems to have a resemblance to the long-running movie franchise. I guess this guy has found his niche and is sticking to it.

So, while Winnie the Pooh: Cocaine Bear isn't good, I do admire the gonzo concept and the chutzpah displayed by actually putting it into print.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (altro)