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Science Fiction

Men who are Monsters — for a Living

Further Confusion in San Jose hosted well over 3000 fans, and a great time was had by all. Over the next few days we’ll be posting several of the cool items we came across during the convention. Starting with…

After a successful Kickstarter campaign producer, director, and all-around monster fan Frank H. Woodward managed to finish his latest documentary, Men in Suits. It’s the story of several men (and yes, women) who have made names for themselves in Hollywood (and other centers of movie-making) by putting on giant, bulky, uncomfortable rubber suits and portraying giant monsters in movies, TV series, commercials and more.  People like Doug Jones (from Hellboy), Haruo Nakajima (from MANY Godzilla movies), Michelan Sisti (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Bobby Clark (the Gorn from the original Star Trek), and many many more. Some of them are no longer with us (like the great Kevin Peter Hall from Alien and Harry & the Hendersons), but this film interviews a great many actors who still are, letting us in on what it’s like to work in such conditions — and what it’s like to find your job being replaced by CGI. Slash Film has an article about the film project from back in August, which also includes several clips, and you can find out about how to get your copy of the completed film on DVD by visiting Amazon.

image c. 2013 Toho Studios

New Kevin Frane Novel Soon

Kevin Frane, author of The Seventh Chakra (nominated for an Ursa Major Award in 2011) returns this January with a new novel called Summerhill. Fur Planet will release it in both hardcover and softcover, starting at Further Confusion in San Jose. “Summerhill is a dog with a problem: he isn’t exactly sure who he is. Living alone in a desolate world as its only inhabitant, he has no memories of his previous life—only the tantalizing clue that the answers he seeks may lie with a mysterious woman named Katherine, the hostess on a cruise ship that sails between dimensions. But Katherine has problems of her own, and if Summerhill wants her help in unlocking the secrets of his past, he’ll have to help Katherine deal with hers. Together, the two will travel to different worlds, different times, and different universes in a journey where each new stop has both fantastic discoveries and deadly threats in wait, and where the rules of reality can change as easily as weather.” Check out Fur Planet’s Live Journal to pre-order a copy.

image c. 2012 Sofawolf Press

The Return of Captain Carrot — Sort Of…

Our thanks (we think) to EbonyLeopard for pointing this out to us…  In keeping with the current “New 52” line of re-boots for venerable comic book stories and characters, DC Comics brings us… Captain K’Rot. Yep, it’s Captain Carrot, the 1982 super-funny-animal creation of Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw!, re-imagined as “a borderline psychotic, booze swilling, whore-mongering rabbit” for the new science fiction comic book series Threshold (from Keith Giffen and Tom Raney). Some are saying this is all inspired by the new (and popular) kick-ass version of Rocket Raccoon that has been appearing in Marvel Comics’ Annihilation: Conquest. Others are saying it’s a re-incarnation of good old Bucky O’Hare, created by Larry Hama and Mike Golden back in the 1980’s. Either way, you can decide for yourself. Threshold hits the stands in January, and Captain K’Rot makes his first appearance in issue #3 in March. Read more about it at Comics Alliance, too.

image c. 2012 DC Comics

 

From the Forests… to Mars

The people of the dying planet Mars need a savior. Someone to free them from the evil forces destroying their world. In desperation they reach out to the blue planet, Earth, for aid.  What they get is… a sasquatch. Seriously. That’s the premise of Bigfoot: Sword of the Earthman, a new full-color comic book series written by Josh Henaman. It’s illustrated by Andy Taylor and Thomas Bonvillain, and published by Brew House Comics. You can check it out at Josh’s official Bigfoot web site.

image c. 2012 Brew House Comics

Big Bears of Doom

Over the past couple of years, Ethan Nicolle has made a name for himself as the artist for Axe Cop, a full-color comic book series written by Ethan’s pre-teen brother Malachai Nicolle. Now, Ethan is branching out as both writer and artist of a new on-line creation called Bearmageddon.  Here’s how he describes it on the web site: “Bearmageddon is a story about a few every-day twenty-somethings getting caught up in an all-out war on mankind by grizzly bears. That’s all I’m going to say for now because I don’t want to spoil anything.” Uh, gee, thanks! All that we can tell is that the bears who attack humanity in this comic do so in some of the most bizarre mutant forms. You’ll have to see them to know what we mean. Bearmageddon updates every  Wednesday and Friday. The image below is available as a poster, and a t-shirt is currently in the works.

image c. 2012 by Ethan Nicolle

The Cat is a Lizard

Jason Brubaker works by day as a visual design artist at Dreamworks Animation, and by night as a self-published comic book creator. His story reMIND… well, here, we better let him describe it: “Sonja, the lighthouse keeper at a seaside oil drilling town, loses her cat, Victuals. Everyone blames the Lizard Man, the local boogeyman, which Sonja knows is a myth created by her late father to generate interest in the town. But when Victuals unexpectedly returns and has the brain of a strange intelligent creature; it seems someone is doing experimental transplants. With the brain of a lizard and the body of a cat, Victuals must now fight to recover his original lizard body and confront what he thought was the all-powerful god.” So, you got that? Good. reMIND has been collected into one hardcover graphic novel previously, and Volume 2 has just been released. And of course, you can visit the reMIND web site to keep up with the latest adventures.

image c. 2012 by Jason Brubaker

Ratha’s Creature… in Pictures?

Clare Bell is a science fiction and fantasy author best known for some very furry-themed books. What’s more, she’s actually been to several furry conventions — as a fan! She’s mostly known for a series called The Books of the Named, and the first book in the series is called Ratha’s Creature (check it out here on Amazon). In this book we meet Ratha, who is a young member of the Named: A species of prehistoric cat that are self-aware and possessing of culture, laws, and even primitive agriculture (they keep livestock). Ratha brings shock and dismay to her society when she learns to tame a strange ‘creature’ that glows, and flows, and burns…  most anything dry in fact. The rest of the series follows the adventures of Ratha, her friends, and her adversaries as events develop after Ratha’s discovery of this “creature”… and how she learns it can be useful. You can find out more about the series on the Clare Bell fan site. The reason we’re telling you all this now is that Clare Bell and Sheila Ruth (from Imaginator Press) are exploring the possibility of creating a Ratha’s Creature graphic novel — and they’d like the fans’ opinion of the idea, to see how popular it might be. Visit Clare Bell’s FurAffinity page and check out the survey in her journal. She’ll fill you in on the rest.

image c. 2012 Clare Bell

Black to the Moon

Black to the Moon is a 3D CGI animated feature film from Europe, which recently premiered at the Cartoon Movie event in Lyon, France. Originally known as Blackie & Kanuto, it was directed by Francis Nielsen and produced in France, Spain, Italy, and Belgium (!). Currently it’s looking for distribution in North America. Here’s the storyline according to the Internet Movie Database: “Blacky, a black sheep, is the terror of the farm. And she is obsessed with going to the Moon. Kanuto, the sheepdog, gets tangled up in her plans while failing to hide his love for her. They get swept away in an adventure where they meet an opera-singing cow, a fashion designer wolf, illegal sewing spiders, a weird couple of birds from some famous singing TV reality show contest, and a peculiar pack of dogs, the ‘Pastrinos’, who have a rocket ready to launch. And of course, Pinky, the Godzilla-sized sheep, with a bad attitude of lunar proportions.” Seriously.  Maybe it’ll make more sense when you see the English-language trailer on YouTube. But then again, maybe not.

image c. 2012 Art'Mell

Man’s Best Friend

Rebellion/2000AD, the folks who brought you Judge Dredd, now bring you Kingdom: Call of the Wild, a new full-color trade paperback written by Dan Abnett and illustrated by Richard Elson. “Earth, the far-future. With the planet now overrun by gigantic alien insects, mankind is all but extinct. Genetically engineered dog soldier, Gene the Hackman, now protects one of the last remaining human beings, a young girl named Leezee Sower, and the two of them have traveled to the land of Auxtralia, straight into the territory of a new pack!” Look for it this March, or find out more at The Book Depository.

image c. 2012 Rebellion/2000AD