In-Fur-Nation

One of the most famous furry comics out there at the moment is Mouse Guard by David Petersen. This sword-and-sorcery tale (tail?) has already spawned collections, role-playing games, and a devoted following. Now and then, Mr. Petersen allows some of his friends to try their paw at the Mouse Guard characters and situations — and some of the best in the business came calling. After the first go-round’s success, Archaia Entertainment have announced that Volume 2 of Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard will be released  as a full-color 4-issue miniseries, starting this May. “Contributors to issue #1 include Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Ben Caldwell (The Dare Detectives!), and the team of writer Nick Tapalansky and illustrator Alex Eckman-Lawn (Awakening). Subsequent issues will include contributions from Christian Slade (Korgi), Rick Geary (The Adventures of Blanche), Jemma Salume (Unicorn Life Cycle), Jackson Sze (concept art on films like The Avengers and Iron Man 3), Cory Godbey (Fraggle Rock, the upcoming Jim Henson’s Labyrinth), Eric Canete (Fear Itself: Spider-Man), C.P. Wilson III (The Stuff of Legend), Bill Willingham (Fables), and fantasy illustrator Justin Gerard.” After the mini-series is completed, the whole thing will be released as a hardcover graphic novel this fall.

image c. 2013 Archaia Entertainment

Image Comics have announced that the popular first hardcover volume of Richard Starkings’ popular Elephantmen comic book collection will soon be back in print — now in a new Revised and Expanded edition called Wounded Animals. It includes the original “Issue Zero” (with art by Ladronn), a sketch section, a new introduction, and more. Extreme noir science fiction with uplifted animals fighting against and alongside humans for world domination. Hey, the creators insist that it’s not Furry. Check it out and decide for yourself. The new edition (collecting issues 0 – 7) comes back to shelves on May 1st.

image c. 2013 Image Comics

One of the admittedly stranger TV series of the 1990′s was DIC’s Street Sharks, which ran from 1994 to 1995. Created by David Siegel and Joe Galliani of Mr. Joe’s Really Big Productions, the series followed the adventures of four teenage brothers who were transformed into human-shark mutants by an evil scientist’s genetic manipulations. Yes, yes, the show was riding on the coat-tails of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — in fact, it directly spoofed Turtles on more than one occasion. Previously, only a handful of Street Sharks episodes have been available on tape or DVD. But now Mill Creek Entertainment have announced that they are releasing all 40 episodes of the original series in a 4-DVD set at a reduced price. The set is available now at Amazon and other dealers.

image c. 2013 Mill Creek Entertainment

The TV series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is already famous for having inspired a wellspring of creativity in many forms, including art, stories, music, and much more. Now it seems to have reached a particular peak, as a group of “Bronies” around the country have joined forces to create Double Rainboom — the first fully-animated, fully fan-created episode of the show. With the blessings of Hasbro and DHX Media, Zachary Rich (known as Flamingo Rich) and his friends at the Savannah College of Art and Design have created a real, 22-minute episode as part of his senior project in animation. That’s real as in an orchestral score, voice actors for all of the characters, high-quality sound effects, and more. The plot? Twilight Sparkle (pre-wings) develops a magic potion — which has an interesting effect on Rainbow Dash. The entire film will be released to the world on March 30th. You can visit the Double Rainboom web site to keep up with the crew’s progress.

image c. 2013 Flamingo Rich

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, everyone! A belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

First off, a quick note: Voting for the 2013 Ursa Major Awards — celebrating the best in Anthropomorphic Everything from 2012 — has just opened, and will remain open until May 15th. Visit the Ursa Major web site to see the nominees and sign up to vote. Then come check out the winners at a special ceremony at this year’s Anthrocon!

Now, on to more Furry Stuff. Here’s a brand new book coming out for folks who are really, really into the game Angry Birds. “In 2009 little-known Finnish video game company Rovio Entertainment wowed the world when it unleashed an unlikely gaming phenomenon: Angry Birds. Ingeniously simple and highly addictive, the game’s initial success led to a number of bestselling sequels and in 2012 the franchise reached a staggering landmark with its one billionth Angry Birds download. For the first time, this stunning coffee table book goes behind the scenes of Rovio’s success to deliver in-depth insight into the remarkable artistry that goes into creating each Angry Birds game. Featuring exclusive conceptual artwork and revealing interviews with the game’s creators, Angry Birds: Hatching a Universe is a must read for fans.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. This hardcover book is edited by Danny Graydon, and according to Amazon it’s coming from Insight Editions this June.

image c. 2013 Insight Editions

Trevor Pryce is a 14-year veteran of the NFL who played defensive end for the Denver Broncos, the Baltimore Ravens, and the New York Jets. Now, he’s taken on a completely new career: Fantasy author. In the  first book of the new Kulipari series, Mr. Pryce (aided by Joel Naftali) tells the story of An Army of Frogs. “It’s frogs versus scorpions in this new series by professional football player Trevor Pryce. For years, the frogs of the Amphibilands have lived in safety—protected by an elite group of poisonous frogs named the Kulipari and by the dreamcasting spell of the turtle king that cloaks their lands in mystery. Now the spell is threatened by the Spider Queen, a talented spellcaster, and Lord Marmoo, leader of the scorpions. With the Kulipari off training in secret, the Amphibilands have never been so vulnerable. Enter Darel, a young frog who dreams of joining the Kulipari, despite his utter lack of poison and limited fighting skills. With the help of a motley crew of friends, Darel has the chance to become the warrior of his dreams.” This new series of hardcover fantasy novels is illustrated by Sanford Greene. According to Amazon, it’s due to hit the shelves this May from Amulet Books.

image c. 2013 Amulet Books

Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, the daily comic strip, was initially written by Walt Disney himself and illustrated by Ub Iwerks when the strip began in 1930. When those two men found themselves too busy with animation to handle the strip, Floyd Gottfredson took over as both writer and artist — from late 1930 until 1975! Now Fantagraphics Books have brought together a special collection of full-color Sunday strips created by Mr. Gottfredson and put them in a paperback book, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays, Volume 1: Call of the Wild (*whew!*). Here’s the description from Westfield Comics: “Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse series makes the jump from black and white to vibrant color. Many of these classic Sunday strips from 1932-1935 have never before been reprinted and have been restored from Disney’s archives and enhanced with a meticulous recreation of the strips’ original color. Call of the Wild also brings you more than 30 pages of supplementary features such as rare behind-the-scenes art, vintage publicity material, and fascinating commentary by a prismatic pack of Disney scholars. This is a collection that fans have been seeking for a lifetime!” Edited by David Gerstein and Gary Groth, this softcover collection hits the stores in May.

image c. 2013 Fantagraphics Books

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, DMP Digital Manga will be releasing a translated version of Osamu Tezuka’s A-Tomcat this April. Tezuka, as if you didn’t know, was the creator of Kimba the White Lion — and many many other world-famous titles, including of course Astro-Boy. This one-shot black & white paperback is an off-shoot of the Astro-Boy Series. Try to follow this: ” Tsugio is a young Japanese boy who is very fond of reading the Astro-Boy manga series. One day he finds a stray kitten and persuades his family to keep it. But then, after an encounter with two aliens honeymooning on Earth (!),  suddenly the little cat not only looks like Astro-Boy, but has Astro-Boy’s Powers! Check out more at DMP’s order site.

image c. 2013 DMP Digital Manga

Following in the footsteps of Rise of the Guardians (sorry, we’re just sayin’…) comes Holiday Wars, a new full-color graphic novel coming this April from Th3rd World Studios. Based on the on-line continuing graphic story (written by Scott King and illustrated by Michael Odom), once again we have story where holidays are represented as living, breathing beings. “Holidays reflect the current culture of a society and like a shifting tide they change. Realizing this, The Easter Bunny declared war on the other Holidays in the hopes of gaining the one thing that can guarantee his immortality: The Holiday Spirit. Foreseeing The Bunny’s betrayal, Santa hid The Holiday Spirit and marked Tegan Cassidy, a human infant, granting her the ability to find it. After sixteen years of war, nearly all the Holidays have been killed or have joined The Bunny. Led by Earth Day, the rag tag group of observances still fighting, turn to a now teenage Tegan in the hopes that she can lead them to The Holiday Spirit.” Pre-order information for the trade paperback is up on Amazon.

image c. 2013 Th3rd World Studios

Zoo Dot Com is a full-color on-line comic strip written and drawn by Matt McCray. The concept is simple: “In order to cut costs, the Zoo decided it would be a good idea to have the animals run their IT department and website.” You can check out the archives at (where else?) www.zoodotcom.com. It’s been on hiatus for a while now as Matt works on other projects, but now Arcana Studio have announced that the first softcover paper collection of Zoo Dot Com will be released this April. Comix Zone has pre-order information.

image c. 2013 Matt McCray

Breather is a new full-color graphic novel, coming soon. It’s conceived by Graeme Base (creator of Animalia), written by Sean Patrick O’Reilly, and illustrated by Asta Gunn. “On the distant planet of Otarius, invaders from the Birshh Dynasty have captured and enslaved the native Otarans. Pushed on by the ruthless Governor, timid Dr. Bjrork conducts horrific experiments to create a superior breed of slave. Years later, Birshh-Otaran hybrids are raised in captivity, dependent on ‘breathers’ – life-saving gas-masks that filter the Otarian air they, as hybrids, cannot tolerate. Two siblings, Dhrmmn and Lilli, strive to prove worthy of the Dynasty, to earn privileges for their half-breed kind.” No political allegory here, nope nope. Breather is coming in softcover from Arcana Studio this April, and you can check out a preview over at Graphic Policy.

image c. 2013 Arcana Studio

Oddly enough for an international institution like Sesame Street, it has never had its own comic book — Until Now! Ape Entertainment’s Kizoic imprint presents the first regular Sesame Street full-color comic, written by Jason M. Burns and illustrated by Amy Mebberson. The first issue hits stores this April, and features one of five full-color covers that interlock into an ultra-wide poster.  “From television to the comic panel, Ape Entertainment will portray the characters that millions of parents and children have come to know and love in a comic series that will be produced in full color and available in stores this fall in standard comic sized printed editions for $3.99 and digest sized hardcover comic book editions for $7.99. They will also be available as a digital comic book that will be available through Apple’s App Store for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.”

image c. 2013 Ape Entertainment

For 22 years, more than 5000 pages, and now 200 issues, Gold Digger has been written, drawn, colored, and lettered by one person: Fred Perry. Now Antarctic Press is celebrating the 200th issue of Gold Digger with the Gold Digger 200 Series Special. “Gina heads off on a dangerous expedition to a lost Mayan temple on Monster Island, and this one time, everyone’s available to come help out. For the first time, Gina embarks on an expedition with an army of experts to assist, and she’s going to need every one of them to help with what she faces!” Among the extras included in this issue is the location of a special web site where the previous 199 issues are available for free. Watch an interview with Fred Perry on YouTube discussing the issue, or you can pre-order it at Things From Another World. Everyone else can look for the issue in late April.

image c. 2013 by Fred Perry (of course)

Author Dawn Kravagna has released Murderous Critters, her first collection of Cattle Capers ™ mystery stories on-line at Smashwords. “Murderious Critters is a trio of outrageously funny mystery short stories, the first collection in a series featuring the zany comic animal characters from the world of Cattle Capers ™. A killer magician, rogue dinosaur skeletons, and roaming gunslingers are no match for bovine Master Detective Adam Steer and his goofy sidekick Crazy Cal.” The stories here include “The Magician’s Trick”, “The Dino Sore Mystery”, and “The Moontana Murders”, as well as the extra short story “Whopper Fish”.

image c. 2013 Dawn Kravagna

We really can’t do better than the publisher’s notes at describing Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger. So here they are: “Once there was a Postman who fell in love with a Raven.  So begins the tale of a postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route and decides to bring her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child—an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body. The raven girl feels imprisoned by her arms and legs and covets wings and the ability to fly. Betwixt and between, she reluctantly grows into a young woman, until one day she meets an unorthodox doctor who is willing to change her.” According to Amazon, this hardcover illustrated novel will be coming to bookshelves and the Internet from Abrams ComicArts this May.

image c. 2013 Abrams ComicArts

Sofawolf Press have announced that Caterwall, a new full-color young adult graphic novel by Spain Fischer, will be arriving this summer. Originally announced last spring, this sword & sorcery tale follows the adventures of Pax, a feline would-be adventurer. Pax is “ the orphaned son of the kingdom of Katia’s greatest knights. His family name and reputation has been tarnished, however, and Pax is to blame. When the young cat intercepts troubling news from the neighboring kingdom of the dogs, Dewshire, his warnings fall on deaf ears. Banished from Caterwall after insulting the Dewshire diplomat, Pax must decide if he will try to stop the dangerous tide approaching Caterwal l– or turn his back on the home which cast him out.” The story will be told in a series of three 100-page graphic novels. We’ll admit to some confusion regarding the web site for this project. Some promotional posters released at Further Confusion and elsewhere give the web site as www.caterwall.net, which leads you to a “Coming Soon” page with an illustration. More actual information, however, can be found at www.caterwall.com, which includes artwork and background write-ups.

image c. 2012 by Spain Fischer

This is almost impossible to describe, even when you’re looking right at it! Check out this name: Chogokin Super-Combining King Robo Mickey and Friends. Then just check out the picture below! It’s a new toy created in Japan as a collaboration between Bandai Tamashii Nations and Disney. It features die-cast metal characters with names like Jet Mickey, Sky Minnie, Diver Donald, Aqua Daisy, Land Goofy, and Dash Pluto, who combine (along with other accessories) into the massive King Robot to fight… sheesh, we can only guess what! Take a look at the advertisement on Amazon to see more of what the individual component characters look like. King Robo Mickey (etc etc…) will be available internationally this April. Now all we have to do is wait for the TV series…

image c. 2013 Bandai Tamashii Nations and Disney

The Duck Dodgers TV series — based, as if you didn’t know, on the Chuck Jones-directed cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century — ran on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005. [My, was it really that long ago?  Sheesh... Ye ed-otter] Besides the obvious cast of Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers, Porky Pig as The Eager Young Space Cadet, and Marvin the Martian as the terrible Commander X-2, the show featured a host of Warner Brothers characters in bit roles — not to mention new characters like the dreaded Martian Queen. The regular voice cast included well-known voice actors like Joe Alaskey, Bob Bergen, Richard McGonagle, and John O’Hurley, as well as Michael Dorn (from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Tia Carrere (as the Martian Queen). Now Warner Brothers Home Video have (finally!) released the first 13 episodes on DVD in a collection entitled Duck Dodgers – Season 1: Dark Side of the Duck. It’s available now in stores and on-line everywhere.

image c. 2013 Warner Brothers Animation

Brian Harris is a graphic artist who, as of late, has been moving increasingly into 3D work — thanks in large part to the ever-expanding technology of 3D Printing available at sites like Shapeways. Working under the name Timothy BH, Brian has been selling sculptures of Goldie Pheasant from Rock-A-Doodle and Spike the dragon from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as well as others… and he intends to start taking commissions soon. Check out his Shapeways Shop to see his current work and find out how to keep up with his latest creations.

Image c. 2013 Brian Harris
Spike c. 2013 Hasbro / The Hub

Valley Dog is a full-color on-line comic created by Michael Adinso Rebrekal, also known as Mike Folf. “Born and raised in the affluent and bustling capital of Washington, DC. The young Francis Gris knows of nothing but a life of strict and stern professionalism, shunned from the likes of artistically creative endeavors. This all changes when, for business reasons, the coyote and his family move across the country to the small town of Silvercreek, California. In order to maintain his lifestyle, Francis’ parents enroll him into Picasso Charter High School – the one school in town that is renowned for its emphasis on professionalism. However, it soon turns out that the school (and the town as a whole) is anything but.” You can find out more and see the latest adventures at — where else? — www.valleydogcomic.com.

image c. 2013 by Mike Folf