Also known as “The Return of every-one’s favorite heroic chupacabra”. The Perhapanauts comic book series, you may recall, told the story of an elite investigative team, human and non-human (including said chupacabra and a sasquatch) battling against supernatural forces trying to invade our world. Now Todd Dezago (writer), Craig Rousseau, Rich Woodall, Fred Hembeck (artists), and of course Image Comics brings us this new full-color one-shot Perhapanauts special the Halloween Spooktacular. Featuring three chilling and thrilling tales and no less than four full-color interior poster-pages.
October, 2009:
Geronimo Stilton — The Graphic Novels
Since 2004, Scholastic has been publishing the Geronimo Stilton series of books by Elisabetta Dami for the English-speaking world. Now word has come out that the world-travelling mouse-journalist has become a time traveller as well… and that his new adventures will be released soon as hardcover graphic novels from Paperkutz Publishing. In case you’ve been missing it: Geronimo Stilton is the editor-in-chief of The Rodent’s Gazette, the largest newspaper in New Mouse City. That’s his day-job. But, facing the threat of evil cats from far-off Catatonia, Geronimo and his family have found themselves travelling through many adventures around the globe. Now comes word that the cats have actually developed time-travel… and they plan to alter the past to destroy Mouselands’s future! Now our heroic editor has no choice but to follow the cats through time, trying to stop their evil schemes! The first book in the series is Geronimo Stilton: The Discovery of America, to be followed soon by The Secret of the Sphynx and The Coliseum Con. Papercutz has an introductory video for the series that can be found here. No big surprise: A Geronimo Stilton animated TV series is in the works in his home county of Italy.
Return to Bloom County
Opus the penguin. Bill the cat. What more need be said? Bloom County, written and illustrated by Berke Breathed, was the visual soundtrack to the lives of many furry and comic book fans throughout the 1980’s. And many of the characters, situations, and sayings that Mr. Breathed, well, “breathed” into life are still iconic to this very day. Now IDW Publishing has collected the entire 1980 – 1989 run of the original comic in Bloom County: The Complete Library. Volume One (the first of five — itself nearly 300 pages long!) contains reprints from 1980 through 1982. All of the comics found in these volumes will be reprints from either the original printer proofs, or Berke Breathed’s original artwork.
The original first collection cover, c. Berke Breathed
Teens with Tails
The artist known as Mistystriker has posted a link to the Australian teen magazine Dolly. In the October 2009 issue, they are running a cover article (!) called “Super Furry Animals”. The tag-line reads: “These teens are taking the term ‘party animal’ to a WHOLE new level.” With several full-color pictures from Anthrocon 2009 (and several other sources), the article describes how a Dolly writer (along with a furry fandom friend) “snuck” into Anthrocon to have a look around. (Of course, they interviewed con chair Uncle Kage for the article, so it couldn’t have been much of a sneak!) The writer marvels at how much fun everyone seemed to be having, and the general silly atmosphere — in a good way. All in all a much more positive article than many we’ve seen of late. You can see the October 2009 Dolly cover here, and the pages of the article here, here, and here. Side note: It seems that the British teen magazine Sugar has run the exact same article, with the same pictures! Well now, that’s efficient…!
Stepping into some Big Shoes… with Pooh
David Benedictus produced the audio adaptations of A.A. Milne’s orginal book Winnie-the-Pooh, starring Dame Judi Dench. Now he’s taken on a much bigger task: Continuing the story that Milne brought to a close 80 years ago with The House at Pooh Corner. In that story, Christopher Robin said his final good-byes to Pooh-Bear and all of his friends. Now, in the first book approved by the trustees of A.A. Milne’s Pooh properties, Mr. Benedictus has written the first new adventures of the original Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Piglet, and Eeyore in decades. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is profusely illustrated by Mark Burgess, an artist who has illustrated Pooh books before — as well as stories of Paddington Bear. This new book comes to stores this October, in hardcover from Dutton Juvenile (in the U.K. The North American edition is published by Penguin Group).
Bear and Tiger
An on-line comic strip for people who like cute animals, laughing, and the Russian military. That’s how creator Bob Q describes Bear and Tiger, “A web-comic about Siberian Military Outpost 17… and the animals that run it.” So join Captain Tiger, Corporal Bear, grouchy old Laika, and a very large (but friendly) yeti in the frozen wastes of Asia. Looking for pancakes and energy drinks. There’s new comics every other day at their web site.
Animals for Healing
Chris Ayers was busy working as a concept artist in Hollywood when, in 2005, he was diagnosed with leukemia. One year later, after a period of intense treatment and therapy, Chris embarked on a personal project: To draw one animal each day, for a year, and in the process to come to terms with his illness, his recovery, and his healing. Now the result of his hard work and diligence is available as The Daily Zoo, a full-color hardcover book from Design Studio Press. It features the 365 drawings from Chris’ project, as well as his reflections on the animals presented (some realistic, some anthropomorphic, some silly, some not…) and how they reflect on his condition, his thoughts, and his life. The book also features an introduction by director and producer J.J. Abrams. You can find out more about the project and the book at Chris’ web site, www.chrisayersdesign.com.
