As we noted early this year, Boom! Studios have landed themselves some plum tie-in comic titles recently, especially those from the Disney, Pixar, and Muppet lines. Now comes the word that Boom! will be handling the titles that Gemstone made famous over the decades: Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. Perhaps one of the biggest things (literally!) to come out of this is The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Volume 1. This 112-page full-color hardcover collection brings together Scrooge stories written and illustrated by comics legend Don Rosa. See how Scrooge McDuck earned his infamous “Number One Dime” and began to build his vast fortune! Keep up with these and many more titles at the Boom! Studios web site.
The Return of Far West
How do you take Far West even farther? How do you make Bad Mojo even badder? You do it in full color, that’s how! Far West, of course, is the creation of writer and comic artist Richard Moore — creator of Boneyard and The Pound. It tells the story of Meg, an elven bounty hunter, and her tireless friend Phil, a talking bear, as they ply their trade in a magical Old West unlike any you’ve seen before. Bad Mojo was a popular black & white two-issue Far West miniseries, and now Antarctic Press is re-releasing it in full color as Badder Mojo, a single 48-page graphic novel. In this story, Meg and Phil must split up to track their quarry through the Deadlands, a region of bad magics and perpetual twilight. But then when they discover that a malevolent trickster spirit named Kodiki is after the both of them, it becomes less about the quarry and more about survival!
Bunny Suits and Giant Talking Ducks
Dee sees giant talking ducks, and Bunny Boy is called that because he’s worn the same Halloween costume for years. Now they’ve become teenagers, and they think it’s time to change the world’s view of them. But then the giant talking ducks become real, and monstrous, and Bunny Boy meets up with talking, winged cats… It’s all part of the strange, strange world of Weird Fishes, an on-line comic written and drawn by Jamaica Dyer. Now Slave Labor Graphics has released the first Weird Fishes collection of black and white strips as a softcover graphic novel. You can find out more about the book and the comic strip at the Weird Fishes web site.
The Perhapanauts Halloween Spooktacular
Also known as “The Return of every-one’s favorite heroic chupacabra”. The Perhapanauts comic book series, you may recall, told the story of an elite investigative team, human and non-human (including said chupacabra and a sasquatch) battling against supernatural forces trying to invade our world. Now Todd Dezago (writer), Craig Rousseau, Rich Woodall, Fred Hembeck (artists), and of course Image Comics brings us this new full-color one-shot Perhapanauts special the Halloween Spooktacular. Featuring three chilling and thrilling tales and no less than four full-color interior poster-pages.
Geronimo Stilton — The Graphic Novels
Since 2004, Scholastic has been publishing the Geronimo Stilton series of books by Elisabetta Dami for the English-speaking world. Now word has come out that the world-travelling mouse-journalist has become a time traveller as well… and that his new adventures will be released soon as hardcover graphic novels from Paperkutz Publishing. In case you’ve been missing it: Geronimo Stilton is the editor-in-chief of The Rodent’s Gazette, the largest newspaper in New Mouse City. That’s his day-job. But, facing the threat of evil cats from far-off Catatonia, Geronimo and his family have found themselves travelling through many adventures around the globe. Now comes word that the cats have actually developed time-travel… and they plan to alter the past to destroy Mouselands’s future! Now our heroic editor has no choice but to follow the cats through time, trying to stop their evil schemes! The first book in the series is Geronimo Stilton: The Discovery of America, to be followed soon by The Secret of the Sphynx and The Coliseum Con. Papercutz has an introductory video for the series that can be found here. No big surprise: A Geronimo Stilton animated TV series is in the works in his home county of Italy.
Return to Bloom County
Opus the penguin. Bill the cat. What more need be said? Bloom County, written and illustrated by Berke Breathed, was the visual soundtrack to the lives of many furry and comic book fans throughout the 1980’s. And many of the characters, situations, and sayings that Mr. Breathed, well, “breathed” into life are still iconic to this very day. Now IDW Publishing has collected the entire 1980 – 1989 run of the original comic in Bloom County: The Complete Library. Volume One (the first of five — itself nearly 300 pages long!) contains reprints from 1980 through 1982. All of the comics found in these volumes will be reprints from either the original printer proofs, or Berke Breathed’s original artwork.
The original first collection cover, c. Berke Breathed
Teens with Tails
The artist known as Mistystriker has posted a link to the Australian teen magazine Dolly. In the October 2009 issue, they are running a cover article (!) called “Super Furry Animals”. The tag-line reads: “These teens are taking the term ‘party animal’ to a WHOLE new level.” With several full-color pictures from Anthrocon 2009 (and several other sources), the article describes how a Dolly writer (along with a furry fandom friend) “snuck” into Anthrocon to have a look around. (Of course, they interviewed con chair Uncle Kage for the article, so it couldn’t have been much of a sneak!) The writer marvels at how much fun everyone seemed to be having, and the general silly atmosphere — in a good way. All in all a much more positive article than many we’ve seen of late. You can see the October 2009 Dolly cover here, and the pages of the article here, here, and here. Side note: It seems that the British teen magazine Sugar has run the exact same article, with the same pictures! Well now, that’s efficient…!
Stepping into some Big Shoes… with Pooh
David Benedictus produced the audio adaptations of A.A. Milne’s orginal book Winnie-the-Pooh, starring Dame Judi Dench. Now he’s taken on a much bigger task: Continuing the story that Milne brought to a close 80 years ago with The House at Pooh Corner. In that story, Christopher Robin said his final good-byes to Pooh-Bear and all of his friends. Now, in the first book approved by the trustees of A.A. Milne’s Pooh properties, Mr. Benedictus has written the first new adventures of the original Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Piglet, and Eeyore in decades. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is profusely illustrated by Mark Burgess, an artist who has illustrated Pooh books before — as well as stories of Paddington Bear. This new book comes to stores this October, in hardcover from Dutton Juvenile (in the U.K. The North American edition is published by Penguin Group).
Bear and Tiger
An on-line comic strip for people who like cute animals, laughing, and the Russian military. That’s how creator Bob Q describes Bear and Tiger, “A web-comic about Siberian Military Outpost 17… and the animals that run it.” So join Captain Tiger, Corporal Bear, grouchy old Laika, and a very large (but friendly) yeti in the frozen wastes of Asia. Looking for pancakes and energy drinks. There’s new comics every other day at their web site.
