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Award Season Recap

Awards season came barreling in again — with a few unexpected results. As largely expected, Disney-Pixar’s robot tale known as Wall-E won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature.  Then along came the Annie Awards, presented by the International Animated Film Society… and Wall-E was shut out, taking home nothing that night.  The big winner?  Kung Fu Panda! Not only did it win Best Animated Feature, but between the feature film and the Secrets of the Furious Five DVD short, Dreamworks took home 15 of the 17 awards that the Panda franchise was nominated for.  Among them were multiple awards for Directing, Writing, Best Character Animation, Best Character Design, Best Production Design, Best Music, Best Voice Acting (Dustin Hoffman as Shifu), and Best Video Game. The big winners for the night in the TV animation categories were Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, and Avatar, The Last Air BenderWallance and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death won for Best Animated Short Subject.

… and then along came the Oscars, and once again, Wall-E took home the statue for Best Animated Feature.

[And don’t forget — now it’s Furry Fandom’s turn to vote for the Ursa Major Awards!  Visit www.ursamajorawards.org to find out more — Rod O’Riley, ye ed-otter]

Furverts

Your ed-otter, dutifully passing it along here…

The book is called Furverts, by Michael Cogliantry (in hardcover, from Chronicle Books).  This is from amazon.com: “Birds do it bees do it but no one does it like furries do it. Long an underground cult phenomenon, furries—people who dress up in furry animal costumes and role play—have gone global, holding conventions where furries from around the world can meet and mingle. Photographer Michael Cogliantry captures the kinky intimate side of the furry subculture—an elephant and a donkey a chicken and a fox caught in flagrante delicto. The playful board-book format opens with a peek-a-boo ring of fur on the cover inviting the reader into the ‘illicit’ and hysterically funny world of furverts.” Oh, lordy lordy lordy…

Farscape — The scripts (some of them…)

For fans of the late, lamented Sci Fi Channel series Farscape who just can’t wait for more, be on the lookout for this: Series creator Rockne S. O’Bannon has collected his outline for the 4-issue Farscape comic book miniseries from BOOM! Entertainment in the new Farscape Script Book, also available from BOOM!

Sonic Universe

New from Archie Comics: A brand new full-color monthly comic series, Sonic Universe, by Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley. From Previews: “Because you demanded it — a thrilling new Sonic series that raises the stakes and expands the comic book world of Sonic! This is the comic the fans have waited for: An ever-expanding, all-encompassing series revolving around Sonic’s many friends and foes whose continuity aligns with the regular monthly Sonic comic. Along the way, we’ll deliver some of the popular supporting cast from the many Sonic video games, including many who have never appeared in the comics before!”

Skelebunnies

Our friends at Amaze Ink and Slave Labor Graphics now bring us Skelebunnies: The Complete Collection in trade paperback, written and illustrated by Tommy Kovac. It brings together all three of the original Skelebunnies one-shots, with loads of extra new material. “Join these living dead abominations in a playful, episodic romp through the forest. Does it all make sense? Not really.  What’s the point?  To giggle, my friends, to giggle.”

Johnny Monster

Speaking of Image Comics, check out the new three-issue full-color miniseries Johnny Monster (written by Joshua Williamson and illustrated by J.C. Grande).  Johnny Monster is the world’s foremost giant-monster hunter, but what the world doesn’t know is that he was raised by the same monsters he’s “hunting”. Now, to save his adoptive family, he has to fight them!

Bad Dog

New from Image Comics: Deadpool writer Joe Kelly returns with Bad Dog, a new full-color comic series illustrated by Diego Greco. The story: Wendell is a “vertically challenged”, gutter-mouthed ex-preacher with a hair-trigger temper.  His partner, Lou, is a werewolf who despises people so much he refuses to shift back into human form. Together they’re the most drunken, f@*ked-up pair of bounty hunters ever to stumble their way across America.

Two new books on CGI

For fans of computer animation, two new books have hit the shelves: The Art of Pixar Short Films by Amid Amidi (hardcover, from Chronicle Books) uses essays, interviews, and artwork to take a look at Pixar’s groundbreaking shorts, from Andre and Wally B and Luxo, Jr. right up through Presto and Your Friend The Rat. Meanwhile, Imageworks by Michael Goldman (also hardcover, from Insight Editions) takes a look at the history of Sony Imageworks Studios, which brought us not only animated films like Open Season, Stuart Little (well, partly animated!), and Surf’s Up, but also the mad special effects on films like Spiderman and more.

Happily N’Ever After… the sequel?

Although it didn’t exactly burn things up at the box office (in terms of cash OR critical acclaim), evidently 2006’s Happily N’Ever After did well enough on DVD world-wide to rate its own direct-to-DVD sequel, Happily N’Ever After 2: Snow White’s A New Bite at the Apple (yes that’s the title). The new film is directed by Steven E. Gordon and Boyd Kirkland, and is being released to stores by Kickstart Productions this April. Furry fan favorites (?) Munk and Mambo return, this time trying to assist Snow White while the mighty wizard is, once again, out of town.