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Books and Trade Paperbacks

The Art of Epic Mickey

Epic Mickey is a a popular video adventure game, developed by Junction Point Studios in Texas last year. It’s popular with furry fans too, having won the 2010 Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Game. Now the developers are putting out a new book dedicated to the art and artists that went into creating this well-known game. Here’s the blurb from Amazon.com: “The Art of Epic Mickey will be a 160-page hardcover landscape coffee table book. It will be written by Epic Mickey co-writer Austin Grossman and will feature a forward by Game Director and New York Times contributor, Warren Spector. The book will journey through the beautifully dark and twisted world known as Cartoon Wasteland touching on the creative process behind developing this once-in-a-lifetime vision. It will include, sketches, concept art, final frames, and stills from the actual game, plus, never-before-used art with quotes from the team that envisioned this epic tale. The physical world of the game is born directly from Disneyland, and accordingly, the book will spotlight the artistic influence that Disneyland, with its iconic qualities and rides, had on the creators of Epic Mickey.” The book is scheduled for release by Disney Editions on September 6th.

 

image c. 2011 Disney Editions

Housepets are Naked!

Housepets! is an on-line full-color comic strip by Rick Griffin. It’s well-known and well-loved… in fact it even won the Ursa Major Award for Best Comic Strip two years running. And now, it’s on dead trees! Housepets! Are Naked All The Time is the first collection of Housepets! strips available in softcover book format. In fact it’s available now from Createspace — and, of course, from Amazon. Follow the daily adventures of the pets of Babylon Gardens, USA. And now you don’t even need a computer!

 

image c. 2011 Rick Griffin

Bubbles & Gondola

More from Europe, this time from France. We really don’t know how to summarize this; even the title doesn’t exactly make sense. Probably better to let the publisher describe this new full-color hardcover graphic novel by artist and writer Renaud Dillies. Here’s what NBM Publishing put up on Amazon regarding Bubbles & Gondola: “Poetry, fantasy, and Django Reinhardt are woven into a fairy tale about solitude and awakening the creative spirit in this graphic novel. Charlie is a mouse who enjoys his solitude, staying up late nights indoors to listen to records and play his guitar; he experiences the outside world only through the windows of his house. As Charlie begins to stumble with writer’s block, a bluebird named Mr. Solitude arrives to encourage Charlie to search for inspiration outside of himself and his home. Told with a melancholic and heart-warming lyricism, this tender story combines pithy observations with whimsical illustrations to create a simple yet poignant tale for readers young and old.” The book is scheduled for release on October 1st.

 

image c. 2011 NBM Publishing

Spanish Cats come to America

Jose Fonollosa is a well-known comic book illustrator in Spain. For the past few year’s he’s also been working on an on-line black & white comic strip known simply as Meow, which follows that adventures of two domestic cats and their harried human companions. Cat fans, you can follow the strip at Mr. Fonollosa’s blogspot site. Meanwhile, Meow is being introduced to English-speaking audiences in a new hardcover collection from Kettledrum publishing, which is coming this August. You can order it at Westfield Comics, among other places.

 

image c. 2011 Jose Fonollosa

 

 

Magical Animals to the Rescue

Things do move quickly these days. The Familiars, a hardcover fantasy novel by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, was published by HarperCollins last September. Now, it’s already in development as an animated feature film for Sony Pictures. Here’s the story synopsis from Amazon.com and Booklist: “Aldwyn, a scruffy, quick-witted alley cat on the lam, poses as a magical animal when he ducks into a shop to avoid capture and ends up purchased as a boy wizard’s familiar. Despite needing to keep his mundane nature hidden, Aldwyn settles easily into his new role, bonding with his human loyal, Jack, and befriending two other children’s familiars: Gilbert, a tree frog, and Skylar, a blue jay. When an evil witch kidnaps the children and kills their mentor, only their familiars can save them.” The second book in the series, The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown, is heading for bookshelves this coming September. Meanwhile, here’s news about the movie from Bookyurt.com and Variety: “Doug Sweetland, a Pixar veteran of 16 years, has signed on to helm The Familiars for Sony Pictures Animation. Based on the novel by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, The Familiars is the story of the animals chosen to be familiars for young wizards in training. Sam Raimi and Josh Donen will exec produce.While at Pixar, Sweetland worked on animated features including Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo.” You can also find out more by visiting The Familiars web site.

 

image c. HarperCollins

Watch for the Knuckles

Archie Comics have announced they’re collecting together several popular adventure tales with Sonic the Hedgehog’s  feisty associate, Knuckles the Echidna. The Knuckles the Echidna Archives Volume 1 is a new full-color digest-sized trade paperback by Ian Flynn and Patrick Spaziante, coming this August. It brings together issues #1 – #3 of Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis: Knuckles and issues #1 – #3 of Knuckles the Echidna. The red one tries to solve the mysteries of his origins, and comes face-to-muzzle with the Dark Legion.

Beware the Feeding Ground

Now here’s something different: A werewolf comic book with decidedly political overtones, taking on the current hot-button topic of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States in a very unusual manner. Here’s Fangoria.com’s description of the first Feeding Ground hardcover graphic novel: “Pretending to be asleep, Flaca Busqueda watches her father leave just before going back to work. Dad, tired and poor, promises her that this will be his ‘one last cross’. Flaca sneakily gets up from her bed and spontaneously decides to follow him. She never expects to be cruelly kidnapped at the Mexican/American border, known to locals as ‘The Devil’s Highway’. In a race against time, Flaca’s parents, her brother and uncle are on a desperate search to find their missing girl before anything horrible happens to her. When the family finally locates their lost daughter, Flaca has become different and strangely odd. They find her scarred with bloody scratches and claw marks on her back, as if she were attacked by a wolf. Flaca’s body is changing at such a tender adolescent age. Her coming-of-age tale represents the werewolf’s ever-present transformation. In the backdrop of this horror story, there are political and social commentaries about the timely issue of illegal immigration. Creators Swifty Lang, Michael Lapinski, and Chris Mangun provide different perspectives on the subject, but never actually give a definite opinion on the topic, as if they are giving the readers a chance to discuss and choose for themselves. ” Feeding Ground is coming our way in full color, this August from Archaia Entertainment. Fittingly, it’s available in English and Spanish.

The Tiger and the Girl

Fans of the Twilight series and fans of animal transformation would do well to check out the novels of Colleen Houck. Her first book, Tiger’s Curse, introduces us to a teenage girl named Kelsey. She’s been given a very unusual assignment: Accompany a rare white tiger as he is shipped back to his native India. As soon as she lands though, things begin to get strange right away. Turns out that Ren, the former circus superstar, is not actually a tiger at all: He’s an Indian prince trapped under a bizarre magical curse which only allows him to assume his human form for 24 minutes a day. What’s more, Kelsey has been chosen by a powerful Indian goddess to be the girl who is destined to help Ren defeat the curse. Some assignment! Splinter released Tiger’s Curse in hardcover last January, and recently they released Tiger’s Quest, the second book in the series. In it, Kelsey must return to India to assist Ren’s less-than-savory brother Kishan, who has also fallen prey to the tiger’s curse. You can find out about these books and more in the series at Colleen Houck’s web site.

Buster Wilde: Weerwolf

Folks who have been following on-line comics for a while, especially anthro comics, might recall a particular one called Buster Wilde: Weerwolf.  As written and drawn by Scott Zellman, it tells of the trials and tribulations of an ordinary heterosexual human guy who, once bitten, keeps transforming into Buster — a decidedly queer werewolf with a party-all-night attitude! No it’s not pornographic and yes, it’s very much for adults only. Originally available exclusively on the Buster site at Furnation.com, FurPlanet and Bad Dog Books have announced that it will now be released as a black & white trade paperback later this June. Mr. Zellman has also been re-printing the original Buster strips in a larger format up on BadDog’s site.