Word is out that Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, the long-awaited TV spinoff from Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda movies, will finally be coming to television on Monday, November 7th. It will premier on Nickelodeon at 5:30 pm, Eastern and Pacific time. First up will be a full week of brand new episodes every week day, followed by weekly new episodes on Friday nights starting December 2nd. The series takes place in between the two Kung Fu Panda movies, following adventures of Po the Panda — also known as the Dragon Warrior — and the Furious Five, along with their mentor, the red panda Master Shifu. Several new characters and villains will be introduced as well. From the feature films, only Lucy Liu (Viper) and James Hong (Mr. Ping, Po’s adoptive father) reprise their roles; other voices are handled by the likes of Mick Wingert, Kari Wahlgren, Amir Talai, Max Koch, Fred Tatasciore, and James Sie. Cartoon Brew has a write-up directly from Dreamworks that has even more information. By the way: Kung Fu Panda 2 comes to DVD and Blu-Ray on December 13th. Though its performance was perhaps disappointing in the USA, around the world it is the #1 animated feature of the year, having taken in $664 million total. Which virtually assures that there will in fact be a Kung Fu Panda 3, as KFP2 surpassed Dreamworks’ self-imposed $500 million worldwide “magic number” for making a film into a franchise.
Puss in Boots vs. Giant Chicken
A prequel to a prequel! Can you feel the synergy? Ape Entertainment (through their Kizoic imprint) present the Puss in Boots Movie Prequel graphic novel, coming this November. Written by Troy Dye and Tom Kelesides, it features full-color art by the Kizoic crew. This is from Comics Continuum: “The exciting prequel to the Puss In Boots movie is here in this exclusive original graphic novel! Puss enters a secret sword fighting competition to determine who’s the best with a blade. Will he defeat the rabid rooster known as ‘El Pollo Mas Rapido’? Or will Chuey, the Chihuahua cat burglar, take top prize? And in a Bonus story, Puss unravels the mystery of the Maltese Gato!” Remember, the feline furry comes to theaters from Dreamworks on October 28th.
The Power of the Animals
Shaman’s Tears was a 12-issue full-color comic book miniseries written and drawn by Mike Grell in the 1990’s, published back then by Image. It told the story of one Joshua Brand, a native American who discovers he has the ability to harness the power of animals — and of the earth itself. He often used his powers in defense of nature, animals… and mutant animal-people, who showed up after escaping from government laboratories. Those creatures were later featured in their own 4-part spin-off series, Bar Sinister, written by Mr. Grell and illustrated by Rick Hoberg. Now, IDW Publishing has collected Shaman’s Tears together in a single trade paperback for the first time, coming this December. We can only hope they decide to do the same with Bar Sinister later on.
The Wonderful, Wonderful Cat
Comic historians differ as to who exactly created the iconic character Felix the Cat: Joe Sullivan or his employee, Otto Messmer. To further complicate things, after his world-wide fame as a star of animated shorts (and being the first cartoon character ever represented by a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade), Felix appeared in a series of comic strip and comic book adventures in the 1940’s and 1950’s — some of which were drawn by Otto Messmer, and some by Joe Oriolo, but which were usually credited to Joe Sullivan. Got all that? It’s just one of the many facts presented in the introduction to Felix the Cat’s Greatest Comic Book Tails, in paperback now from IDW Publishing. After the opening essay by Craig Yoe and Don Oriolo (Joe’s son), be prepared for more than 200 of black & white and full-color comics. Righty-oh! More information is available at Amazon.
Not Furry At All, But…
Here’s a non-furry item by a world-famous furry icon we think you all should know about. Chuck Jones, aka Charles M. Jones (1912-2002) was, in case you’ve been living on another planet for the past few decades, one of the master animators and directors at Warner Brothers animation in the 20th Century. He not only helped to refine the personalities of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, he also created the enduring characters of Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner, and Pepe Le Pew the skunk. After his time at Warner Brothers, one of Jones’ many projects was a newspaper comic strip called Crawford, which he toiled on for 27 years before it had a brief run in 1978. Now, IDW Publishing brings us Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was, a new hardcover book that not only collects the Crawford strips, but also gives us the story of its creation with numerous original sketches, drawings, storyboards, and production notes. It’s a look into the mind of one of the greats of animation. The book was edited by Kurtis Findlay and Dean Mullaney, and designed by Lorraine Turner. According to Amazon, it comes to shelves this December.
Godzilla’s Friends and Foes
Are you a fan of Kaiju — giant monsters from Japan? Are you a fan of monster match-ups in glorious city-wrecking battles? You might want to check out Godzilla Legends, a new full-color 5-issue mini-series from IDW, starting this November. Each issue will feature a self-contained stories of various monsters from the Godzilla universe taking on one another to the explosive end. In issue #1 (by Matt Frank and Jeff Prezenkowski), Anguirus — the spiny four-legged “perpetual underdog” of kaiju-dom — takes on one of the deadliest monsters of all, Destoroyah! The first issue also features special variant covers by fantasy artist Bob Eggelton and comic book legend Art Adams.
Stay Furry, My Friends
We don’t need to tell you much about Puss in Boots from Dreamworks. “The Most Interesting Cat in the World”, his mini-trailers have gone viral all over YouTube and elsewhere already. So we’ll just clue you in on a few interesting factoids. The movie stars Antonio Banderas (of course!) as Puss and Salma Hayek as the curvaceous Kitty Softpaws, as well as the voices of Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris, Constance Marie, and Guillermo del Toro. It’s directed by Chris Miller, who’s an old hand at Dreamworks by now: Besides having directed Shrek the 3rd, he’s also known as the voice of Kowalski the penguin in the Madagascar movies. (Popular voice actor Jeff Bennett voices Kowalski in the Penguins of Madagascar TV series though. Back in the day, Chris Miller was also very well known for an animated short he created, Lea Press-On Limbs.) And of course, the most important news: It’s coming to theaters on Friday, October 28th. Right after seeing the movie, you might want to check out The Art of Puss in Boots, edited by Ramin Zahed and available in hardcover this November from Insight Editions.
More Art Instruction
There never seems to be enough of these, and frankly that’s just fine with us! The Explorer’s Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures is a new hardcover art instruction book, written and illustrated by Emily Fiegenschuh. She holds a degree from Ringling College of Art & Design, and in the past she’s illustrated numerous Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks for Wizards of the Coast. Now her new book (published by F + W Media) guides the would-be fantasy artist through not only rendering fantastic creatures of myth, legend, and nightmare, but also breathing life into the finished pictures. According to the publisher’s notes, the book includes: “25 step-by-step demonstrations for creating a bevy of beasts that roam air, land and sea; important basics of drawing, proportion and perspective to help you bring believability to your creatures; instruction for adding living, breating color to finished sketches; and expert tips on finding inspiration, developing personalities, designing costumes and more”. It’s on the shelves now.