Your Guide to the World of Furry Fandom
Debi Winger is another artist and illustrator who was showing her works at San Diego Comic Con this year. She specializes in funny animal art and Latin American-style illustrations, which she has available on a series of prints from various media. Interestingly, she also travels to various events employing her talents as a face-painter. Check out her Facebook page, Debi’s Doodles, to see some of her latest works — on paper and on people!
“Jackalopia” c. 2013 by Debi Winger
Four Horsemen Studios is a group of radical toy designers who cut their teeth working for McFarlane Toys back in the 1990’s. Now on their own, they have created several series of original, very different action figures — several of which are very very furry in nature. The Seventh Kingdom series (shown below) outlines a world of battling tribes of various species all vying for control of a conquering magick. Meanwhile Power Lords is a series of unique bird-based warrior action figures, some of which have available wing add-ons available as well. Visit the Four Horsemen web site to see more of their designs and find out what they’re working on next.
image c. 2013 Four Horsemen Studios
So, there’s this TV series, produced with young girls in mind, about talking ponies living in a magical land. No, it’s not that one. “The Filly animated series brings to life the charming adventures of Rose and her friends as they attend the Magic Royal Academy of Funtasia. The Wizard of the Dark Mirror, and his comical minion Battiwigs, try to steal all the magic in the kingdom. Despite their wacky attempts, the Fillys enjoy everyday school life, studying and discovering their unique, and magical, crystal powers in these coming of age stories.” That’s from the producers and distributors. According to some sources, Filly is already a bigger toy product in Europe than My Little Pony. And then there’s this, from the Animation Magazine web site: “BRB and Dracco’s upcoming new animated series Filly Funtasia has put together a top-notch writing team: Dean Stefan (The Penguins of Madagascar, The Octonauts, Jake & The Never Land Pirates), Noelle Wright (Doc McStuffins, Sofia The First), Jymn Magon (Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures), Johnny Hartmann (Monster High), and Sean Derek (The Smurfs, ZhuZhu Pets, Strawberry Shortcake, Sabrina, Hello Kitty) are busy putting together episodes for the 26 x 30″ high-def series.” No kidding. Where have we been?
image c. 2013 BRB Internacional
Cantrip The Magic Rabbit is an on-line “anthropomorphic comedy” black & white comic created by “the popular Furrlough duo of Shon Howell and Phil Gibson” (according to the publishers). Here’s the description: “Strange things are happening in Templarsville, Oklahoma. The students at Julius Schwartz Memorial High are abuzz about the new girl, Candice Tripp. They say there’s something unusual about her, possibly unnatural. Of course, the fact that she was discovered in an abandoned house outside of town with complete amnesia lends itself well to these types of fanciful imagination. With her new friends, Candice will learn what it’s like to live in a normal town, until her very un-normal past comes back to haunt her!” Now Radio Comix are releasing the collected Cantrip The Magic Rabbit as a softcover graphic novel next month. You can find out more about it at Second Ed.
image c. 2013 Radio Comix
Recently on YouTube, Dreamworks Animation released the official trailer for How to Train Your Dragon 2, coming to theaters in June of 2014. Absolutely nothing about the plot is revealed, but it’s easy to see that both Toothless the night fury and his rider Hiccup have grown up considerably — and learned a lot about aerial acrobatics. The new film is both written and directed by Dean Deblois, half of the team that directed the first film.
image c. 2013 Dreamworks Animation
Smaller Totems is an on-line full-color graphic story created by Roby Duncan (writer) and Lewis Lain (illustrator). The concept is straightforward: What if the plushie animals we keep with us actually housed powerful spirits? And what if those spirits were tasked with protecting us from evil forces that try to bring us nightmares every night? Besides the main story, the creators also encourage readers to send in pictures of their favorite plushies and any stories associated with them — you might just get them put into the comic’s storyline. Check it out on-line at their web site.
image c. 2013 smallertotems.com
How did we miss this, we wonder? Kazu Kibuishi is best known as the creator and editor of the Flight series of fantasy comic collections, and as the writer and illustrator of the fantasy comic Amulet. In addition though, he has created a popular web comic called Copper. From the publisher, this is the very simple description: “Copper is curious, Fred is fearful. And together boy and dog are off on a series of adventures through marvelous worlds, powered by Copper’s limitless enthusiasm and imagination.” Now Graphix Press have collected together the Copper comics (so far) into a full-color trade paperback called (what else?) Copper. “Each Copper and Fred story in this graphic novel collection is a complete vignette, filled with richly detailed settings and told with a wry sense of humor. These two enormously likable characters build ships and planes to travel to surprising destinations and have a knack for getting into all sorts of odd situations.” And it’s available for ordering at Amazon.
image c. 2010 Graphix Press
If you haven’t already, now’s a good time to get caught up with Knightingail, a full-color fantasy comic book series created and written by Wayne Gardiner. Illustrated by several fantasy artists (currently, Mell Joy San Juan), it tells the story of a fae princess named Knightingail who discovers she not only has the power to heal by magick… but she is also destined to battle a great evil creeping in upon her forest. Along the way she’ll meet and interact with heroes and villains of many species — many of them decidedly anthropomorphic. Having finished the first series (The Legend Begins), Mr. Gardiner and his crew have now launched into the second 6-issue story arch, Shadow Divisions. The first issue is out this month from Big Dog Ink. To see more of what we’re talking about, check out the preview trailer that’s up on YouTube.
image c. 2013 Big Dog Ink
Having made waves and conquered new worlds with their wildly-successful new-storyline comic book series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, IDW now turn their eyes on a more obvious task: Adapting the TV series to comic books. Witness My Little Pony: The Magic Begins, coming in full color this September. Using a combination of screen-grabs and original artwork, this 112-page trade paperback tells the story of our hero-fillies from Ponyville, just as they came to us in the first-season episodes (as created by Lauren Faust, of course!). Amazon is already taking pre-orders.
image c. 2013 IDW Publishing
