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The Annie Awards for 2017

Saturday the 3rd at UCLA, the International Animated Film Society (ASIFA) handed out the annual Annie Awards for the best in animated films, television, and effects for the year 2017. As everyone expected, the big winner of the evening was Disney/Pixar’s Coco, which took home 11 of the 13 honors that it was nominated for, including Best Feature, Best Directing, and Best Writing. (Not really an anthropomorphic film, but those alebrijes were so cool!) In spite of Coco’s sweep, there was still room for several anthropomorphic items to win awards in several categories. Revolting Rhymes was awarded Best Special Production (the award for medium-length original films). Based on the poems of Roald Dahl, Revolting Rhymes was created by Magic Light Pictures, which previously brought us The Gruffalo and Highway Rat. Silvergate Media’s series The Octonauts won for Best TV Production for Preschool Children, while We Bare Bears won Best TV Production for Children. Trollhunters won for Best Character Animation in a TV Production, and the feature War for the Planet of the Apes won for Character Animation in a Live Action Production. Cuphead took home the award for Best Game. Meanwhile, the Disney Mickey Mouse TV series had quite a night, taking home Annies for Best Directing, Best Music, and Best Storyboarding. Visit the Annie Awards web site to see the full list. [And remember: The Ursa Major Awards are taking nominations now!]

Image c. 2018 Magic Light Pictures

Crash: The Party

And more from Dark Horse… The Crash Bandicoot Files: How Willy The Wombat Sparked Marsupial Mania. (Woo, long title huh?) From their web site: “Take a rare glimpse into the making of a video game icon, and gain a first-hand taste of the creativity that brought Crash Bandicoot to millions of screens around the world! This deluxe hardcover reproduction of Naughty Dog’s original Crash Bandicoot developer’s bible is sure to please all who possess a curiosity surrounding the creation of games!” It’s available this March in hardcover.

image c. 2018 Dark Horse

The Cop What Lurks

We can see how the pitch for this probably went: “HE is a hard-boiled New England cop… IT is a Cthullu-spawned horror… Together, they fight crime!” Actually, here’s what we got from Previews: “Artie Buckle is a grade ‘A’ schmuck. His excessive fondness for booze compliments his flash temper, but hold their feet to the fire, his fellow officers would agree: Artie is one helluva cop. He’s gonna need that scrap of goodwill because Brick City is under siege from its citizenry… and to top it off Artie’s been saddled with the city’s newest hero as his partner: A hideous, monstrous, but completely likable, extra-dimensional being named Vinegar Teeth. Can Artie pull his head out long enough to work together with a Lovecraftian monster with a heart of gold and set Brick City back on its feet?” Vinegar Teeth is a new 4-issue comic miniseries created by Damon Gentry and Troy Nixey. The first issue is out now from Dark Horse.

image c. 2018 Dark Horse Comics

Their Names in Lights!

And their likenesses too, actually. KefkaFloyd is the on-line name of Dan Vincent, an artist who creates original laser-etched clear sculptures that glow with neon colors. So far, most of his designs are based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. But as you can see on his web site he covers other fannish ventures as well, and he’s always creating new works. So keep checking back!

image c. 2018 by KefkaFloyd

Adventures Between Night and Day

The Lost Rainforest is a new fantasy novel series for young readers, written by Eliot Schrefer (author of the Spirit Animals book series). The first book in the series is called Mez’s Magic — and here’s what the publisher, Harper Collins, says it’s about: “Caldera has forever been divided into those animals who walk by night and those who walk by day. Nightwalker panthers, like young Mez and her beloved sister, have always feared daywalkers as creatures of myth and legend. Until the eclipse. Now Mez has discovered that she can cross the Veil and enter the daylight world. Her magical power has unknown depths, but she must rush to discover it after a mysterious stranger arrives at her family’s den, bearing warnings of a reawakened evil. Saving Caldera means Mez must leave her sister behind and unite an unlikely group of animal friends to unravel an ancient mystery and protect their rainforest home.” With interior illustrations by Emilia Dziubak, The Lost Rainforest: Mez’s Magic is available now in hardcover.

image c. 2018 Harper Collins

Go Ahead: Call HIM A Raccoon

Jess “Rom” Looney — also known as Looney Raccooney — is a furry artist and a fur-suit maker. His web site is new and just getting built up, but he’s already got a backlog of his creative endeavors to show off. Besides taking commission work, he’s hoping to add his own comic series to the web site soon.

image c. 2018 by Rom Looney

Flora and Fauna, Mystery and Macabre

That’s how the artist known as Kiriska says it. On their web site they describe themselves as a “… Seattle-based artist specializing in surreal and macabre wildlife art, as well as monsters, creatures, and anime-inspired illustrations.” To that end they have t-shirts, prints, stickers, and other materials for sale through a variety of outlets like Redbubble, Inprnt, and Society 6.

image c. 2018 by Kiriska

She Makes A Big Splash

Benson Shum is an illustrator and animation artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation. (He worked on Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and other films.) As part of their Artist Showcase series, Disney-Hyperion published his illustrated children’s book, Holly’s Day at the Pool, which is available on Amazon. “Holly the hippo imagines the worst: Icebergs and icy water, penguins and seals! Her imagination bursts at every turn, making it harder and harder for her to step foot in the pool… Until she get the chance to be a hero. Holly may be scared, but she is a very brave girl.” Now on his web site Mr. Shum announced that he will be illustrating a new book, Go To Sheep, written by Jennifer Sattler. That one’s set to be published by Little Simon later this spring.

image c. 2018 Disney-Hyperion

PLOP!

In the spirit of “How did this sneak up on us?”, it turns out that Condorito now has his own movie — called, appropriately enough, Condorito: The Movie. What, never heard of Condorito? The bird-with-a-beret was created in 1949 by Chilean doctor and political cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger. Since then, the bird has gone on to become practically the Mickey Mouse of Latin America… which is funny, given that he was created to make fun of Walt Disney’s over-sanitized version of Chile in the film Saludos Amigos. The Condorito gag strip (always ending with a lame joke or pun, and lots of characters fainting over backwards with a loud PLOP!) has become so well-known that someone was bound to make an animated movie out of it. And now Pajarraco Films (from Peru!) have brought Condorito to the screen in CGI. (It’s only been released in Spanish with subtitles, so far.) The plot? Condorito would desperately love to date his va-va-voom human girlfriend Yayita, but doing so means he has to get past her disapproving parents. Things get a bit more complicated when invading aliens capture and run off with Yayita’s mama — and who else but Condorito to try and rescue her? Admittedly the critics have not been kind to the film, some complaining that it smooths off the rough edges and adult content of the original strip. Though not very approving either, Lili Loofbourow’s review for The Week has some good background information on the strip. Oh, check out the official trailer too.

image c. 2018 Pajarraco Films