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Dragons

The Ladies and Their Dragons

The Art Lair is the official web site of writer and artist Jessica C. Feinberg, “a quirky writer and illustrator who is best known for mixing mundane and magic in her paintings of trees, dragons, faeries, and clockwork creatures” (her own words). Dragons seem to be the primary motif here — that is, dragons and the pretty human ladies they seem to hang around with a lot. Jessica has created both illustrations (many available as prints) as well as illustrated books like Dragon Scale: A Guide to Dragons and Dragons in the Library.

 

image c. 2014 by Jessica C. Feinberg

image c. 2014 by Jessica C. Feinberg

 

Spyro and His Friends Come to Comics

This arrived in our in-box from the folks at IDW: “In conjunction with Activision, IDW Publishing is proud to announce the first-ever Skylanders comic-book series, penned by renowned comic-book writer Ron Marz with Mike Bowden and David Baldeon as lead artists. In the world of video games, Skylanders is a global phenomenon and the best-selling kids’ game franchise since its launch in 2011. Now fans have the opportunity to follow the adventures of all their favorite characters from Skylands through the magic of comic books. The first issue, a prequel to the Skylanders Trap Team™ storyline, actually provides fans an inside look at where some of their favorite Skylanders came from, and even gives them a first look at a few all-new characters from the upcoming game.” There’s lots more background information at Comic Book Resources.

image c. 2014 Activision

image c. 2014 Activision

 

Add a Dash of Childish Delight

With the help of Marvel Comics, Disney is bringing a fan-favorite character back — in his own steam-punk comic book adventure! “This summer, journey into the exciting depths of your own imagination in Figment #1, the new Disney Kingdoms series created by the unique collaboration between Marvel and Walt Disney Imagineering. This five-issue series, created by rising star writer Jim Zub (Skullkickers), fan-favorite artist Filipe Andrade (Captain Marvel) and blockbuster cover artist John Tyler Christopher, weaves an all-new steam-punk fantasy adventure that reveals the never-before-told origin of the inventor known as Dreamfinder and his trusty dragon companion!” Said dragon is Figment, if you didn’t know! Find out more at Inside the Magic, and look for this full-color miniseries starting in June.

image c. 2014 Marvel Comics

image c. 2014 Marvel Comics

Toothless on the Printed Page

Later this month Titan Comics premiers not one but two volumes of their new digest-sized full-color comic based on the hit TV series Dragons: Riders of Berk. From the preview at Broken Frontier: “Titan Comics proudly presents all-new original adventures of Hiccup and Toothless!  A thrilling all-ages publication and a broadening of the How To Train Your Dragon universe. Featuring gorgeous animation-inspired artwork by Iwan Nazif, and written by Simon Furman (Transformers, Doctor Who Magazine, Thundercats).”

image c. 2014 Titan Comics

image c. 2014 Titan Comics

Dragons of the Internet Era

Meadowhawk is an on-line black & white comic strip created by Nicole Johnson — aka, the artist Ribnose (check her out at FurAffinity). The comic strip deals with dragons — but dragons of a decidedly modern nature, in a decidedly modern world. “Modern dragons who, if asked to account for dragon lore, would cluelessly click to the same wikis you or I would for a quick refresher. Dragons for whom words like ‘pillage’, ‘slay’ and ‘burninate’ are the names of faraway concepts, found only in musty histories of dubious accuracy.  These are dragons who have only been around as long as you or I (so far). They know as much about their Middle Ages forbears as we know about our tribal ancestors. Heck, they barely remember a time before the Internet.” The comic is updated several times a month, and guest artists have been known to stop in and do a strip or two — so to speak. Take a look at Meadowhawk.net for the latest.

image c. 2014 by Nicole Johnson

What a Pretty Dragon

Dragonar Academy is a Japanese fantasy novel series by Shiki Mizuchi. Started in 2010, the series was illustrated by Kohada Shimesaba. Later it was adapted into a manga series by the artist Ran, and more recently it has begun production as an anime series from C-Station (scheduled for release later this year). Well now Seven Seas Entertainment have announced that the manga series will be released in English for the North American market this month. According to Wikipedia, the plot goes like this: “Learning to ride and tame dragons comes easy to most students at Ansarivan Dragonar Academy—except for first-year student Ash Blake, who is known by his classmates as the ‘number one problem child.’ Poor Ash is the laughing stock at school because, despite his unfashionably large star-shaped brand that marks him as a future dragon master, he has nothing to show for it. His dragon has never appeared. Until now, that is. One fateful day, Ash’s dragon awakes in full glory, but appears different than any dragon ever seen before—in the form of a beautiful girl! What’s worse, Ash soon discovers that this new dragon has attitude to spare, as she promptly informs him that she is the master, and he, the servant.” Got that?

image c. 2014 by Ran

All Your Favorites from Dreamworks

Dreamworks Animation have created a special tie-in compilation book called Dreamworks Heroes Annual 2014. In spite of that title, it’s already available in hardcover from Pedigree Books. “DreamWorks Animation has created some of the best loved animated feature films and TV shows of all time. They have released a total of 26 feature films, including Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon, grossing nearly $11 billion worldwide. This Annual brings all your favorite DreamWorks characters together for the first time in this unique DreamWorks Heroes Annual 2014.” Check it out at Amazon. The advertisements are kind of hard to follow: Apparently this publication is also available as Dreamworks All-Stars Annual 2014, with a different cover.

image c. 2013 Pedigree Books

A Dragon for Your Sign

Sixth Leaf Clover (also known as the artist Christina Yen) has made quite a name for herself with her paintings of fantastically-colored dragons. She’s even written a book about her coloring techniques. Her latest project is a calendar for 2014 — full color of course, featuring a new and different dragon design for each sign of the Western Zodiac. She’s taking pre-orders (and showing samples) at her web site right now.

image c. 2013 Christina Yen

Dragons Help You Learn

Jump Start is a creative company best known for designing and developing games that help to teach young children the basics of reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Since 1991 they’ve released several lines of teaching games under the banners of Jump Start and Math Blaster.  More recently though, Jump Start has hitched up with Dreamworks Animation to create a new line of teaching software and on-line games based on the Madagascar series of animated movies. Yes, kids even learn from the penguins! The first release is called Madagascar Preschool Surf n Slide. Even more recently, there’s a new line of on-line games based on How to Train Your Dragon called School of Dragons. Check it all out at the Jump Start web site.

image c. 2013 Jump Start, Dreamworks Animation