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Books and Trade Paperbacks

A Science Fiction Classic, Illustrated

If you’re not familiar with Larry Niven, you should be. For one thing he was Guest of Honor at Further Confusion once — largely for his creation of the brutal tiger-like aliens known as the Kzin. In 1970 his novel Ringworld received both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Now, many years later, Tor Books is creating a series of black & white manga-style graphic novel adaptations of the book. “Two-hundred-year-old human Louis Wu is recruited by a two-headed alien named Nessus to join him, a felinoid warrior alien named Speaker-to-Animals, and the infinitely lucky human Teela Brown to explore an alien artifact. They find a Ringworld, a ribbon millions of miles long built around a distant sun. The civilization has fallen into savagery, though, and after crashing into the Ringworld, Louis must come up with a clever plan to get back to known space, hundreds of light years away.” Adapted by Robert Mandell (script) and Sean Lam (illustration), Part 1 is available now in paperback at Amazon.

[And with that, we’ll see you after Comic Con!]

image c. 2014 by Rory McLeish

image c. 2014 by Rory McLeish

Beasts Invade the Rain Forest

It might seem like an age ago, but earlier this year the animated sensation of the moment was Rio 2. Now that we’ve moved on to the summer, Paperkutz have announced a new tie-in graphic novel, carrying on after the events of that film. “While recording bird calls, Linda loses her new digital recorder, but when Blu finds it, it’s full of strange and horrifying growls! Is some sort of new predator on the loose in the sanctuary? Before the gang can solve the mystery themselves, monster-hunters and reality shows invade, turning their quiet jungle home into pandemonium. ” Rio 2: The Creature from Blu’s Lagoon is written by Arie Kaplan and illustrated by James Silvani. The full-color trade paperback is available for pre-ordering; otherwise look for it in stores this fall.

image c. 2014 Paperkutz

image c. 2014 Paperkutz

One Bad Werewolf

This month, Image Comics brings us the first trade paperback collection of Bad Dog, titled Volume 1: In the Land of Milk and Money. “Two bounty hunters, an angst-ridden werewolf and his deviant partner, stumble through the southwest in search of cash, booze, and the meaning of life. Mostly, they find booze.” Bringing together issues #1 through #6 of this full-color series by writer Joe Kelly and artist Diego Greco, Milk and Money is available now at Comic Book Round Up.

image c. 2014 Image Comics

image c. 2014 Image Comics

Power Bunny

More 80’s furry comic nostalgia! Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew was, of course, DC Comics jumping head-first into the growing funny animal scene with a Warner Brothers meets Superheroes pastiche created by Scott Shaw! and Roy Thomas. Now DC have brought together the original full-color issue #1 through #20 of CC in a new trade paperback, Showcase Presents: Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. The collection also features a team-up with the original Teen Titans, as well as the special and little-seen 3-issue Oz/Wonderland War mini-series (which the Super Rabbit and his cohorts had a large part in). It’s available for order now, and hits the shelves this August.

image c. 2014 DC Comics

image c. 2014 DC Comics

One Scared Little Bird

Lauri and Jaakko Ahonen created an Indiegogo campaign for their darkly comic full-color graphic novel Jaybird. Evidently it was quite successful, as now it’s been published! “Little Jaybird lives in a very large house alone with his bedridden mother. Portraits of dignified ancestors look down upon him from dusty walls. At times also a curious spider peeks from between the cobwebs. Even though it’s safe inside the house, with its doors barred and windows boarded up, reality can’t be shut outside forever.” It’s available now for download (complete with original soundtrack music), and this September Dark Horse Press will release it in a hardcover book edition.

image c. 2014 Dark Horse Press

image c. 2014 Dark Horse Press

What a Cute Little Raccoon… NOT!

With the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie looming closer, some folks might want to get a little background on the group. Heck, even young kids might want to! And so to that end Marvel Press brings us Guardians of the Galaxy: Beginnings, written by Tomas Palacios and illustrated by a variety of artists. “How did a raccoon with a rocket launcher, a talking tree, a bald green destroyer, the most dangerous woman in the universe, and an interplanetary policeman form the heroic space squad, The Guardians of the Galaxy? Join Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and their fierce leader Star-Lord as they band together in this origin storybook to fight through the cosmos and bring peace to a universe filled with threats and danger. This illustrated 48-page storybook introduces the fun ragtag band of Super Heroes in space!” Check out this new full-cover hardcover at Barnes & Noble.

image c. 2014 Marvel Press

image c. 2014 Marvel Press

Nine Lives, Many Adventures

Sometimes it’s best to just let the thing speak for itself: “Allison Breaking is a talented journalist with her own blog and a lot of bills to pay, so when she receives an offer from a mysterious stranger named Burma to write his memoirs, it’s an offer she can’t refuse, not even with all the red flags popping up. But Burma is quite literally unlike any man Allison’s ever known – because he’s a cat. And this cat has stories to tell about how he (over the course of a few lifetimes) has shaped the world – and another, darker story that Allison must risk all to uncover… a story of what this particular cat has been doing with the last of his nine lives.” That’s the story of I Was The Cat, written by Paul Tobin and illustrated in full color by Benjamin Dewey. The hardcover graphic novel is coming this August from Oni Press.

Image c. 2014 Oni Press

Image c. 2014 Oni Press

30 Years of Turtles

As part of the build up for the (somewhat controversial, ahem ahem…) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie coming this summer, comic book non-fiction author Andrew Farago brings us Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History (in hardcover from Insight Editions). As you can see from the cover, it does indeed cover several different iterations of our favorite heroes in a half-shell. “Discover the complete story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time–from their humble beginnings in black-and-white comics created in a home studio in Dover, New Hampshire, to their multimillion-dollar breakout success, and their position as four of the best-loved characters of all time. Featuring interviews with every key figure in the Turtles’ evolution, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History presents the tale straight from the mouths of those who were there, including co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, animation legend Fred Wolf, creature effects maestro Brian Henson, and even the man behind the Ninja Rap, Vanilla Ice.” Ooo, now there’s a plus… O_o Anyway, check it out at Amazon.

image c. 2014 Insight Editions

image c. 2014 Insight Editions

The Lion Blocks

Perhaps it was inevitable that someone would turn Lego toys’ popular anthropomorphic fantasy series Legends of Chima into a comic book — and Papercutz were the ones to do it. No less than three volumes of Lego: Legends of Chima have hit the stands now, in both hardcover and trade paperback editions. They’re written by Yannick Grotholt with full-color art by Comicon (yes, that’s the name). “Chima— a world reigned by animal tribes, divided by the battle of the noble lions against the evil crocodiles. In High Risk [Volume 1] Laval, prince of the Lions and his friend Eris, a warrior of the Eagle Tribe, engage in a training race on their Speedorz. As the two speed through the jungle, they stumble upon a Gorilla convoy transporting CHI that is being attacked by the Crocodiles. Will Laval and Eris save their Gorilla friends? Or will they become Crocodile Meat?” Papercutz has a web site dedicated to the series.

image c. 2014 Papercutz

image c. 2014 Papercutz