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Comedy

Mammoth versus… Pirates?

We swear, we can not make this stuff up on our own… Here’s the basic description of Ice Age: Continental Drift, coming this July from Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox: “Manny, Diego, and Sid embark upon another adventure after their continent is set adrift. Using an iceberg as a ship, they encounter sea creatures and battle pirates as they explore a new world.” Pirates. Okay.  Well, if they can do Santa Claus B.C., why not pirates? Of course Ray Romano, Denis Leary, and John Leguizamo return as mammoth, sabertooth, and sloth respectively, along with new voices including Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lopez, and Aziz Ansari. The fourth Ice Age go-round is directed by Mike Thurmeier (co-director of Ice Age 3) and Steve Martino (Horton Hears A Who!). If you go to the film’s web site there’s a short Scrat cartoon that also serves as a trailer for the new movie.

image c. 2012 Blue Sky Studios & 20th Century Fox

Rodent vs. Rodent

The Nut Job is a new CGI animated feature film that was announced in Animation Magazine’s 2012 calendar. It’s being produced by Toonbox Entertainment and Red Rover International, who are hoping to release it next summer. The director is Peter Lepeniotis, who first introduced his character Surly the Squirrel in a 2005 animated short film titled, appropriately, Surly Squirrel. In this new feature film, Surly and his rat buddy (named Buddy) must contend with a new group of rodents who invade their city park home. Not a lot to go on yet, but the film does have an entry up on IMDB, and Toonbox also has an web page for the project. Word is that The Nut Job may be developed into a TV series also.

image c. 2011 Toonbox Entertainment

Gon — Not Forgotten

In the “about bloody time” department: Word is out that Gon, the globally-popular manga by Tanaka Masashi, is finally being made into a CGI animated TV series. Gon, if you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know (or perhaps if he threw one on top of you) is a miniature dinosaur-like creature of tremendous speed and power. He lives in the animal world, and always seems to be getting into fights (comical, but still…) with other animals over simple matters like food and territory. Interestingly, this famous Japanese manga is being brought to television by an animation house in Korea, Daewon Media, with the help of the Japanese publishing house Kodansha. There’s a preview video up on YouTube which shows footage that was displayed recently at the TV trade show MIPCOM. The show is all set to premier in Japan and Europe early next year, with the rest of the world hopefully to follow soon after.

image c. 2011 Daewon Media

Honey Badger Don’t Give A…

Have you caught wind of the YouTube phenomenon known alternately as “Honey Badger don’t care” or (more profanely) as “Honey Badger don’t give a sh*t“? (Warning — the video has crude language to say the least!) It sprung up after the Guinness Book of World Records named the honey badger (also known as a ratel) as The Most Fearless Animal On Earth. Well now, besides spawning a popular line of t-shirts, the meme is inspiring comic books! Fred Perry (Gold Digger) and Joe Wight (Planet of the Living Dead) have teamed up to bring us the Honey Badger Adventures 1-shot, coming in black & white this January from Antarctic Press. “Honey badgers are just crazy. Now, see the honey badger in action! The most fearless critter on Earth will face off against…EVERYTHING! Birds, snakes, small childrenz, velociraptors, whatever! It’ll fight anybody and anything and just smack the hell out of it. You should read this comic, ’cause it’s badass, just like the honey badger.” You have been warned.

image c. 2011 by Joe Wight

Sled Dogs with Issues

There’s simply no way we could top the publisher’s description of Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues, a new hardcover graphic novel, so we’ll not try. “Venus wants Buddy to quit asking her to ‘make puppies’. Buddy wants Winston’s help wooing Venus. Winston wants Guy’s respect. Guy wants Dolly’s job. Dolly wants to know the meaning of it all. Nobody knows what Fiddler really wants, not even Fiddler. But mostly . . . these sled dogs just want to run. Sounds simple? It should be, but even dogs have their office politics. Office politics with sharp, sharp teeth. From Colbert Report writer Glenn Eichler and dog-channeling artist Joe ‘Fur’ Infurnari comes a postmodern tale of heroism on the tundra, epic romance, and yellow snow. (Hint: don’t eat it.) Mush! is Arrested Development meets Call of the Wild — two great tastes that taste pretty funny together.” There’s more about this silliness on Amazon, of course, and it’s mushing our way this December in full color from First Second.

image c. 2011 First Second

Battle Bears!

It’s a game series, a comic book, a collection of plushies, an animation project in the works… It’s Battle Bears! It tells the story of a well-armed little bear named Oliver — and his well-armed companions — who crash-land on an alien world populated by cute pink teddy-bears called Huggies… who, if they get your mitts on you, will promptly hug you to death! Fortunately Oliver has guns to spare — he’s well-prepared to blow off the huggies’ heads, at which point rainbows shoot out of their necks. Yes. It’s all the creation of one Benjamin Vu (a graduate of the animation program at Cal Arts) and his company, SkyVu Pictures. Seriously, this just scratches the fuzzy surface of what SkyVu is up to. Visit their Battle Bears web site to find out more about new games and other projects they’re still busily developing.

Battle Bears at San Diego Comic Con. Photo by your ever-lovin' Ed-Otter

 

Wilfred is a Dog

How did we miss this department: Wilfred is an award-winning Australian TV comedy series, based on an also-award-winning 2002 short film. Created by Tony Rogers, Jason Gann, and Adam Zwar, it tells the story of an ordinary guy named Adam (played by Zwar)… ordinary that is, except for the fact that he sees his pretty neighbor Sarah’s dog Wilfred (played by Gann) as a man in a rather dumpy fur-suit… while everyone else sees him as an ordinary dog. Wilfred also talks to Adam, becoming something of a mentor… in so much as a foul-smelling, sexually un-repressed man/dog can be. In June of this year, a brand new American version of the series premiered on the FX network, with Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) starring as Adam, and Jason Gann reprising his role as Wilfred. Here’s the write-up of the original series on Wikipedia, with a link to the American series as well.

 

image c. 2010 SBS

Devastated Cats

The first of several discoveries at this year’s San Diego Comic Con: The Devastator is a digest-sized quarterly magazine of comedy and satire (for humans! they insist) whose writers and artists include folks who’ve worked on The Simpsons, The Daily Show, the Onion, and more. Every issue revolves around a theme, and the subject of issue #3 — just released — is cats. Good cats, bad cats, evil cats, romantic cats… and even cats served up as dinner for aliens. Seriously. The creators have uploaded a preview video to YouTube, or you can visit their web site to find out more. Flip the current zine over and you have the first few pages of a book called 400 Reasons to Get Married… To Your Cat!

Goblins are Coming

The latest from the endlessly creative mind (and pen, and pencil) of Richard Moore: Gobs. “Gobs are the worst. Just the worst. Don’t think goblins’ll ever move into your neighborhood? Don’t be too sure. After getting kicked out of their favorite pub, this typically vile group builds their own pub…in the hollowed-out body of a dead giant. Lovely, eh? So beware…Gobs are coming.” And they’re coming your way, bi-monthly and in black & white — starting this June, from Antarctic Press.

 

image c. 2011 Richard Moore, Image Comics