As a professional parodist (Barry Trotter, Blarnia, etc), I can confirm that the poster is right, most parodies don’t honor the original–and one can honor an original without liking it much, though it’s much more pleasant to parody things you actually enjoy.

It is incredibly difficult to get a properly executed parody book published. A lot of what looks like sloppy, unfunny product is actually editors buying a book, then having their lawyers insist (wrongly) that the parody must look nothing like the original. At a big US publisher, I had to threaten to tear up a contract to protect the packaging, and ended up with a compromise that surely hurt the book’s sales.

I don’t know who owns “Pat the Bunny,” but I applaud the guys who wrote “Pat the Zombie” for getting it done right. Readers are more graphically sophisticated than ever, and the packaging of a parody tells them right away if the author(s) are honoring the original. And if the “dress” seems to be slapdash, they can be forgiven for assuming that the whole thing’s amateurish and awful. When publishers nut up and do parodies right, they’re wonderful and sell well, as I’m sure “Pat the Zombie” has/will.