Andrews McMeel publishing presents Dragon Girl: The Secret Valley, a new trade paperback graphic novel written and illustrated by Jeff Weigel. “Eleven-year-old Alanna and her older brother Hamel are orphans and doing their best to take care of each other until one day Alanna stumbles upon a cave full of dragon eggs. When the eggs hatch with no mother dragon in sight, Alanna decides to take care of the babies herself, even creating a clever costume so that the babies think she, too, is a dragon. With their large appetites and accidental fire burps, Alanna learns that dragon babies are hard work! And when a mama dragon finally comes to claim the babies, Alanna’s costume is so convincing that she is swept along for the ride as they journey to Dragon Rock, a mysterious magnetic force that draws dragons of all shapes and sizes to a magical, untouched valley.” It’s available now, and over at Comic Book Resources they have more of the story.
Straight from The Hub
Hoping to duplicate the success they found with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (admit it, you know it’s true!) IDW now brings us Littlest Pet Shop in full-color comic book form. Animal-talker Blythe and her multi-species compadres are off on adventures all over Downtown City on their famous polka-dot moped. The series is written by Georgia Ball (My Little Pony) with art by Nico Pena and Antonio Campo (Penguins of Madagascar). The IDW web site has more. There’s also a variant cover version by Katie Cook (My Little Pony).
Back on the Road
One of the classics of anthropomorphic superhero comics, Extinctioners by Shawntae Howard, is available again in digital form. Originally published in black & white by Shanda Fantasy Arts, Extinctioners: Road to Extinction #1 – 5 have been scanned for download by Angry Viking Press. “It was a time for celebration. The budding of young romances, the coming of age transition from child to young adult, and the promising hope of the future. Katherine Fela and Scarlet Starfox’s lives could not have been more different from one another, but the appearance of alien invaders would forever intertwine their destinies. ” Check it out at Drive Thru Comics. This version includes a brand new full-color cover.
And One More Little Bear
Robert Aragon is a fine arts painter employed in Hollywood. But in his free time he created his first book, A Tiny Teddy Named Cuds. This little bear is not only a childhood friend, he’s a dreamer: He dreams of a world bigger than his room, and he dreams of being bigger than a little bear. And we follow along with his full-color adventures in his imagination. All of which you can see in the book, which is available at Tiny Teddy Press.
Speaking of Bears… *Ahem*
What features the likes of Prozac Bear, Crack Bear, Lech Bear, and Death Bear, among others? Why it’s Bear Nuts, a full-color on-line comic strip by Canadian artist Alison Acton. Surprisingly nice for their many… quirks, these odd bears live in a magical realm where they all learn to get along… and not disgust the neighbors. It’s all part of Studio Dooomcat, an on-line art collective (with prints, t-shirts, and more) started by Alison and Jim Charalampidis. Check out their web site, and follow the links to find the first two volumes of the collected Bear Nuts, available from DMF Comics.
Bear Be Pirates Here
Earlier this year the artist known as Travis Hanson (creator of fantasy comic The Bean) ran a very successful Kickstarter campaign for his new project, Tanner Jones and the Quest for the Monkey Stone. ” Turns out, he more than doubled what he was asking for! So, the new full-color 60-page book will be shipping this June, according to his web site. So what’s it about? “It’s about a boy named Tanner Jones and his adventure to find the Monkey Stone. Something he just can’t do alone, so he enlists the help of the greatest treasure hunters around: The pirate bears of the Scrawny Duck. It’s a journey to an uncharted isle, full of mystery and danger, but most of all just pure fun and the importance of following one’s dreams.”
Cats… In… SPACE!
Galacticat is a regularly-updated black & white on-line comic story about a cat in space named Wallace… with a little bird named Elpy. It’s written by Gene Goldstein and illustrated by Kasey Williams — and the pair make regular appearances at various comic book and anime conventions. What’s more, the first 10 chapters of Galacticat have been collected in a pair of books, Volume 1 and Volume 2, available on both Amazon and Createspace. There’s information about ordering each of them on the Galacticat web site, as well as the latest pages of the story.
Smile and Wave, Boys!
Word has gotten around that Dreamworks Animation has pulled a switch: The aliens-land-on-Earth comedy Home, originally scheduled for release this winter, has been pushed back to 2015, while the Penguins of Madagascar movie has been moved up to this coming November. To that end Dreamworks has just released the first trailer for the penguin movie. It seems that our military-style black and white team meets up with a secret agency known as The North Wind, a collective of high-tech armed animals from the arctic. The film is directed by Eric Darnell, who of course directed all three of the Madagascar movies. Fine, fine, but what we wanna know is: Will Marlene the otter be in the movie too??
That’s A Lotta Monkeys…
“Jerome Lu was born in Mountain View and raised in the Bay Area by a family of wild monkeys. Even when he was a small chimp, they could see that he believed every crayon in the box had magical powers, and he would transform blank pages into colorful, fantastic worlds filled with monkeys, ninjas, robots and all his craziest dreams. His wild monkey relations soon recognized his artistic talent and nurtured it with a diet of Skittles and Corn Nuts. They made sure his art education included Saturday morning cartoons and ABC After School Specials. Now that Jerome has grown up to be a big monkey, they are quite proud that his childhood creativity has never diminished. In fact, it has grown, and he is working on his biggest art project to date: Constructing a 20-story ultimate monkey ninja robot.” Got all that? It’s all come together at Hyperactive Monkey, Jerome Lu’s web site of crazy colorful artwork, books, t-shirts, animation, and a whole lot more.








