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Funny Animal

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

Forgive Him His Transgressions

Before Outland, WAY before Mars Needs Moms, even before Bloom County… he brought us The Academia Waltz. That was creator Berkeley Breathed’s first foray into comic strips, running in The Daily Texan at the University of Texas at Austin while he was still a student there. Now IDW have collected the complete strip (along with some of Mr. Breathed’s political cartoons and other items of archival interest) in a giant 300-plus page hardcover book, Academia Waltz and Other Profound Transgressions. You can look for it this June, or read all about it over at Comic Book Resources. Much more immediately (just this week, in fact!) IDW are offering The Humble Bloom County Comics Bundle, offering hundreds of pages of original Bloom County strips (black & white and full color) in digital format for downloading — all at reduced prices! But hurry on over to the Humble Bundle web site because the sale is on only from now until March 18th!

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing

The Fast and the Furriest

March Grand Prix is a new full-color graphic novel for young readers, published by Capstone. It comes to us from the mind of Kean Soo, creator of the award-winning comic book series Jellaby. “March Hare wants to be the fastest and furriest race-car driver around. But first, this rabbit racer must prove his skills at the speedway, on the streets, and in the desert. With pedal-to-the-metal illustrations and full-throttle action, March Grand Prix is sure to be a winner!” It’s set for publication this July in hardcover (and then a month later in trade paperback), but Capstone is releasing a special preview edition as part of this year’s Free Comic Book Day (on May 2nd).

image c. 2015 Capstone

image c. 2015 Capstone

Finn and Jake Make It BIG

Word has been spreading rapidly that Warner Brothers have put the mega-popular show Adventure Time on the fast-track for development as a feature film. Needless to say, many are assuming they were encouraged by Paramount’s success with the new Spongebob Squarepants movie. According to Cartoon Brew: “The animated film will be produced by Chris McKay, the animation supervisor of The LEGO Movie and director of the forthcoming The LEGO Batman Movie, and Roy Lee, one of 18 producers on The LEGO Movie. Adventure Time creator Pen Ward will have some involvement with the film, according to Deadline, specifically ‘in writing and producing the feature version.'” No word yet on a release date, but given how early in the project they are it’s a good guess it won’t be before 2017. The question on a lot of people’s minds then is: Will Adventure Time still be as big then, and bring as many people to the theaters?

image c. 2015 Cartoon Network

image c. 2015 Cartoon Network

Monkeys… In… Space!

Life is a scary adventure on board Space Base 8. At least from the point of view of Cargo, the base’s resident Rocketship Crash Test Monkey. Cargo, along with a menagerie of aliens and robots, are the “stars” (that’s a joke) of Space Base 8, an on-line comic strip created and illustrated by David Scott Smith. Check out the Space Base 8 web site to see the latest comic and find out about picking up the first compilation book, Blast Off! It’s available as an e-book, in print, and as a special “artist’s edition” which includes a free personalized sketch.

image c. 2015 by David Scott Smith

image c. 2015 by David Scott Smith

 

Once Again, Life is Like a Hurricane

If you haven’t caught it yet, word is spreading fast that Disney TV Animation plans to bring back 90’s cartoon favorite Duck Tales in a whole new series on Disney XD, starting in 2017. We first heard about it over at Oh My Disney: “When Marc Buhaj—Senior Vice President, Programming and General Manager, Disney XD—made the announcement, he said, ‘DuckTales has a special place in Disney’s TV animation history, it drew its inspiration from Disney Legend Carl Barks’ comic books and through its storytelling and artistic showmanship, set an enduring standard for animated entertainment that connects with both kids and adults. Our new series will bring that same energy and adventurous spirit to a new generation.’  The new series will star the same beloved characters as the old: Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Launchpad McQuack, Donald Duck, Duckworth, Gyro Gearloose, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica DeSpell, Poe, Ma Beagle, the Beagle Boys, Mrs. Beakley, and Webbigail Vanderquack.” Nothing more precise from Disney regarding a premier date yet, but Disney XD is starting to sound more and more interesting for animation.

image c. 2015 Disney TV Animation

image c. 2015 Disney TV Animation

They Grow Strong in Scandinavia

If you hadn’t heard, one of Sweden’s most popular funny animals came to European movie screens in 2014. “Sweden’s most popular comic book character – the bear Bamse – now gets his first feature film. In Bamse Och Tjuvstaden (Bamse and the City of Thieves) the strongest bear in the world and his two friends Little Hopp and Shellman show that the best weapon against evil is -friendship (and a few drops of Grandma’s Thunder Honey of course).” After a popular animated TV series and several TV movies you can check out the feature film’s trailer over on YouTube. As usual, of course, there’s little chance we’ll be able to see this stuff anytime soon in North America — at least not translated!

image c. 2015 Tre Vanner Productions

image c. 2015 Tre Vanner Prod.

The Girl, and Her Pig

We simply can’t describe Amity Blamity any better than the publishers do: “Meet Gretchen & Chester. Gretchen is a shy 4 year old and Chester is a potbellied pig. They live with Gretchen’s Grandma and listless Uncle Downey in rural America.  Mistaking their afternoon activity of playing office for entrepreneurial gusto, Downey recruits the duo to assist in his deluded aspirations of running moonshine (echoing his boyhood heroes Bo & Luke Duke). Unbeknownst to the outlandish family and their activities, strange forest critters begin to lurk in the woods nearby, disrupting their quirky daily life and sending them on an adventure to save their degenerate Uncle from a strange genetic mutation!” Got that? Now Slave Labor Graphics have published Mike White’s black & white on-line comic strip story (so far) as a single soft-cover trade paperback. Check it out (including a YouTube trailer) at SLG’s web site, and see the comic itself (including more full-color “Sundays”) at the official Blogspot.

image c. 2015 by Mike White

image c. 2015 by Mike White

More Bear, More Marmalade

The film adaptation of Paddington has become, world-wide, one of the biggest box office successes of all time for a “family film”. Now come the word (thanks to Cartoon Brew again) that Studio Canal (the French film creators who brought Paddington to CGI life) are fast-tracking a sequel to the 2014 film — once again to be produced by David Heyman from the UK. In the meantime, the studio is busy distributing another oh-so-English property: Aardman Animation’s Shaun the Sheep Movie, which premiered in Britain last week. No word yet on a release date for Paddington 2, but you can bet it will be sooner rather than later.

image c. 2015 Studio Canal

image c. 2015 Studio Canal