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The Boy and the Bear are Back

Speaking of Mike Kunkel (which we were recently), he returns with a new edition of Herobear and The Kid in the Herobear and the Kid 2016 Fall Special, out now from Boom! Studios. “Tyler and Herobear are able to stop the dinosaurs that are attacking the parade, but at what cost? With the help of Elmo (oh yeah, Elmo totally knows that Tyler and his stuffed animal are Herobear and the Kid!), they soon discover that Von Klon has kidnapped Henry!” Trust us, it makes sense if you’ve read the previous installments. What, you haven’t? Go do that now! Then check out the preview pages over at Comic Book Resources. Below is the special variant cover by well-known comic creator Roger Langridge.

image c. 2016 Boom! Studios

image c. 2016 Boom! Studios

Life Can Be A Circus

With all the endless chatter about what a “furry year at the movies” we’re having in 2016, we’ve somewhat been missing the opportunity to talk about furry-friendly films coming up next year. Now here’s one we just learned about: It’s called Animal Crackers, and no, it does not have anything to do with the Marx Brothers. It’s a new CGI animated film being produced by Blue Dream Studios (whom we have not heard of before, we admit). According to the Wikipedia article, “Animal Crackers follows the Huntington family whose life is turned upside down when they inherit a rundown circus and a mysterious box of Animal Crackers, which magically change the person who eats them into the animal they have eaten — including monkeys, giraffes, lions, elephants, tigers, rhinos and bears. They must save the circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington (Sir Ian McKellen).” Other notable voices include John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Danny DeVito, Sylvester Stallone, Wallace Shawn, Raven-Symoné, Patrick Warburton, Gilbert Gottfried, Harvey Fierstein, and Tara Strong. The film is being directed by Tony Bancroft (The Lion King, Mulan), Scott Christian Sava (Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers), and Jaime Maestro. Interestingly, some other well-known names on the production team include Will Finn (famous Disney animator) and Mike Kunkel (creator of Herobear and the Kid). It’s coming to theaters next April.

image c. 2016 Blue Dream Studios

image c. 2016 Blue Dream Studios

 

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A Girl and her Bear in the Country

Here’s one from Japan we almost missed. Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear is a black & white manga series by Masume Yoshimoto, originally published by Media Factory. Now One Peace Books are bringing the collected first series to North America in digest form. It’s the story of a young teenage girl named Machi who lives in a remote mountain village. She’s a Miko (a shinto shrine maiden) and she has never left her idyllic native home.  But now she’s thinking about moving to the big city to attend high school. That doesn’t sit well with her best friend: Natsu Kumai, a talking bear. A tie-in anime series of Kuma Miko premiered in Japan this year; maybe we’ll get to see that our way soon too!

image c. 2016 Media Factory

image c. 2016 Media Factory

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For Kids You Don’t Like…

So we came across an add for a new plushie toy line called Feisty Pets from WMC Toys. Here’s what they say on their web site: “Feisty Pets go from cute to feisty with just a squeeze to the back of the head. Choose from 4 animals: bear, dog, cat, and monkey – and more animals are currently in production. Which one do you like most?” Actually, it’s more like they go from cute to nightmare fuel! Seriously, check out this introduction video on YouTube. But beware!

image c. 2016 WMC Toys

image c. 2016 WMC Toys

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Little Birdie, Big Bear

Put this in the “offered again” category (since we apparently missed it the first time!). Renaud Dillies, creator of Bubbles & Gondola and Betty Blues (both of which we’ve reviewed before) returns with a new full-color graphic novel in hardcover. This time, his subject is a young bird named Abelard. “To lure pretty Emily, Abelard sees only one solution: to catch the moon for her! So off he goes to America, the country which invented flying machines. Armed with his banjo and his proverb-sharing hat, he launches out on the country roads, meets Gypsies, then Gaston, a grumpy bear with whom he will share a good bit of his way! With this funny animal road-movie where the absurd becomes poetry, Regis Hautiere and Renaud Dillies offer us another small jewel.” Once again, brought to us by the folks at NBM. Find out more over at Blog Critics.

image c. 2016 Abelard

image c. 2016 NBM

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Yet Another Foul-Mouthed Bear

Sheesh, where have we been? We missed Brickleberry! It’s a series of short comedy cartoons that Comedy Central had available as an app for download. Created by Roger Black and Waco O’Guin (and produced by Comedy Central’s Daniel Tosh), it followed the adventures of a bumbling crew of park rangers at Brickleberry National Park. It was decidedly adult-oriented in its content! Along with the human characters there was Malloy, a talking bear cub (voiced by Daniel Tosh) with a foul mouth and a mean attitude. (Many episodes are still available on YouTube. Warning: NSFW, without a doubt!) The series premiered in 2012, and ran for three seasons, only to be canceled in 2015 — when most of the cast were killed by an invading army of alien cows. But fear not! Now Dynamite Entertainment have brought us Brickleberry: Armoogeddon, a new full-color 4-issue comic miniseries (written by Black and O’Guin, and illustrated by Timothy Hopkins) that continues the story with a new science-fiction twist. Find out more over at ComicBook.com. It’s also on the shelves now.

image c. 2016 Comedy Central

image c. 2016 Comedy Central

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What Bears Do in the Woods

According to the Human Comics web site, “Gabriel Smith is a screenwriter from Venice Beach, California.  He is the founder of Human Comics, an independent comic book publisher, which was created as a platform for Smith to exhibit his writings for a cyberpunk sci-fi series entitled Human (aka Anthropocene: The Human Saga).” More recently though, Gabriel created a “children’s comedy comic” called Bacon & Sausage, illustrated in full color by Sara Varon. Well he describes it as a children’s comic — but it does seem to have a lotta harsh language and even, um, “body humor” for kids! Oh well, modern kids, it looks like!

Image c. 2016 Sara Varon

Image c. 2016 Sara Varon

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One Man is Many Monsters

Later this month IDW will be premiering a new creator-owned full-color comic book series called Brutal Nature. “A collection of masks transforms the young man known as Ich into innumerable different beasts and monsters. Using this ancient power, he embarks on a battle that pits the indigenous people of Colombia against the encroaching Spanish empire. But can one man hope to beat back the massive forces of the conquering Spaniards? [Writer] Luciano Saracino and [artist] Ariel Olivetti (Venom: Space Knight) bring readers a stunningly illustrated story of beasts and men fighting for the soul of a nation!” Comics Alliance has more information.

image c. 2016 IDW Publishing

image c. 2016 IDW Publishing

She Followed Them… Everywhere!

Yes, still, it’s sometimes best to just let the creators explain their own work. So, here’s the tag for new graphic novel Little Dee and the Penguin: “When Little Dee meets a motley crew of animals deep in the forest, she knows she’s found the perfect set of new friends. Between the bossy vulture, the slightly dim dog, the nurturing bear, and the happy-go-lucky penguin, this mismatched group of big personalities doesn’t always get along—but they’re a family.  And they’re on the run. A pair of hungry polar bears are after the penguin, and the rest of the team are determined to protect her. They’re not interested in adopting a tiny human. But Dee loves them—especially Ted the bear—and she won’t let them go. Instead, she hops on their getaway plane and joins them on an around-the-world adventure.” Written and illustrated by Christopher Baldwin, it’s based on his continuing web comic of the same name. And now it’s available in full-color from Dial Books, coming this April in hardcover and trade paperback.

image c. 2016 Dial Press

image c. 2016 Dial Press