When I heard yesterday that Bob Hoskins had passed away, I was crushed; just three days ago I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of my favorite movies. Comedic, yet mature humor. Creative plot. Amazing execution. It’s a brilliant piece of work that would not have succeeded if not for Bob Hoskins amazing acting and his ability to make the audience believe he really was interacting with cartoon characters.

Jessica Rabbit, Eddie Valiant, and Roger Rabbit are famous characters now, but few people know the movie was actually based on a book, a slim detective volume written by Gary K. Wolf in 1981.

Book to Movie: Who Censored Roger Rabbit

This was the book that made me believe in my ability to publish a book one day…. and not for the reasons you might think.

The idea that the book is almost always better than the movie is alive and well in my mind, so when I realized one of my favorite movies was based on a book, I immediately placed a hold on the only copy in the entire library network.

Let me first off say this; the differences between the book and the movie are extreme. The investigation in the book is centered around the murder of Roger Rabbit, and the cartoon characters are comic strip characters who are photographed to make comic strips. They speak in word bubbles, which is where the “censored” part of the title comes into play.

Jessica Rabbit is a porn strip star, rather than a nightclub singer and rather than being set in Los Angeles circa 1940s, it is a present-day book.

The imaginative idea of humans and comic characters co-existing was about the best part of the book and practically the only part that made it into the film. So for his imagination, I’m glad that Gary K. Wolf wrote the book.

Why isn’t this a review then? I read the book over a decade ago… We try to review only recently read titles, even if it is a re-read. I have no plans to re-read Who Censored Roger Rabbit, although be my guest if you are curious. It’s a quick book.

For my part, I will go re-watch my copy of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and once again, thank Bob Hoskins for bringing Eddie Valiant to life.