InFurNation Rotating Header Image

Book

A Girl Among Dragon-Kind

Fans of dragons and other scalies, take note: The Legend of Oescienne is a new fantasy series for younger readers, created by author and artist Jenna Elizabeth Johnson. (She even gets to draw her own covers!) In a far-off world humans have been extinct for centuries… those who remain have long ago been turned into dragons. But then, a real human girl is born, and the evil powers that brought about the transformation long ago are sure to notice. The few dragons who know of the girl’s existence swear to protect her… but to do that, they must keep her unaware of her destiny. In fact, they must not even let her know that she is human! There’s a lot more background on the series at the author’s web site, as well as other books that she’s written. Currently The Legend of Oescienne consists of three novels, one short story collection, and one stand-alone short story (which is available for free at the web site!).

image c. 2015 by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

image c. 2015 by Jenna E. Johnson

 

 

Painted Pets

Laura Seeley is a classical fine artist… one who specializes in animal paintings. What’s more she’s even illustrated several books for children — Originally for various authors, but more recently for works she’s written herself. With galleries on her web site having names like “The Magic Cats”, “The Whimsy Cats”, and “A Cat Never Tells”, you can see where she’s coming from… though she does draw plenty of dogs and even whales, too! According to her web site, Best Friends Art Gallery, she plans on having pictures from her book projects up very soon.

image c. 2015 by Laura Seeley

image c. 2015 by Laura Seeley

Two Bears, One Boy, and a Big World

Amber Victoria has both written and illustrated a new novel for younger readers, Twins European Adventures. It’s the first in a planned series of books about the exploits of a pair of orphaned bears who are befriended by a young human named Thomas — and then, adopted by Thomas’ family. It so happens that Thomas’ parents have jobs that require them to frequently travel the world, and of course this leads our ursine young pair to adventures in many far-flung places.  This first story, as you might guess, follows the bears and their new human family to Europe, where a series of mishaps finds the bears separated… and scrambling on a variety of trains and buses trying to find one another again! Find out more at the Twins web site, and find the book on Amazon and Createspace. The llustrations are also available as black & white prints.

illustration c. 2015 by Amber Victoria

illustration c. 2015 by Amber Victoria

Tooting Panda Toons

The cartoonist known as Linda Panda has a thing for, yes, pandas. Pandas who… fart. Friendly farts that smile and make comments. Seriously. This is the odd world of Linda’s panda cartoons, and she’s been creating them daily and putting them up on the web for some time now. More recently, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, she’s collected hundreds of her daily works (as well as her more “traditional” sketches, perhaps) in book form. Head over to her official web site to find out how to get your own copy — as well as buttons and prints and other such ways you can see farting pandas.

image c. 2015 by Linda Panda

image c. 2015 by Linda Panda

Fine Art? Funny Animals.

It’s interesting when full-fledged fine artists turn their attention to something more whimsical, like cartoon illustration. Such is the case with painter Richard D. Sweatt, who in addition to his gallery works has taken time to write and illustrate a softcover children’s book, Fuzzy Friends. “A story about a little girl that makes friends with the little animals from the nearby woods. Everyday the little Fuzzy Friends wait for the little girl to arrive home on the school bus to greet her. The little girl loves to play with her friends and at the same time learns some valuable lessons about making good choices when it comes to choosing friends.” Check it out over at Lulu.com, then check out Mr. Sweatt’s other fine art paintings at his Enjoygram site.

image c. 2015 by Richard Sweatt

image c. 2015 by Richard Sweatt

Physics? Feh!

Benjamin Bear gets his way — Often by methods that are quite unusual but somehow they work. Now he’s back in his latest full-color book for kids, Brain Storms. Check it out over at the Toon Books web site: “The out-of-this-world outlook of a down-to-earth bear! Benjamin Bear can always surprise his friends, whether it’s by walking on his hands during a snowstorm or by using a tree as a parachute. His zany approach to life has earned him two Eisner Award nominations and bestseller status among kids everywhere. French star author Philippe Coudray continues to delight readers by bending the rules of common sense and breaking the laws of physics.” Also look out for the other Benjamin Bear comic books in hardcover, Fuzzy Thinking and Bright Ideas.

image c. 2015 Toon Books

image c. 2015 Toon Books

Filthy Animals of the World, Unite!

It’s hard to describe The Woodland Welfare Manifesto any better than Slave Labor Graphics do: “Woodland Welfare Manifesto is the story of Burnt Bear, Crazy Rabbit, and Perverted Monkey — three proletarian animals who struggle against the  corrupt capitalist system that oppresses their forest with an iron fist of injustice! Will this trio of friends triumph when working-class livelihoods are threatened, or will Crazy Rabbit’s anarchist methods threaten to make them all enemies of the state?” There you have it. Well, except to say that this full-color short graphic novel (written by Justin Sane and illustrated by John Hageman) is coming soon in trade paperback from SLG. Check out the more detailed review over at Fanboy Comics.

image c. 2015 Slave Labor Graphics

image c. 2015 Slave Labor

The Ursa Major Awards are Open!

Voting has opened for the 2015 Ursa Major Awards — celebrating all your favorite anthropomorphic movies, comics, TV series, novels, games, and more that were released in 2014. These are the annual furry fandom awards, chosen by YOU, the furry fans from around the world. The awards are presented every year in no less than 11 categories: Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture, Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short or Series, Best Anthropomorphic Novel, Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction, Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work, Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story, Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip, Best Anthropomorphic Magazine, Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration, Best Anthropomorphic Game, and Best Anthropomorphic Website. Got all that?  Here, take a look at what’s up for the awards in just the first two! For Best Anthropomorphic TV Series or Short:

  • The Beach Bears
  • Bojack Horseman
  • Furry Force
  • Littlest Pet Shop, and
  • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Then in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture, there’s:

  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • How to Train Your Dragon 2
  • The Lego Movie, and
  • Mr. Peabody & Sherman

And that’s just the first two categories — there are nine more to go! Visit www.ursamajorawards.org to find out how to get registered to vote. Remember,  you don’t have to vote in every category — just choose the things you love in the categories you know! Hurry, because voting closes on April 15th — in time to compile the votes before the big Ursa Major Awards Presentation at MorphiCon 2015 (April 30 – May 3 in Columbus, Ohio).

image c. 2015 by Foxenawolf

image c. 2015 by Foxenawolf

Before He Was a Rich Duck

Don Rosa is perhaps the only person associated with Disney’s Scrooge McDuck nearly as much as creator Carl Barks. Now IDW Comics bring us Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Volume 1 as their next Artists’s Edition release. What’s an Artist’s Edition? The pages are 14″ by 20″, the size of an actual comic artist’s drawing board — in other words, huge! Though the images are in black and white, they are copied from the original art in color — allowing the viewer to see things like paste-overs, blue sketch lines, editorial comments and more, straight from the artist’s original sheets. From the IDW web site: “Rosa’s Eisner-award winning work on The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck told the story of the penny-pinching mallard’s early days before he made his legendary fortune.” At over 160 pages, this hardcover edition (the first of three upcoming volumes) is headed to stores this April.

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing