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Dinosaur

It Followed Him Home…?

Back when your humble ed-otter was a kid, there was a well-known book called The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth. Well now author David Fulk has traveled down a similar road perhaps with his first novel for young readers, Raising Rufus. “Martin Tinker, a shy, studious eleven-year-old, has his small-town world turned upside down when he discovers an ancient, frozen egg in a quarry―and when it thaws and hatches, he finds himself surrogate mom to a baby T. rex! Because of its voracious appetite for meat and tendency to GROW at an alarming rate, it gets harder and harder for Martin and his friend Audrey to keep it hidden from the world. Can Martin discover new reserves of strength to save his outlandish pet―or the town―from a very grim fate?” We’ll soon find out. Raising Rufus is available now in hardcover from Delacorte Books.

image c. 2015 Delacorte Books

image c. 2015 Delacorte Books

Dinos from Space Help Monkeys

Evidently, the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct. Instead, as Earth’s climate began to change, they migrated to a far-off planet… and now they’re a thriving space-faring culture. At least that’s the idea behind Rexodus, a new full-color graphic novel written by James Farr and illustrated by Jon Summariva. It’s coming this June from Dark Horse Press. “The Black Blood is unleashed upon the earth again, and Amber must save her father—and the world—with the aid of the only other Black Blood survivor, Kelvin Sauridon, a dinosaur from the past. In this high-stakes adventure, can they put aside their differences long enough to save the planet they both called home?” The official Rexodus home page explains it all better.  Interestingly, there’s also an on-line newspaper article from Tulsa, Oklahoma talking about the comic. Turns out the original idea for Rexodus came from Steelehouse Productions, a Tulsa-based multi-media creation company. Announcing the launch of Rexodus, Steelehouse actually created life-sized walk-around versions of the space-dino main characters.

image c. 2015 Dark Horse Press

image c. 2015 Dark Horse Press

Human Dinos vs. Dragon Wizards

DinoFroz is a 2D animated TV series created by Orlando Corrati and animated by Mondo TV Studios in Italy. “The series depicts the adventures of Tom, a 12-year-old boy and his friends who, after playing a board game, are teleported to a world where they can transform into dinosaurs using stones called Rockfroz.” And more importantly, they can use their new-found dinosaur powers to try and defeat an army of evil magic dragons who are determined to rule all worlds — including ours! All of this also (hopefully) serving in the sales of tie-in toys. You can see both show and toys advertised and summarized over on YouTube. DinoFroz is currently seeking distribution in North America.

image c. 2014 Mondo TV

image c. 2014 Mondo TV

Dinosaurs are Walking — Again

Seemingly out of nowhere, Disney/Pixar have announced that the CGI animated feature The Good Dinosaur is back in production — and back on track for release in the winter of 2015, according to an article over at Cartoon Brew. After Disney removed director Bob Petersen from the project (he had co-directed Up and played the voice of Dug the dog) we didn’t hear much about Good Dinosaur for a while, as Disney/Pixar began advertising their next big project Inside Out. Now Disney/Pixar have announced that the new director of The Good Dinosaur will be Peter Sohn. He’s well known behind the scenes at Pixar, having worked in the art and story departments on several projects and directed the short film Partly Cloudy. He’s also known for his voice acting (he was Emile in Ratatouille and Squishy in Monsters University) and for being the body model for the character Russell in Up. Yes, really. With this announcement it now seems that Disney/Pixar will actually have two releases in 2015: Inside Out in June and The Good Dinosaur in November. Which puts the latter film right up against Kung Fu Panda 3, by the way. If you haven’t heard, The Good Dinosaur follows the adventures of a talking dinosaur family in modern times — on an alternate Earth where the great beasts never died out.

image c. 2014 Disney/Pixar

image c. 2014 Disney/Pixar

One Girl, One Lizard, Much Trouble

This November Oni Press brings us the first issue of Terrible Lizard, a new full-color all-ages comic book miniseries by writer Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun) and illustrators Drew Moss (In the Dark) and Ryan Hill (Stumptown). “The touching story of a girl and her T-Rex… with a healthy dose of collateral damage and monster conflict on the side. When the scientists of Cosmos Labs punch a hole through time and space, they pull a ferocious dinosaur into the present. The dinosaur imprints on teenage Jessica, proving  to be more mischievous than vicious. But he is not alone. Strangely mutated prehistoric monsters begin attacking our world. What’s a girl and her dinosaur-fighting dinosaur supposed to do? ” Read the article over at Comicocity to find out more.

image c. 2014 Oni Press

image c. 2014 Oni Press

Two Dogs in Time

Okay, this gets complicated, so follow along: Shiprock & Achordog is the name of an acoustic band that specializes in using music and lyrics (even rap!) to educated children about animals. It’s also the name of a comic book series they have created following the adventures of two dogs with that same name, Shiprock & Anchordog. In their first adventure, the canine companions travel back in time and befriend a family of dinosaurs. The band’s official web site explains it all more fully, as well as other educational programs they’re involved in. The comic was written by Evan Curran and illustrated by Gregery Miller, who also has his own web site devoted to this and other illustration projects (which he seems to have a lot of!).

image c. 2014 Gregery Miller

image c. 2014 by Gregery Miller

Monkey-Boy and Thunder-Lizard

One of the lesser-known but much-beloved series by comic book great Jack Kirby returns as Marvel Comics collects Devil Dinosaur in a new trade paperback this May. “The adventures of a boy and his dinosaur! At the dawn of human evolution, during a time when primitive man co-existed with the dinosaurs that dominated the Earth, a unique friendship is born – a friendship that may be the only thing that can save mankind! Meet Moon Boy and his Tyrannosaurus pal – the red-skinned Devil Dinosaur – as they face off against giant spiders, enormous ants, and rampaging dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes!” Find out more at the Previews page. Devil Dinosaur: The Complete Collection brings together issues #1 – 9 of the original series.

image c. 2014 Marvel Comics

image c. 2014 Marvel Comics

The World Has Turned To Gold

Check out the plot summary for Ryan North’s new comic book series The Midas Flesh: “Fatima and her space crew have decided to return to Earth—a planet completely sectioned off, abandoned, and covered in gold—to find out exactly what happened to this once thriving planet and see if they can use that knowledge against the evil empire that’s tracking them down. As luck would have it, they just landed the most powerful weapon in the universe: Some ancient dead guy’s body.” Why should we care? Well, one of Fatima’s “space crew” appears to be a talking dinosaur with horn-rim glasses. That, and the fact that Ryan North is one of the creative minds behind the Adventure Time comic book series. He talks about this new full-color series at Comic Book Resources. The Midas Flesh is illustrated by Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, and the first issue is coming later this month from Boom! Studios.

image c. 2013 Boom! Studios

Another Boy, Another Dinosaur

MIPCOM, if you need to be reminded, is an annual event held in Cannes, France, where would-be television producers from all over the world attempt to sell their entertainment products to distributors — all over the world. Held every year in October, it’s a great place to find interesting and unusual TV shows — many of them furry, especially in children’s TV of course.  Among the new crop is a show called Boy and the Dinosaur, produced in the UK by 1461 Productions. Based on an original idea by Jason Harding, the show is overseen by Davey Moore, David Bunting, Paul Couvela, and Russell Dever. The idea is quite simple: A 4-year old boy (called simply “Boy”) loves dinosaurs, and one wishes very hard that he could have one for a friend. Lo and behold, one shows up — a big orange saurid simply named “Dinosaur”. The two get along swimmingly, and have many adventures. The show was picked up for international distribution by Foothill Entertainment, and season one is currently in production with a hopeful release date of 2014. According to the official web site, the show has also been profiled in Variety magazine.

image c. 2013 by 1461 Productions