Sorry. After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, Rachele Aragno (and her associates, Dave Ryan and Robert J. Sodaro) announced that Owl Girls will soon be available from Red Anvil Comics — you can check it out at their web site. “Not everything is as it seems, especially in the SoHo district of 1940’s New York City. No, in fact, things are not always quite what they seem. There are shadows and alleyways of the world that are not normally traversed by mortal men, and in those shadowy realms, there exist things that must be dealt with by those that can divine their presence and root out that evil. This is the world of the Owl Girls, a trio of sisters who for reasons that pass understanding have the heads of Owls and the bodies of human women. Virtually every culture in the world offers up myths and legends about the nature of Owls, and we here in America are no different. These three women (Magda, Martha, and Maggie) are attempting to live normal lives, only they have mystical abilities, oh yes, and they talk to Death; an old woman who visits them at odd moments during the day, and whose bidding they sometimes do.” Got all that?
Comic Books
Beasts Invade the Rain Forest
It might seem like an age ago, but earlier this year the animated sensation of the moment was Rio 2. Now that we’ve moved on to the summer, Paperkutz have announced a new tie-in graphic novel, carrying on after the events of that film. “While recording bird calls, Linda loses her new digital recorder, but when Blu finds it, it’s full of strange and horrifying growls! Is some sort of new predator on the loose in the sanctuary? Before the gang can solve the mystery themselves, monster-hunters and reality shows invade, turning their quiet jungle home into pandemonium. ” Rio 2: The Creature from Blu’s Lagoon is written by Arie Kaplan and illustrated by James Silvani. The full-color trade paperback is available for pre-ordering; otherwise look for it in stores this fall.
One Bad Werewolf
This month, Image Comics brings us the first trade paperback collection of Bad Dog, titled Volume 1: In the Land of Milk and Money. “Two bounty hunters, an angst-ridden werewolf and his deviant partner, stumble through the southwest in search of cash, booze, and the meaning of life. Mostly, they find booze.” Bringing together issues #1 through #6 of this full-color series by writer Joe Kelly and artist Diego Greco, Milk and Money is available now at Comic Book Round Up.
I Vant to Suck Your Petrol
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Anthropomorphics means anthropomorphic anything. To that end, witness this… Monster Motors. “The once-quiet town of Transylvania, Kentucky is under attack from Cadillacula, an evil vampire-car that sucks the gas out of other vehicles! The more victims he claims, the more powerful he gets. Genius mechanic Vic Frankenstein has a solution: Build a monster to fight a monster. Vic and his android assistant iGOR (interactive Garage Operations Robot) assemble a giant truck from the pieces of the town’s fallen vehicles. Frankenride is born, and the battle between good and evil hits the road!” You heard it here, folks. The Monster Motors full-color one-shot from IDW (written by Brian Lynch and illustrated by Nick Roche) comes to comic shops later this month. Check it out at Previews World.
Power Bunny
More 80’s furry comic nostalgia! Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew was, of course, DC Comics jumping head-first into the growing funny animal scene with a Warner Brothers meets Superheroes pastiche created by Scott Shaw! and Roy Thomas. Now DC have brought together the original full-color issue #1 through #20 of CC in a new trade paperback, Showcase Presents: Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. The collection also features a team-up with the original Teen Titans, as well as the special and little-seen 3-issue Oz/Wonderland War mini-series (which the Super Rabbit and his cohorts had a large part in). It’s available for order now, and hits the shelves this August.
One Scared Little Bird
Lauri and Jaakko Ahonen created an Indiegogo campaign for their darkly comic full-color graphic novel Jaybird. Evidently it was quite successful, as now it’s been published! “Little Jaybird lives in a very large house alone with his bedridden mother. Portraits of dignified ancestors look down upon him from dusty walls. At times also a curious spider peeks from between the cobwebs. Even though it’s safe inside the house, with its doors barred and windows boarded up, reality can’t be shut outside forever.” It’s available now for download (complete with original soundtrack music), and this September Dark Horse Press will release it in a hardcover book edition.
Fur is White, But Blood is Red
Happy Fourth of July! Hope it finds you all safe.
Celebrating 30 years of the bunny with brawn (and a very sharp sword), creator Stan Sakai brings us the Usagi Yojimbo Color Special: The Artist, a new one-shot coming this month from Dark Horse Press. “The artist of 47 Ronin returns to his signature creation in a new one-shot collecting four Usagi Yojimbo tales in full color, from the pages of Dark Horse Presents and MySpace DHP! In this issue, Usagi encounters ghosts, thugs, pumpkins(?!), and a foreign artist with a price on his head!” You’ll find it at the Dark Horse web site and of course many other places.
What a Cute Little Raccoon… NOT!
With the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie looming closer, some folks might want to get a little background on the group. Heck, even young kids might want to! And so to that end Marvel Press brings us Guardians of the Galaxy: Beginnings, written by Tomas Palacios and illustrated by a variety of artists. “How did a raccoon with a rocket launcher, a talking tree, a bald green destroyer, the most dangerous woman in the universe, and an interplanetary policeman form the heroic space squad, The Guardians of the Galaxy? Join Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and their fierce leader Star-Lord as they band together in this origin storybook to fight through the cosmos and bring peace to a universe filled with threats and danger. This illustrated 48-page storybook introduces the fun ragtag band of Super Heroes in space!” Check out this new full-cover hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
Nine Lives, Many Adventures
Sometimes it’s best to just let the thing speak for itself: “Allison Breaking is a talented journalist with her own blog and a lot of bills to pay, so when she receives an offer from a mysterious stranger named Burma to write his memoirs, it’s an offer she can’t refuse, not even with all the red flags popping up. But Burma is quite literally unlike any man Allison’s ever known – because he’s a cat. And this cat has stories to tell about how he (over the course of a few lifetimes) has shaped the world – and another, darker story that Allison must risk all to uncover… a story of what this particular cat has been doing with the last of his nine lives.” That’s the story of I Was The Cat, written by Paul Tobin and illustrated in full color by Benjamin Dewey. The hardcover graphic novel is coming this August from Oni Press.








