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Science Fiction

Trapped in a World He Never Evolved For

Richard Fairgray is a well-known comic book artist and children’s book illustrator in his native New Zealand. (Interesting fact from his Wikipedia: Richard illustrates and animates his own works, even though he is legally blind.) His best-known work, Blastosaurus, created quite a sensation in his homeland. Now living in Southern California, Richard has re-launched his comic with the help of Paul Eiding and Golden Apple Books. From Previews: “Blastosaurus, a 6-foot-tall, mutant triceratops, aided by Tabitha Jones and Richard Green (the twelve-year-old sidekicks he never asked for) battles monsters, robots, sentient meatballs and whatever other weirdness Freak Out City can throw at him. This action/fantasy all-ages book is big, stupid fun, grounded by a real emotional core and the most human dinosaur you’ll ever meet!” And look, there’s a YouTube preview as well. Blastosaurus is out in comic shops now.

image c. 2018 Golden Apple Books

626.2

The march continues — in seemingly unexpected directions! This showed up in our news feed from The Hollywood Reporter: “Stitch is back. Lilo & Stitch, the 2002 animated movie from Walt Disney Feature Animation, is getting the live-action treatment, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The studio has hired up-and-comer Mike Van Waes to pen the script for the remake, which will be produced by Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich of Rideback, formerly known as Lin Pictures. The two are already known in the Disney halls as they are working on the high-profile live-action remake of Aladdin. The original film was written and directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, who later found acclaim with How to Train Your Dragon. The Hawaii-centric story told of the bond formed between a lonely human girl named Lilo and a dog-like alien named Stitch, who is engineered to be a force of destruction. Pursuing aliens, social workers and the idea of the bond of a family figure into the proceedings. [In case you forgot the basic idea — ye ed-otter] It is unclear whether the new project, which is intended to be a live-action/CG hybrid, is intended for theatrical release or for Disney’s streaming service that is set to launch in 2019.” Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

image c. 2018 Walt Disney Feature Animation

Golden Boy of the Water World

Here’s something else we missed.  Goldfisch is a new-ish black & white manga from TokyoPop. “Say hi to Morrey Gibbs! A fisher-boy in a flooded world overrun with mutated animals known as “anomals”, he’s got more problems than just giant fish to deal with. Namely, how everything he touches turns to gold! Sure it sounds great, but gold underpants aren’t exactly stylish… or comfortable. Together with his otter buddy Otta and new inventor friend Shelly, Morrey’s on a quest to rid himself of his blessing-turned-curse, and try to find a solution for the tragedy he unwittingly caused…” Hardly a complicated plot is it?  Here’s an interesting fact: The artist and writer, Nana Yaa, is from Germany.

image c. 2018 TokyoPop

Help Make More Furry Animation

Alexander Henderson is head of a team of animators and film-makers with experience working for Disney, Netflix, and Amazon. Their first completed short film is called Breathing Space, which you can find on YouTube — and which just happens to have some anthropomorphic interest in it too! Now they’ve created a Kickstarter campaign to help finance their new film concept. “The Rhino and the Oxpecker is an action-adventure cartoon, featuring the story of Niles, a blind mercenary rhinoceros, and Redford, his neurotic-but-trusty guide bird. With Red acting as the eyes, ears, and brains of the duo, and Niles handling the action, the two work together to survive predators, poachers, and anything else the jungle can throw at them. That is, provided they can survive each other.” They’re trying to reach their current goal before Halloween, so hurry!

image c. 2018 by Alexander Henderson

Scruffy Puppies to the Rescue

Scruffy Puppies is a full-color science-fiction adventure come created by Brent Trembath (and friends). It’s available now on Comixology. “In the future where humans and mutant animals alike walk the earth… Armor and his pack of Scruffy Puppies are ambushed in a back alley for reasons they can’t comprehend. Power struggles and inner strife underlie the coming of an impending threat.” And that’s just the first issue! The web site has much more information.

image c. 2018 by Brent Trembath

Animals on the High Seas

At San Diego Comic Con we came across an artist named Krister Eide. According to her web site, “When he’s not drawing or painting, he helps injured animals return to health at a wildlife rehabilitation center.” We like that! Her Etsy Store has several of her illustrations on cups, prints, and other items, but the web site also has illustrations from her “passion project”: An all-animal version of Jules’ Verne’s classic 20,ooo Leagues Under The Sea. Let’s “sea” where that goes…!

image c. 2018 by Krister Eide

It’s Dangerous for a Pig to Dream

Here’s another one that Previews alerted us to: Unnatural is a hit full-color comic series in Italy, and now Image Comics is about to unleash it on North America. “Leslie is a simple pig girl. She loves sushi, she’s stuck with a job she hates, and she lives under a brutal totalitarian government – one that punishes transgressors for anything deemed ‘unnatural’. Leslie dreams of something different for herself. But those dreams are becoming dangerous…” Interestingly, writer and artist Mirka Andolfo says that none other than Omaha the Cat Dancer (by the great Reed Waller and the late Kate Worley) served as an inspiration for this series. Look for it soon in stores.

image c. 2018 Image Comics

Submitted for Your Approval: A Planet of Apes

Bit of trivia you might not be aware of: In the late 1960’s Rod Serling (creator of The Twilight Zone) was the first person picked to adapt a screenplay from Pierre Boulle’s science fiction novel Planet of the Apes. Which he did — unfortunately his version (closer to Boulle’s book, featuring apes in a modern high-tech world) was considered un-filmable at the time, and a new adaptation by Michael Wilson was used instead for the famous 1968 film starring Charlton Heston. Well now, Boom! Studios have created Planet of the Apes: Visionaries, a new full-color graphic novel of Serling’s original script. Put into comic book form by Dana Gould and illustrated by Chad Lewis, it arrives in stores this August. Previews has an interview with the Boom! Studios folk all about it.

image c. 2018 Boom! Studios

A Flying Ape with a Beak. Yes.

One of the things that was almost impossible to miss at WonderCon this year was a huge display booth for Genesis II, a full color graphic novel by Allen Ling and Christian Boe. It’s a science fiction story about genetic experiments gone very, very strange, but that barely scratches the surface. The booth display featured three of the principle weird creations from the story in larger than life size, sculpted by none other than Stan Winston Studios. The graphic novel is available now as a hardcover book, and also as a download for purchase. The creators plan to release a softcover version later this year. Visit their web site to see what we’re talking about — and to order your copy.

image c. 2018 genesisiicomics.com