Your Guide to the World of Furry Fandom
Every year we visit several comic book conventions, and every time we run across artists who specialize in cute. One of the latest is Rizzo Michelle. If you visit the official web site you’ll see artwork of little bunnies, little kittens, and sad little sharks (believe us, it works…), often in rather odd but fun settings. The art is available not only as prints but magnets, tote bags, and even plush toys.
image c. 2017 by Rizzo Michelle
[Just back from PAW-Con in Northern California, and STILL getting caught up on stuff from Stan Lee’s LA Comic Con!] Here’s a useful item with a Furry Fandom twist: My Audio Pet is “…a powerful Bluetooth speaker that enables you to listen to your favorite music, podcasts, or shows wherever you are. All My Audio Pets feature: Easy wireless connection to most smartphones, tablets, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, a built-in mic for convenient hands-free option, and a rechargeable battery allows for portable tunes wherever you go.” Not to mention, they come in several cute animal designs — all with equally cute names like “Owl-capella”. Visit their web site to see all their current designs.
image c. 2017 myaudiopet.com
… or so it would seem. More strangeness we found at the L.A. Comic Con. This time in the form of Reacharound Books. These folks specialize in cute illustrated picture books for kids… that are not. How so? Well two of the books from their first set (called “Season One”) should be of special note to furry fans: Brenda’s Beaver Needs a Barber and Spank the Monkey Lends a Hand. See where this is going? The funny thing is all of their books are perfectly innocent on the surface — not a single dirty word or picture in any of them. Welcome to the world of double entendre! The books are written by “Bimisi Tayanita” and illustrated by “Sumguyen Bangladesh” — names may have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. So check out their web page, buy the books, and let your children wonder what the heck you’re laughing your head off about.
Image c. 2017 Reacharound Books
More news we picked up at Stan Lee’s L.A. Comic Con. According to Screen Daily: “Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment has licensed its animated alien characters, The Unknowns, to be used in animated feature Panda vs. Aliens, which is currently in production at Canada’s Arcana Studios. Co-produced by China’s Yisang Media and Los Angeles Beijing Studios (LABS), the film is about aliens landing on an animal planet and seeking the power of a panda that they’ve seen through satellite broadcasts of a TV show. Gill Champion and Stan Lee will executive produce the film, which is directed by Arcana Studios founder Sean O’Reilly and is being lined up for release over Chinese New Year 2018.” You heard it here. Sean O’Reilly previously produced and directed Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (which we’ve talked about before) and its sequel.
image c. 2017 Arcana
Spencer & Locke is a new full-color comic series that slipped on by last summer, but we finally caught up with it! Locke: He’s a hard-boiled police detective. Spencer: He’s Locke’s imaginary childhood friend, now grown up into a 6-foot tall panther. Together, they fight crime. (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) Writer David Pepose describes it as ‘Calvin & Hobbes meets Sin City‘, and that sums it up pretty well! Illustrated by Jorge Santiago, Jr. and Jasen Smith, it’s available now from Action Labs. And check out the spoiler-free review over at Pop Cult HQ.
image c. 2017 Action Lab
We got this right from Animation World Network: “Belgium-based studio nWave Pictures has teamed up with French sales company Charades to help sell its upcoming 3D animated feature The Queen’s Corgi… With a budget of more than $20 million, The Queen’s Corgi is being directed by nWave chief Ben Stassen with Vincent Kesteloot. The screenplay is by Rob Sprackling and Johnny Smith. The movie follows the adventure of Rex, the British monarch’s most beloved dog, who loses track of his mistress and stumbles across a fight club with dogs of all kinds confronting each other.” With films like House of Magic, Wild Life, and Son of Bigfoot already in their repertoire, it looks like nWave are trying to be a very furry production company. This new film is due in 2019.
image c. 2017 nWave Pictures
Cucumber Quest is a popular on-line fantasy adventure comic for young readers, written and illustrated by Gigi D.G. Now it’s been assembled by First Second into a new full-color graphic novel, Cucumber Quest: The Doughnut Kingdom. It goes like this: “What happens when an evil queen gets her hands on an ancient force of destruction? World domination, obviously. The seven kingdoms of Dreamside need a legendary hero. Instead, they’ll have to settle for Cucumber, a nerdy magician who just wants to go to school. As destiny would have it, he and his way more heroic sister, Almond, must now seek the Dream Sword, the only weapon powerful enough to defeat Queen Cordelia’s Nightmare Knight. Can these bunny siblings really save the world in its darkest hour? Sure, why not?” The first volume is available now, in hardcover or trade paperback.
image c. 2017 First Second
We got this from Animation World Network: Although the second Paddington live action/CGI film won’t hit theaters until early next year, Studio Canal have announced at MIP Junior that they already have a new Paddington animated series in development for television. (Of course there was already an animated series back in the 1970’s. It was scripted by Paddington’s creator himself, Michael Bond, and animated with stop motion and paper cut-outs.) Studio Canal hopes to have the little bear’s new series available in late 2018 or early 2019.
image c. 2017 Studio Canal
It’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas, is it? (Our local department store certainly doesn’t think so…) In that spirit (Ha Ha), IDW have once again compiled The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories, edited by Craig Yoe. What’s especially interesting about this collection is some of the artists represented: Among them are Walt Kelly (creator of Pogo), Richard Scarry (famous creator of funny animal books for kids), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and many others. It’s coming out in trade paperback this November, and there’s a review over at the Graphic Novel Reporter site.
image c. 2017 IDW
