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Adventures at the Dawn of Time

Last year, Garth Ennis (Preacher) and Rob Steen (Flanimals) ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for their illustrated book for young readers called Erf. The final book was presented to contributors. Now Dynamite Entertainment is putting out a mass-market edition of Erf later this month in hardcover. “Set at the dawn of time, ERF introduces its titular character and his three amphibious friends – Figwillop, KWAAAH, and the Booper – as they take their first nervous steps out of the ocean. Their exploration of exciting new lands beyond the shore leads to a confrontation with the mighty Colossux, a terrifying creature lurking in the prehistoric jungle. What follows is an evolutionary tale of love and loyalty for readers of all ages.” Check out the preview at Bleeding Cool.

image c. 2013 Dynamite Entertainment

Keeping Your Childhood Friends in Line

It seems that not all our imaginary friends have found a safe home like Foster’s. And so it falls upon agents Dave and Terry and the crew of I.M.A.G.I.N.E. to keep things cheery for the world and safe for children. That’s the idea behind Imagine Agents, a new full-color comic book mini-series from Boom! Studios. You see, adults cannot perceive a child’s imaginary friend (referred to as a ‘figment’ in this world), unless they have the special equipment that our trusty agents from I.M.A.G.I.N.E. employ. Check out the preview at Comic Book Resources and it’ll all make a lot more sense. Imagine Agents is written by Brian Joines (Noble Causes) and illustrated by the artist known as Bachan (Justice League). Look for it starting later this month.

image c. 2013 Boom! Studios

He’s Getting Stuffed Again

Seth MacFarlane and Universal Pictures have announced that the sequel to the wildly popular 2o12 movie Ted will be released to theaters on June 26th, 2015. It’s simply called Ted 2. Once again Seth MacFarlane will direct and star as the voice of Ted, the foul-mouthed talking teddy bear, and Mark Wahlberg will reprise his role as Ted’s grown-up childhood human friend. That’s about all we know about it so far — other than the fact that the sequel will also be R-Rated! The original Ted, of course, was nominated for an Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Feature.

image c. 2013 Universal Pictures

A Beastly Tarot Deck

Victoria Gannon is a self-taught artist who creates works under the name of Leptailurus. For a long time she has toyed with the idea of creating her very own Tarot deck, and now she has begun work on that very project. Savage Divination is its name, and it’s “a full 78-card tarot deck inspired by myth, lore, and legend focusing on the profound spiritual connection between man and beast”. For a little more than one week from now, Leptailurus is running a Kickstarter campaign to finance the creation of the final product, including the rendering of the art and the printing of the cards — with lots of perks for contributors, including original sketches and prints of the various cards themselves. There’s a video at the Kickstarter page explaining it all, and showing many more examples in completed and work-in-progress form.

image c. 2013 Leptailurus

A Wolf, His Mate, and Their Cubs

Turns out that the original Alpha and Omega (from 2010) was successful enough to “spawn” a sequel — at least a 44-minute direct-to-video sequel, Alpha and Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure. According to Cartoon Brew (never very kind to standard Hollywood fare), the sequel is again directed by Richard Rich. It was animated in India. In this new film, the wolves Humphrey and Kate strive to bring their cubs — Stinky, Claudette, and Runt — a happy season at Christmas time. The preview trailer is up now on YouTube. Look for the DVD from Lionsgate, coming to your local store on October 8th.

Image c. 2013 Lionsgate Pictures

Watch Out For The Surly Squirrel

Trailers have begun to show up in the theaters for The Nut Job, a new animated GCI feature coming out this January. It’s based on a 2005 original animated short by director Peter Lepeniotis (Disney’s Dinosaur, Fantasia 2000) called Surly Squirrel (which you can still view on YouTube). The Nut Job tells the story of Surly (now here voiced by Will Arnett) and how he gathers together a rag-tag band of rodents with the intent of knocking over a local nut store. Needless to say, things become much more complicated — as you can see in the trailer. Interestingly, this project has been brought about almost entirely by independent studios and smaller companies. The film was produced by Toonbox Entertainment,  Red Rover International,  and Gulfstream Pictures, and is being distributed by Open Road Films.

image c. 2013 Toonbox Entertainment

There Was a Woman and Her Dog…

… on an alien planet. That’s the basic concept behind B + F, a full-color illustrated book for adults that’s coming in hardcover from Adhouse Books this October. “B+F, Gregory Benton’s MoCCA Award of Excellence-winning fable, explores an otherworldly forest with a woman and a dog as they encounter its denizens, both benevolent and malicious. A wordless meditation on goodwill, hostility, and isolation.” Order it at the Adhouse web site, and check out Gregory Benton’s web site while you’re at it.

image c. 2013 Adhouse Books

A Quiet Man and His Quiet Bear

Coming this November from Top Shelf Productions: “Sam Henderson — Ignatz-nominated creator of Magic Whistle, Emmy-nominated writer and storyboard artist for SpongeBob SquarePants… and also the nutty mind behind Scene But Not Heard, the longest-running feature in the history of Nickelodeon Magazine! Now all those strips — the hilarious, wordless adventures of a man and a bear — are collected all in one handsome hardcover. Just try and keep up with Sam’s wild imagination! A full-color hardcover, 6″ x 9″, 128 pages, co-published by Top Shelf Productions and Alternative Comics.” You heard ’em. Order Scene But Not Heard at Top Shelf’s web site.

image c. 2013 Top Shelf

Man and Dog, Cheese and Crackers

Unless you live in the UK, you might not be aware that the multi-award-winning Wallace and Gromit animation series has been adapted into a full-colour weekly comic strip. Well it has, and now the folks at Titan Comics have collected the strip series (so far) into a new hardcover book coming out this October. “The strip, which appears daily in The Sun, the UK’s most popular daily newspaper, is read by an audience of 2.3 million readers. The full-colour strip features a self-contained, weekly-continuity that sees our plucky, bald inventor race from one hair-brained invention to the next with gusto, extreme silliness and more puns than you can shake a stick at!” Check out Wallace and Gromit: The Complete Newspaper Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1 at Amazon. The strip features stories from a gaggle of writers, all of it illustrated by Jimmy Hansen and Mychailo Kazybird.

image c. 2013 Titan Comics