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Bear

Dino Girls and Grumpy Bears

Recently at a local children’s book store we stumbled across the works of artist and author Ryan T. Higgins. His two most famous series of illustrated books, Mother Bruce and Penelope Rex, are decidedly furry and very, very silly. Which you can probably tell from the title of the first Penelope book, We Don’t Eat Our Classmates. The follow up to that is We Don’t Lose Our Class Goldfish, and check out this opening: “Penelope Rex was seven feet tall and covered in scales. Other than that, she was just like every other kid.” And so it goes, as you can imagine. Check out Mr. Higgins’ web site to see more of what he’s been bringing the world — and what awards he’s been given for it so far.

image c. 2023 Disney Books

All the Violence You Can Bear

IDW Comics just sent us an announcement for Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, a new “cozy horror” (what does that mean?) comic written and illustrated by Patrick Horvath. Set in a small town of anthropomorphic animals, it introduces us to a seemingly-nice middle-aged bear named Samantha. “In the tranquil and welcoming little town of Woodbrook, humanoid animals happily live in harmony. This cute community isn’t quite as calming as it seems, though. On the surface, Samantha is the friendly face who owns and manages the hardware store. But beneath the surface lies something more terrifying. She visits the nearby city to let her violent urges loose, and buries her victims in the woods… But what happens when the killing comes back to her harmonious home town and Samantha isn’t the only one unleashing her inner animal?” Hitting the stands this October, just in time for Halloween. Bleeding Cool (ha ha) has a preview. Make no mistake: This is harrowing stuff, and definitely not for younger readers.

image c. 2023 IDW Publishing

Bear Out Of Nowhere

Driving around Southern California, we saw this on a billboard, of all things. Bearific.com. Knowing nothing about it, we had to investigate! Here’s what we found out about Bearific Books: “Katelyn Lonas is 16 years old and the CEO of her company, Bearific. Currently, she has over 60 published books, which are sold worldwide and available on Barnes & Noble and Walmart. Katelyn has also published five apps on the Google Play Store and has a YouTube channel called Bearific Studios, where she posts drawing videos and cartoons based on her books. She published her first book when she was 9 years old, and it was called Bearific Adventure.” And yes, it’s all about bears. Check out her web site!

image c. 2023 Bearific Books

Can You Get ’em All?

We’ll openly admit it: Many collectible phenomena out there simply pass us right back. Like this one… and now it’s getting it’s own TV series! Recently, this showed up on Animation World Network: Apple TV+ ordered a new 13-episode CG animated series,Be@rbrick, based on Medicom Toy’s popular collectible bear-shaped figures. DreamWorks Animation and Dentsu Inc. will produce with Meghan McCarthy (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Centaurworld) on board as showrunner and executive producer. The music-driven comedy follows young singer-songwriter Jasmine and her bandmates pursuing their dreams and inspiring others to do the same. But it won’t be easy to do when living in a world where everyone’s role is chosen for them and where the painted-on look you receive when you graduate from high school determines who you’ll be for the rest of your life. So, Jasmine realizes that for her world to change, she and her friends may have to make it happen themselves.” No word yet on a release date.

image c. 2023 Dreamworks Animation

Shy Bear and Rowdy Raccoon

Whoa! One we missed from last summer: The Forest Beckons, the first volume in the new Order of the Night Jay series of graphic novels for young readers, created by Jonathan Schnapp. “Frank is perhaps the most un-bear-like bear Camp Jay Bird has ever seen. Actually, he’s probably the ONLY bear Camp Jay Bird has ever seen. And there are tons of bugs, he’s getting picked on, and he can’t seem to earn a single badge! But there’s Ricky, an excitable little raccoon who shares Frank’s love of Mega Bunny comics. But Ricky’s friendship might be more than Frank can handle. After breaking camp rules, getting lost in the woods, and discovering ancient secrets about the long-forgotten Order of the Night Jay, how will Frank explain all this to his dad?” It’s available now everywhere from Penguin Random House and Top Shelf Comix.

image c. 2023 Top Shelf Comix

Bears In Space?

We know intriguingly little about Good Morning Kevin… other than the fact it’s a popular meme phrase on the Internet. But this is something different: A new animated series created by Andrew Gordon, a 20-year veteran of Pixar. Now he’s started his own animation studio, Songchain. At their Twitter site, you can see lots of sketches of Kevin the bear interacting with various alien creatures — and a quick teaser of the new series showing Kevin animated in CGI. They tell us it’s coming out this May. We’ll let you know when we find out more!

image c. 2023 Songchain

Bear With Him

This is a bit complex, so we’ll let Animation World Network explain it: “Nickelodeon has released a handful of first look images for Bossy Bear, the new animated preschool series from husband-and-wife team David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim (UglyDolls, Tea Time Cats), based on the Korean / U.S. pop culture blend book series by Horvath. The series follows the misadventures of unlikely besties Bossy Bear (an overly enthusiastic extrovert) and Turtle (a thoughtful introvert) in their Koreatown-inspired city of Pleasantburg.” Look for the show on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. in 2023. [And have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve!]

image c. 2022 Nickelodeon

THIS Cat Returns

Your ever-loving edotter got a chance to see a preview screening of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, the upcoming animated feature from Dreamworks Animation, directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado. Here’s the basic plot summary: The unstoppable adventurer Puss in Boots discovers that he has burned up eight of his nine lives through a series of mishaps. He goes on a desperate quest to find a fallen star with magic wishing powers, hoping to restore his invulnerability. Trouble is, the cat has lots of competition for the star — and a malevolent force following right behind him. So here are some Spoiler-Free thoughts about the film: See It, as soon as you can.  Not only is this a cracking good adventure film, darker than you expect it to be in places, but it’s also quite easily the furriest film ever in the Shrek universe. In fact, there’s a wolf in this film who could easily give the head Bad Guy a run for his money. This new film is coming to theaters on December 21st.

image c. 2022 Dreamworks Animation

Same Canada?

The Oates & The Elphyne is the interesting title of a new full-color graphic novel written and illustrated by Michael Walsh (Comeback). The description goes like this: “The Oates family moves to their ancestral home in Newfoundland following a pair of tragedies.They arrive at their Grandmother’s house, where they reunite with their orphaned cousin. Shortly after arriving, Beth, the youngest sibling, is kidnapped by a dark creature. Her older siblings set out to find her and bring her back, finding themselves in the Elphyne—a magical world that exists between the ordinary world and the afterlife. In the Elphyne, the imagination of children has the power to shape everything around them. The children, along with some new allies, must travel through the Elphyne to confront The Dark King, a mysterious being whose arrival has started to corrupt the Elphyne in frightening and unexpected ways. It is up to Beth’s siblings to rescue her from his clutches.” Not mentioned in that description is the fact those “new allies” include an anthro bear and a winged fairy. It’s available now in hardcover from Humanoids.

image c. 2022 Humanoids