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Werewolf

Lycanthropy Can Be Funny

More e-books we’ve stumbled across… Check out Lycanthropy Anonymous by J.A. Konrath. This 2011 book concerns lycanthropy — shapeshifting — and the myriad ways it can make your life complicated. Here, check out the publisher’s description from Amazon: “It isn’t easy being a werewolf. Especially when you’re a newbie at shapeshifting. Lucky, there’s a group called Shapeshifters Anonymous that will help you work through the difficult times, like eating your friends, and shedding. When recently turned werewolf Robert Weston Smith discovers his new found abilities in a humorous (but alarming) way, he seeks out the support group to help him figure things out. There he meets various characters who transform into assorted, odd things, including a sexy werecheetah named Irena. But little did Weston know he’d been followed to this private gathering, by someone who wants to do the therianthropes a great deal of harm… ” The description goes on, “Shapeshifters Anonymous is a 12,000 word novella, specifically formatted for Kindle. It contains a handful of werepeople, a dash of romance, some gratuitous humor, and revisionist Xmas theories. It also has previews of Konrath’s other work.” And it’s available for the Kindle right now.

image c. 2011 J.A. Konrath

 

The Wolf Children

More from Cartoon Brew: They have a first look at Okami kodomo no ame to yuki, a new 2D anime feature directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The title translates as The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. Here’s the basic press release: “From the director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars, the story of a college student named Hana who marries a ‘wolf man’ and gives birth to two wolf children. When the wolf man dies, Hana and the children move from the city to a quiet rural town.” The film is being distributed by TOHO Studios, and it’s set for release (at least in Japan) this July. There’s not much yet on the film’s web site (and what’s there is in Japanese), but they’ll add to it as the year goes along.

image c. 2012 TOHO Studios

The Werewolves are Coming — Next Year!

The 2012 Werewolf Calendar is available for order now, with delivery available before Christmas. This year’s roster of 13 artists includes Balaa, Blotch, BlackPassion777, Goldenwolf, Kyoht, Wolf-Nymph, Khaosdog, Johis, Myenia, Thornwolf, Synnabar, Vantid, and Kyndir. “The werewolf is often seen as a dangerous man beast, a man corrupted by the temptation of his primitive unsecured urges, let loose to prey on his fellow man. This is the werewolf that undoubtedly dominated today’s popular media and while we here at the Werewolf Calendar embrace this vision with an open eager heart, this is not the Werewolf we wish to bring to you our audience. We wish to bring to you instead the inner animal, an animal that is not unlike the human, harboring the same emotions and sensibility that man has coveted as being alone in having for millenia on end. Here is the werewolf that is regal, or that is bedraggled from his trials of survival, or adorned in ceremonial garb to celebrate his being, or that is wandering alone in search of something, or surrounded by loving packmates, or is engaged in a teeth gnashing territorial dispute, or at last howling fiercely at the moon beneath which both man and wolf were born together.” Visit the Werewolf Calendar web site to find out more about the calendar project, preview the artwork, and order your copy.

image c. 2011 by Goldenwolf (from a previous calendar, not 2012)

Beware the Moon over Cypress

A return to a more traditional werewolf story, with a few nasty twists and lots of gore thrown in of course. Ferals is a new full-color horror comic written by David Lapham (famous for his horror comic The Crossed) and illustrated by Gabriel Andrade. It’s due this January from Avatar Press.  *Sigh* Always the bad guys… BleedingCool.com has a nice write-up of the new series.

image c. 2011 by Gabriel Andrade

Offerings from Arcana

Arcana Studio has several paperback graphic novels of interest to Furry Fandom coming up soon. Dragons vs. Dinosaurs by Chris Eric Peterson is a fantasy adventure (of course!) featuring, well, dragons battling dinosaurs! With a title like that, who needs to be worried about the plot? It’s coming in early January. Lethal Instinct (by Soares, Thompson, Jadson, and Borges) tells the story of a werewolf police detective — who discovers that he’s not the only shape-shifter in town — and his new competition is attacking politicians. The moon also rises next January. Finally, in a completely different and less violent vein, there’s A Cat Named Haiku by Mark Poulton and Dexter Weeks. It follows the adventures of a mischievous cat told completely in, you guessed it, haiku poetry. It’s available now. You can read more about these titles on Amazon here, here, and here respectively.

image c. 2011 Arcana Studio

Werewolf Monks

Some reviews just nicely write themselves. Like this one for Luna: Order of the Werewolf, coming this October (of course) from Famous Monsters of Filmland (which is now publishing comic books!): “Relentlessly hunted through the years and finally threatened with extinction, Brother Andres gathers the species of werewolf to take sanctuary in a monastery called Luna. High on the snow-capped mountains of South America these werewolf monks live a daily life of struggle away from the temptations of the hunt and relentless persecutions, until a mountain expedition stumbles onto the very rock Luna rests upon. The fragile balance Andres and the monks have constructed is about to explode!” This 4-issue mini-series is written by Mark L. Miller and Martin Fisher, with full-color illustration by Tim Hope. Here’s more about it from Westfield Comics.

image c. 2011 Famous Monsters of Filmland

Teen Wolf: The Comic

Admit it: At times it almost seems backwards to have a comic book based on a movie or TV series these days (as opposed to vice versa). But, here we go again: Image comics presents Teen Wolf: Bite Me, a full-color 3-issue mini-series based on the new Teen Wolf  TV series on MTV. In case you need a re-cap, Scott McCall is a high-school athlete with a beautiful girlfriend and a future that’s looking up — until the night when he’s bitten by a werewolf. Now he not only has to deal with his frequent transformations, but also the fact that his girlfriend’s father is head of a local posse that has taken it upon themselves to hunt down and kill werewolves. In this new mini-series (written by David Tischman and illustrated by Stephen Mooney), Scott must deal with the new discovery that his “condition” may be incurable. Look for it this September.

Beware the Feeding Ground

Now here’s something different: A werewolf comic book with decidedly political overtones, taking on the current hot-button topic of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States in a very unusual manner. Here’s Fangoria.com’s description of the first Feeding Ground hardcover graphic novel: “Pretending to be asleep, Flaca Busqueda watches her father leave just before going back to work. Dad, tired and poor, promises her that this will be his ‘one last cross’. Flaca sneakily gets up from her bed and spontaneously decides to follow him. She never expects to be cruelly kidnapped at the Mexican/American border, known to locals as ‘The Devil’s Highway’. In a race against time, Flaca’s parents, her brother and uncle are on a desperate search to find their missing girl before anything horrible happens to her. When the family finally locates their lost daughter, Flaca has become different and strangely odd. They find her scarred with bloody scratches and claw marks on her back, as if she were attacked by a wolf. Flaca’s body is changing at such a tender adolescent age. Her coming-of-age tale represents the werewolf’s ever-present transformation. In the backdrop of this horror story, there are political and social commentaries about the timely issue of illegal immigration. Creators Swifty Lang, Michael Lapinski, and Chris Mangun provide different perspectives on the subject, but never actually give a definite opinion on the topic, as if they are giving the readers a chance to discuss and choose for themselves. ” Feeding Ground is coming our way in full color, this August from Archaia Entertainment. Fittingly, it’s available in English and Spanish.

Buster Wilde: Weerwolf

Folks who have been following on-line comics for a while, especially anthro comics, might recall a particular one called Buster Wilde: Weerwolf.  As written and drawn by Scott Zellman, it tells of the trials and tribulations of an ordinary heterosexual human guy who, once bitten, keeps transforming into Buster — a decidedly queer werewolf with a party-all-night attitude! No it’s not pornographic and yes, it’s very much for adults only. Originally available exclusively on the Buster site at Furnation.com, FurPlanet and Bad Dog Books have announced that it will now be released as a black & white trade paperback later this June. Mr. Zellman has also been re-printing the original Buster strips in a larger format up on BadDog’s site.