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Funny Animal

Ponies of Evil!

After working for years in the gaming industry (as an illustrator on such games as Legend of the Five Rings and World of Darkness), the artist Heather V. Kreiter has created her own line of rather scary-looking pony-themed merchandise under the moniker of My Little Demon. Featuring ponies with such names as Satana, Wretched Rainbow, and Velvet Decay, these mouse pads, blankets,  aprons, and other products will keep you up at night with a weird combination of cuteness and chills. Check out her sales page at Cafe press to find out just how many products in how many designs she offers!

image c. 2013 Heather V. Kreiter

New Disney Animals… with Clothes!

Still working our way through San Diego Comic Con discoveries, but now we have this BIG news from Disney’s D23 Expo to talk about. During the opening day presentation on upcoming animated movies (including Disney’s Frozen and Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur), Disney made an announcement about a new animated film called Zootopia, which is scheduled for release in 2016. Check out this summary from Slash Film: “Tangled director Byron Howard will direct the film from a script by Jared Bush. They’ve been working for the last year and a half on the project, spurred in in part by a love of the Disney Robin Hood feature. Howard wanted to do a film with animals in clothing. They hope to continue ‘Disney’s amazing legacy of animal-based animated films’… We’ve seen movies featuring animals in the natural world, and in the human world, but we’ve never seen animals in a modern world designed by animals. What would animals do differently than humans would? So the filmmakers talked to experts, from anthropologists to safari guides to imagineers as they began to design an animal civilization which is ‘distinctly animal’.” Are you excited yet? We are! Here’s the plot: “In the animal city of Zootopia, a fast-talking fox who’s trying to make it big goes on the run when he’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Zootopia’s top cop, a self-righteous rabbit, is hot on his tail, but when both become targets of a conspiracy, they’re forced to team up and discover even natural enemies can become best friends.” Check out the rest at Slash Film. And see you in 2016!

image c. 2013 Walt Disney Animation

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

Paint Your Face, I’m Sure!

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

Jungle Boy and His Friends

Jungle Boy Productions describe themselves as ” concept development company specializing in character design & franchise development”. To that end they have created a series of t-shirts, art prints, and other tie-in items, all based around original chibi character designs — several of which are furry. Check them out at their Facebook page to see the latest designs they’re working on, or how to get your paws on what they’ve done so far.

image c. 2013 Jungle Boy Productions

Absurd Animals

Rose Tursi is an illustrator and craft-maker. Recently she (successfully) completed an Indiegogo campaign to fund her latest project, called Absurd Animal Illustrations. It’s a line of greeting cards and charm jewelry all illustrated by Rose, featuring, like the title says, absurd single-panel jokes and references with animals (like “flying fish” or a polar bear sunning in the tropics). Having completed the financial part of things, she now plans to expand the line and complete new pictures before releasing the first set of cards. Check out the campaign web site, or visit her personal site to see more of the illustrations she’s been working on, animal and otherwise.

image c. 2013 by Rose Tursi

Some… Familiar Ponies?

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

Fresh and Salt Water Meet

Orky the Porky Orca (say THAT fast!) is a new full-color web comic written and illustrated by Brett DeWall. The premise is quite simple really: Orky the killer whale is accused of a murder he didn’t commit, and now he is forced to hide out among human kind. To this end he puts on a trench coat and fedora, and no one ever notices he’s an orca. Simple, yes? Oh, and helping him to adjust is a smoking, drinking frog named Pierre, with a French accent and (supposedly) refined tastes. Got all that?  Good. Check out Orky at his web site when it updates every Tuesday.

image c. 2013 Brett DeWall

All the Mightiest Pets

After a successful run of the DC Super Pets comic book series, now DC comics bring us the DC Super Pets Character Encyclopedia, coming later this month as a full-color trade paperback.  This is from the pre-order page at Amazon: “Every super hero needs a Super-Pet! This illustrated encyclopedia features in-depth profiles, stats, and history about the DC Super-Pets and their owners. From Superman’s loyal dog, Krypto, to Batman’s heroic hound, Ace the Bat-Dog, this guide to the Worlds Greatest Pets has more than 200 DC characters, including many never-before-seen pets, all illustrated in Art Baltazar’s Eisner Award-winning style! With an introduction by legendary creator Geoff Johns, the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia is sure to please comic book lovers young and old.” Not to forget, the text is written by Steve Korte. Take a closer look at the cover and you get an idea just how many animal characters are included here! [And with that, we’ll see you all after San Diego Comic Con!]

image c. 2013 DC Comics