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May, 2013:

Prehistoric Pals with Pluck

Playing in theaters now (in front of several movies) is the trailer for Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie, produced by BBC Earth (of course) and coming to theaters this December. Interestingly, the producers are taking a somewhat anthropomorphic angle for this 3D CGI film: It’s actually narrated by the dinosaurs themselves as they go about their daily lives. In this story, we meet a young frill-head dinosaur, who is something of a runt in his herd — but who will grow up to be a great leader who will guide them through a dangerous world. The film is directed by Barry Cook (Mulan, Arthur Christmas) and Neil Nightingale (Enchanted Kingdom). Check out the trailer at Animation Scoop.

image c. 2013 BBC Earth

A Boy and His Snake… or Vice Versa

Suddenly everyone is talking about Sanjay and Craig, a new animated TV series on Nickelodeon. It stars the voice of Chris Hardwick (comedian, bowler, and head honcho of The Nerdist Channel on YouTube) as Craig, the best friend of a young suburban boy named Sanjay. Craig, it turns out, just happens to be a talking snake. The Nerdist web site has more details, and you can check out the glowing review at Gerry Beck’s Animation Scoop, also. The series is up and running on Nickelodeon now.

image c. 2013 Nickelodeon

A Little Sympathy for Trolls

Jay P. Fosgitt is a commercial and comic-book artist — among other projects he was the illustrator of Old McMonster’s Haunted Farm (written by Brent Erwin), which we made note of here previously. Now one of Jay’s latest projects (as writer and illustrator) is a full-color comic called Bodie Troll. “Jay’s creator-owned, all-ages comic set in the mythic village of Hagadorn and featuring a grumpy little troll named Bodie. While he aspires to be big and scary, he’s actually cute and cuddly, which confounds his attempts every time.” It’s available now from Red 5 Comics. Check out Jay’s web site to find out more about this and other projects, as well as his commission rates. Yes he does.

image c. 2013 Jay P. Fosgitt

Save the Snakes! Save the World!

Serusis is the title of a new 5-issue full-color comic mini-series coming late in June from Big Dog Ink. “Planet Serusis is under the control of the Reliton army and its ruthless leader, Snogard. In an attempt to save their world, two Serusisans kidnap a group of humans in the hopes that they will be able to access the secrets of the creators of Serusis itself. Four humans versus the Reliton army? Good luck with that.” The Serusisans, by the way, resemble large snakes with terrific hairdo’s. The Relitons are big reptiles too, with four limbs and lots of attitude. This all-ages series is written by Tom Hutchison (Critter) and illustrated by Owen Gieni (Avengelyne). Things From Another World has more.

image c. 2013 Big Dog Ink

Crowdfunding for Furries

Furstarter is a brand new blog created by Corbeau Fundhound. It describes itself as “A weekly look at furry and fur-friendly crowdfunded projects”. Here’s his announcement: “Howdy howdy – I’m working on a blog focused on upcoming furry and fur-friendly kickstarter projects. Just now beginning week 2, so no promises on longevity of this, but I’ve been working on other blog projects for several years now without totally blowing my deliverables. I’m still tweaking the look and feel of the place, it should be a little more visitor-friendly once some of the art commissions I’ve got in place come through, but since by definition the information is time-sensitive I wanted to get content up and running!” Check it out at http://www.furstarter.com.

Animals Think, Animals Write

It’s a new hardcover book called Animals with Sharpies, created by two of the founding members of the world-renowned collective The Royal Art Lodge. Again, we’re going to defer to their description, since we really can’t top it: “Animals with Sharpies is a collection of paintings with hand-lettered texts. In each painting, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber have depicted an animal holding a Sharpie, ostensibly writing a message. These messages are varied in nature: Political and religious tracts, confessions, recipes, arithmetic problems, and more. Above all, these paintings are funny, but they are also startlingly poignant and jarring for the humanness of the suffering and longing depicted in these animals’ simple words.” Check it out at Amazon. It’s coming to shelves this June.

image c. 2013 Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

Return of the Bear

Herobear and the Kid was a renowned and award-winning black & white all-ages comic book series created by animator Mike Kunkel back in the 1990’s. It told the story of a lonely young boy who receives a rag-doll white bear as a present from his grandfather. Unbeknownst to our young hero, both his grandfather and that toy bear are very special. Soon enough the bear springs to life as an 8-foot-tall, caped, flying ursine superhero, and as his sidekick “the Kid” our young protagonist is off with his new friend on adventures. Now, Boom! Studios have announced that Mr. Kunkel will be re-launching the Herobear series through their Kaboom! imprint this coming June. Comic Vine has a write-up about it, including a preview of the special “animation cel” variant cover that will be available at some retailers.

image c. 2013 by Mike Kunkel

A Fistful of Bananas?

Look, there’s really no way we can explain it better: “Welcome to ‘the Blister’ — a bizarre other-world colonized by humans sometime in the 22nd century, which quickly became a hotly-contested source of fertile land and natural resources long ago exhausted on Earth. In this new frontier, a rogue gunslinger and his companion wander across a wilderness in the grips of a civil war, encountering lawlessness, natives, and perversions of civilization in a world at the crossroads between the past and the future. The fact that said gunslinger is a bio-surgically modified silverback gorilla toting a pair of enormous revolvers is neither here nor there.” That’s the story of Six Gun Gorilla from Boom! Studios, coming this June. It’s written by Simon Spurrier (X-Men: Legacy) with interior art by Jeff Stokely (Fraggle Rock, The Reason for Dragons) and featuring a cover by Eisner Award-winning artist Ramón Pérez (see below). The story behind the comic is even more interesting: It’s based on an obscure 1930’s comic which no one seems to know the source of. Major Spoiler’s write-up might make it all easier to follow. Or not.

image c. 2013 by Ramon Perez

What’s So Funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding?

D.G. Flamand is an author who has made a name for himself as writing books for children and adults that are pointedly violence-free. Not so much as a political statement, but because he feels that people should have more options to read literature that encourages solving problems without violence. He explains it all clearly at his web site. Several of his books have more than a little furry leaning to them. In The Old Druid and the Pursuit of Happiness, the animals of the Land of Peace notice that their ruling druid is troubled — and they follow him as he seeks out the fabled Garden of Happiness.  In The Great Secret of the Seas, a young boy and girl are granted the power to swim beneath the ocean — but find they must use all their resources to save the many creatures they meet there from a terrible fate. Flamand’s latest book (coming this June) is A Thousand Rainbows, where we meet and follow the adventures of various creatures (an owl, a buck, a fish, and more) in the land of Cornucopia. All of these books and more can be found at Tate Publishing.

image c. 2013, Tate Publishing