In-Fur-Nation

One of the newest and perhaps most interesting developments of on-line shopping is the concept of on-demand DVD burning. In other words, they make it when you order it, and not before. That saves a great deal of money that would otherwise have to be sunk into creating “back stock” of items that might not be sold if only a limited audience is interested in them. Warner Brothers (parent company of Hanna-Barbera) is taking this to heart it seems, with several new offerings. One of them that furry fans should definitely take note of is SWAT-Kats: The Radical Squadron, available real-soon-now on demand as a 5-DVD set from TV Shows on DVD. The link will take you (more quickly) to the Warner Brothers site where you can order the DVD.

Now available on Blu Ray disc is the special Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Movie Collection (whew!), featuring all three of the original live action Ninja Turtles movies (the first, Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, and Turtles III: Turtles in Time) as well as the TMNT CGI movie, all in one box. We’ve seen it quoted at many different prices (from about $30.00 on Amazon.com down to about $15.00 in the Previews magalog) so do your homework and do some shopping around before you buy!

[Besides all of that, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  And our thanks to all of YOU for coming to visit!]

Just in time for the much-anticipated (?) Yogi Bear live-action/CGI movie, Insight Editions is releasing Yogi’s first book in hardcover on December 1st. Life is a Pic-a-Nic: Tips and Tricks for the Smarter Than Average Bear was written by Yogi with the assistance of Earl Kress. Here’s the publisher’s description: “For Yogi Bear, the glass is always half full and every day is a gift ripe with opportunities, new friends, and tasty treats. The Tao of Yogi is one of love and tolerance: love thy neighbor, harbor no ill will, and share your gifts, and life will reward you with goodies. Live by these rules and you can’t go wrong. Happiness is Yogi’s message, his reason for being, and Life is a Pic-a-Nic is his manifesto.” You heard it here folks.

c. 2010 Insight Editions

Graphic Universe, an imprint of Lerner Publishing, has two furry-themed graphic novel series that might be of interest to young readers and their parents. Guinea Pig — Pet Shop Private Eye (by Colleen Venable (writer) and Stephanie Yue (artist) tells the story of a guinea pig named Sasspants, who likes to read in her cage. When one of the letters on the front of her cage falls off (leaving “PI”), one of the other animals mistakes this to mean “private investigator” and enlists the help of Sasspants to solve a mystery.  Now Sasspants has a new career! Meanwhile there’s Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox by Brigitte Luciani (writer) and Eve Tharlet (artist). When Mrs. Fox and her daughter Ginger are driven out of their den by a hunter’s dog, they move in with Mrs. Fox’s friend Mr. Badger — which the adults quite enjoy actually. Unfortunately, Ginger and Mr. Badger’s two young sons do not! The series presents woodland adventures while also giving life lessons about growing up in a step-family. Volume 2 of each of these continuing series is out now.

Okay, so, recently the trailer for Kevin James’ 2011 live action/CGI film The Zookeeper has been making the rounds at movie theaters. The animation and cartoon blogs have been going “wild”, calling it friendly things like “Madagascar in live action with a fat guy” and such. We’ll let you make your own decision when the film comes out on July 8th. Here’s the official description from Sony Pictures: “In Zookeeper, the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James). Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get a girl in his life is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: They can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship.” Really now. The film is directed by Frank Coraci, who’s directed several successful comedies starring Adam Sandler — including The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and Click. In The Zookeeper, Sandler plays a monkey. According to Cinema Blend, the film was originally scheduled to be released this fall, but Sony later decided to save it until next summer and put it up against films like Transformers 3 and the final Harry Potter film. Really.

If you’ve not yet discovered Bear Nuts, the popular and very surreal on-line comic written and illustrated by Alison Acton, the story continues at their web site. Now DMF Comics has released Bear Nuts Volume 1: The Book of Prozac as a full-color softcover graphic novel, collecting together several of the comic’s storylines. “As one of the largest exhibits at the Discount Zoo, (in both size and number of inhabitants) the bears attract a lot of attention… something none of them are happy about.  Between gawking adults, jeering children, and their own rather profound personality clashes, it’s a wonder the bears can get through each day without maiming each other… well, most days.” Trust us, it’s much stranger than that… Meanwhile, Bear Nuts Volume 2: The Book of Evil is promised to us very soon.

Steve Hamaker (best known as the colorist for some issues of the comic Bone) created a rather strange superhero comic known as Fish ‘n’ Chips. Now Cartoon Books brings together the first issues in a full-color trade paperback, Fish ‘n’ Chips Volume 1. Here’s how they describe it: “Solomon City is under attack by vampyres, and the only people willing to stand in their way are a telekinetic goldfish with a robotic body and a lightning-charged cat! Don’t miss the origin story of the superhero team of Jaxer ‘Fish’ and Clave ‘Chips’! Exclusive pin-up gallery features new works by James Kochalka, Alex Robinson, Andy Runton, David Petersen, and Kazu Kibuishi.” The graphic novel is available now on Steve Hamaker’s web site.

In the past we’ve told you about Firebreather, the comic book series created by Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn, published by Image Comics. Now it seems that Cartoon Network has gone and snuck out a CGI movie based on it! The story is the same as the comic, described here from Firebreather’s Wikipedia entry: “High school teen Duncan Rosenblatt is the son of divorced parents — a typical suburban soccer mom who wants him to get into a good college, and a 300-foot fire-breathing dragon who wants him to follow in the family business — conquering the Earth and inheriting the throne of King of Monsters; they share custody. Like every other teenager, he struggles to fit in with his peers. His being half-dragon further complicates matters.” The movie comes to Cartoon Network on November 24th. Check out the trailer on YouTube, too.

Michael Gagne serialized his popular comic-book story Rex over a period of seven years in the Flight anthology magazine series. Now Image Comics have collected the whole thing together in one place as The Saga of Rex, available now as a full-color trade paperback.  Here’s the publisher’s description, taken from Michael Gagne’s Rex Page: “The adorable little fox named Rex is plucked from his home world by a mysterious spaceship and transported to the arcane world of Edernia, where he meets Aven, an enigmatic biomorph with a flying saucer. Follow his epic journey as he travels through outer-worldly landscapes, faces strange perils, and makes surprising encounters. A story that is in turn adventurous, heroic, tragic, romantic, and wonderfully surprising, The Saga of Rex perfectly captures a vision of whimsy and wonder that will delight young and old.” The web site also features sample pages from the new book.

A power-house team-up has brought together Dark Horse Press’ new full-color one-shot, Beasts of Burden & Hellboy. Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese), Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother) and Mike Mignola (Hellboy, of course) join forces to bring us the latest story of the animals of Burden Hill. A team of dogs (and one cat) have been fighting together to find and destroy the source of evil energy haunting their neighborhood with strange events — and brutal murders, human and non-human. But when things start going really bad, the animals have no choice but to bring in outside help — in the form of Hellboy, perhaps the world’s greatest supernatural detective.

Dedicated Marvel Comics readers (and at this point,  historians!) might remember that there was a time before Dr. Hank McCoy, known to his fellow X-Men as “The Beast”, was blue… and furry. Once he became both of those (but not yet lion-faced… long story), he left the X-Men to seek membership in the Avengers… and now, Marvel has collected those first Avengers issues featuring our newly blue and furry friend in a new hardcover book Avengers: The Coming of the Beast. It brings together Avengers issues 137 – 140 and 145 – 146 from the 1960′s, scripted by Steve Englehart and Tony Isabella, with original full-color art by George Tuska, Don Heck, and Keith Pollard. Two variant covers are available, with art by John Romita and Gil Kane.

image c. Marvel Comics

Thanks to Animation Magazine, we now have a more precise schedule of animated movies coming to theaters in 2011. Some of them we knew about, some of them (we’ll admit) we didn’t! So, in order: Rango (starring the voice of Johnny Depp) comes to us on March 4th, Rio (from Blue Sky) hits the air on April 8th, Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom (whew!) kicks off May 27th, Cars 2 (from Pixar of course) takes off on June 24th, Winnie the Pooh (in 2D, based on never-before-adapted-stories) comes to us July 15th, Puss in Boots (the long-awaited Shrek prequel) slices up the fall on November 4th, and Happy Feet 2 (once again directed by George Miller) finishes things off on November 18th. Oh, and if you haven’t seen it: The first teaser trailer for Kung Fu Panda 2 is playing in front of Megamind, in theaters now.

“Once upon a time, in a world of super heroes and villains, there lived a team of animals that saved the universe…and no one knew it. These creatures asked not for fortune or fame, merely to help the humans that pet them. But a new threat to the world has arisen, which only they know of, that could change everything…and kill one of them. Join Chris Eliopoulos, Ig Guara, and Chris Sotomayor for an epic tale of adventure, courage…and sacrifice.” This new hardcover collection (available now from Marvel) brings together issues 1 through 4 of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers Unleashed, as well as Tails of the Pet Avengers: The Dogs of Summer. Check out the review at Amazon.com.

image c. Marvel Comics

Whenever Howard the Duck turns up in your comic book, things are almost guaranteed to get weird — or weirder than usual. Such is the case in Spider-Man: Back in Quack, a new full-color one-shot comic written by Stuart Moore with illustrations by Mark Brooks and Joe Suitor (and published by Marvel Comics, as if you didn’t know). It’s seems that Howard the Duck’s brain has been thoroughly scrubbed, and his hard-edged humor has been ground down to make him more… socially acceptable. It’s up to none other than Spider-Man to save to the duck from the threat of mediocrity… But does the world prefer the new “Cynical Duck” over good old Howard? You can find out now: This book is on the shelves.

Beyond Belief Games have packaged three of their most popular RPG game systems in a single paperback edition. The press release for Kids & Critters (edited by Simon Washbourne) goes like this: “Bringing to mind stories like Watership Down and Duncton Wood, the fabulous Tales from The Wood is a great role playing game for all ages. Lashings of Ginger Beer sends you back to Idyllic England, where nosey kids investigate real and imagined crimes, in the great tradition of Enid Blyton. Finally, we have the unusual but brilliantly charming It’s a Dog’s Life; definitely the best prairie dog role playing game ever.” Kids & Critters is also available for download (at a very low price) as a watermarked PDF file at rpg.drivethrustuff.com.

image c. Beyond Belief Games

High school is hard enough to get through, but trying to do it while slowly turning into a werewolf makes things nearly impossible! That’s the situation a teenage girl named Alice finds herself in when she and her brother are bitten by what they thought was a pack of  large rabid dogs. Werewolves: An Illustrated Journal of Transformation is a new softcover graphic novel, available now from Chronicle Books. It was written by Paul Jessup, with full-color illustrations by Allyson Haller. The book is Alice’s personal journal of her and her brother’s experience as they not only transform, but have to adopt new lifestyles: Learning to eat raw meat, avoiding the werewolf hunters who are after them every night, and finding their place among the pack that caused their transformation in the first place. You can find out more at Amazon.com.

The things we find amaze even us here at In-Fur-Nation sometimes. Disneystrology is a new hard-cover book by Lisa Finander, available now from Quirk Books. According to Amazon.com it “combines astrology, numerology, and the magic of movies to help readers understand their own personalities. Noted astrologer Lisa Finander has identified 366 unique Disney character types everyone from Snow White to Wall-E and paired these characters to corresponding birth dates. Readers born on November 9, for example, are typically exuberant, friendly, and youthful traits best exemplified by Pinocchio. By contrast, readers born on February 22 are often powerful, principled, and determined the perfect words to describe King Mufasa of The Lion King. Readers will also discover character profiles, compatible birthdays, tips for dealing with others, and much, much more! Illustrated with hundreds of stills from more than 90 years of classic animation, Disneystrology is an entertaining tribute to the most delightful characters in movie history.” We do not make this stuff up folks. Meanwhile there’s also The Pixar Treasures by Tim Hauser, described in a review as “a scrapbook of instinct and inspiration, experiences readers can touch, and visions that exist only in the imagination. It begins with a group of animators who were inspired by Walt Disney films. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft were hired into an apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Productions. The last of Disney’s golden age artists, including animators Eric Larson, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston mentored the young dreamers, and as Pixar later developed, their work would draw heavily from this direct connection with Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” The tale continues with Pixar’s foray into computer animation, and the resulting success of Toy Story. With chapters on A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; Ratatouille; and WALL*E, Hauser’s narrative covers the struggles, growth, and successes of an incredible animation studio. And it gives readers a sneak peak at the newest Disney*Pixar film, Up. Filled with unique removable keepsakes, The Pixar Treasures is an essential collector’s item for every Pixar fan.” Latest film at the time of publication, obviously. It’s available, also in hardcover, from Disney Editions.

Once again the Japanese are proving themselves ahead of the curve a bit… Solatorobo is a new adventure video game created for the Nintendo DS by CyberConnect2. It’s scheduled to be released in Japan on October 28th. The game is basically a sequel to the popular Tail Concerto game series, and it’s already creating a lot of buzz and discussion among on-line gaming fans and furry fans also. No word yet if the creators plan to release the game in English or in North America, but there is at least one YouTube video where you can preview the Japanese version.

James Burks has written and illustrated a new full-color graphic novel for young readers called Gabby & Gator. It’s available now, in hardcover, from Yen Press. “Gabby is a shy vegetarian whose hobbies include recycling, gardening, and playing the tuba. Gator is, well, an alligator whose pastimes include blogging and snacking on house-pets. Both feel lonely and misunderstood, she for having “uncool” interests, he for capitulating to his hunting instincts. When a bully steals Gabby’s hat and mocks her, Gator intercedes on her behalf, thus initiating a sweet, if improbable, friendship.” There’s a good, detailed review of Gabby & Gator at the School Library Journal.

image c. 2010 James Burks

Viper Comics has a notably unusual sort of graphic novel that’s available now. Here’s how they describe Stu Bear in the 25th Century: “A freak avalanche turns Stu Bear’s annual hibernation into a 500 year frozen sleep.  Rediscovered and thawed, Stu finds evolved, hairless, intelligent bears, descendants of Stu’s brother, the new dominant species; living in floating cities above the Earth.  But as a seemingly incurable plague threatens to destroy all life, Stu finds he’s the only one who can save the day.” The story was created by Jeff Bushell, who previously wrote the screenplay for the feature film Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The full-color art was created by Beware of the Art Studios. The Viper Comics web site includes a link to a YouTube video preview of this softcover book.