Your Guide to the World of Furry Fandom
Tiki Paws have made a name for themselves crafting tropical-themed clothing, toys, and other accessories for dogs. Yes, really — we’ve covered them before. Well now the line has expanded! Tiki Paws have grown to include Geeky Paws — a new line of Halloween costumes for dogs, based around any number of fannish themes. Just the thing for when you’re out trick-or-treating and want a little friendly protection along. Check out their web site to see all the latest.
image c. 2015 Tiki Paws
Richie Wu is an artist who spent six years working in the gaming industry, as well as teaching illustration on the side. He’s worked on feature films like Toy Story 3 from Disney/Pixar, and TV series like Ben 10 Alienforce from Cartoon Network. Now he’s aiming his artistic talents at a new outlet: A line of illustrated t-shirts based on his original canine comic creations. Dogs like Garlic the chihuahua, Booze the bulldog, and Mocha the German shepherd, among several others. Visit his web site, Bad to the Bone, to see the latest in his growing set of designs. Currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mr. Wu also has a permanent display selling his t-shirts at the Galleria at Sunset Mall in nearby Henderson.
image c. 2015 by Richie Wu
Word has been spreading rapidly that Warner Brothers have put the mega-popular show Adventure Time on the fast-track for development as a feature film. Needless to say, many are assuming they were encouraged by Paramount’s success with the new Spongebob Squarepants movie. According to Cartoon Brew: “The animated film will be produced by Chris McKay, the animation supervisor of The LEGO Movie and director of the forthcoming The LEGO Batman Movie, and Roy Lee, one of 18 producers on The LEGO Movie. Adventure Time creator Pen Ward will have some involvement with the film, according to Deadline, specifically ‘in writing and producing the feature version.'” No word yet on a release date, but given how early in the project they are it’s a good guess it won’t be before 2017. The question on a lot of people’s minds then is: Will Adventure Time still be as big then, and bring as many people to the theaters?
image c. 2015 Cartoon Network
In other words, dogs and cats living together… in one book! Let us explain… Graphic Classics (from Eureka Productions) is a series of graphic novels based on, yes, classic literature. Now for Volume 25 of this full-color series they present a special double issue with two books back-to-back: Canine Classics — Stories for Dog Lovers, and Feline Classics — Stories for Cat Lovers. ” Featured are “The Emissary” by Ray Bradbury, “Ancient Sorceries” by Algernon Blackwood, “The Beast from the Abyss” by Robert E. Howard, and 17 more great stories and poems, including two from the volume’s co-editor, John Lehman.” Check it out over at the Eureka web site for a full list of stories.
images c, 2015 Eureka Productions
Over at Cartoon Brew there’s a new article about an upcoming animated film called Blazing Samurai. Does that title sound a little familiar? Maybe it’s because the whole idea of the movie is an animated re-make of Mel Brooks’ classic western comedy Blazing Saddles — but this time, with dogs. And samurai. Yes. “In this version, a dog named Hank travels to a small town in ancient Japan to fulfill his dream of becoming a samurai. He discovers the town is populated entirely by cats, and must overcome prejudice while learning how to be a great warrior from a once-great samurai cat named Jimbo. Chris Bailey, who directed the Disney short Runaway Brain and animation directed Alvin And The Chipmunks, and veteran animator/story artist Mark Koetsier will co-direct from a screenplay by Ed Stone and Nate Hopper.” The film is being distributed by Open Road Films, who last year brought us The Nut Job. Check out the rest of the article, and look for Blazing Samurai to hit movie screens in April of 2017.
image c. 2015 Open Road Films
Kade and Nicole are a pair of canine siblings — he likes to play video games, she likes to read. They both find plenty of opportunity to do both in a stately home known as Savestate… and, they also find a rather malevolent (if not very powerful) ghost rabbit. (Nicole names him Harvey, of course.) How are they to explain the undead presence to their reptilian friend Rick? That’s the start of things in Savestate, a new full-color on-line comic strip written and illustrated by Tim Weeks. Catch up with it over on his web site, or check out the Comic Chameleon app to download the comic to your mobile device.
image c. 2015 by Tim Weeks
Squarely in the “It’s about time!” department: Warner Brothers Home Video has announced the release of Road Rovers: The Complete Series on DVD later this month. “Meet ‘Cano-sapien’ the next, heroic step in the evolution of man’s best friend! After the evil General Parvo unleashes Professor Shepherd’s inventions upon the world, mutating dogs into monsters, Professor Shepherd recruits an international team of canines and transdogmafies’ them into super-heroic, humanoid crime-fighters.” That description barely scratches the surface of just how completely odd this popular anthropomorphic cartoon series from the 90’s could get. So head on over to the Warner Brothers web site and check it out. And remember: Don’t be weird boy!
image c. 2015 Warner Brothers Home Video
Katie Cook is well-known these days as one of the main writers and sometimes artist of IDW’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comic book series. Well, she has also created her own on-line comic series called Gronk: A Monster’s Story, which follows the adventures of a young and rather adorable monster… living out in the human world. Unable to make it as a scary thing that bumps in the night, she instead moves in with a young woman, her mischievous cat, and her friendly but very large dog. After several years on line, this full-color all-ages comic has now been collected into three softcover volumes by Action Lab Entertainment — all of them currently available at the Gronk web site.
image c. 2015 by Katie Cook
There’s an article over at ComingSoon.net about about a new feature animation project starting up. “RoboDog is said to be a classic, heart-warming adventure story about an unlikely duo who couldn’t be more different. KC (‘Kinetic Canine’) is a bright, energetic but overzealous robotic dog, while Marshall is an old, curmudgeonly ‘real’ dog, set in his ways and has little patience for anything new. This canine odd couple embarks on the adventure of a lifetime where each will learn the true nature of friendship, and not to judge a book by its cover.” The film stars the voices of Chris Colfer (Glee) as KC and Ron Perlman (Beauty & The Beast, Hellboy) as Marshall. The CGI project is being directed by Henry F. Anderson III (Gnomeo & Juliet, Stuart Little) for Marza Animation Planet, a new production house. No word yet on a planned release date.
image c. 2015 Marza Animation Planet
