'Zootopia' gains a poster; plus, the director's furry fan art

Yesterday, Byron Howard, co-director of Disney's upcoming furry movie Zootopia, Tweeted something was coming today. It turns out the "small treat" was the teaser poster for the movie.

Followers of Howard's Twitter account shouldn't be surprised to run into announcements about the movie, but there are other reasons to at least visit once in a while.

Not surprisingly, Howard posts frequent concept art, such as this early piece Howard describes as "noir". Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, you can also find his Zootopia crossover fan art with a couple of cult science fiction TV shows. It makes sense that a man who's first major directing credit is for a movie about the star of a science fiction TV show would enjoy them.

Back in July, he Tweeted a Doctor Who inspired piece.

It features Nick Wilde as David Tennant's 10th Doctor, while Judy Hopps plays Billy Piper's Rose "Bad Wolf" Tyler, friend and "companion" of the Doctor.

Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television series, telling the story of the titular "Doctor," a human-looking alien who travels through time and space with various companions. The Doctor has the ability to "regenerate" into a new body if he experiences a fatal mishap (making the title character able to be recast), which had allowed the show to run continuously from 1963 to 1989 before being restarted again in 2005 (with a unsuccessful, but canon, attempt in 1996). Though British, the show had a cult following in America, before becoming a much bigger hit after the restart.

The latest series began just last weekend.

More recently, just this month Howard Tweeted an X-Files themed picture.

This one features Nick as David Duchovny's appropriately named (though the character hates it) FBI Special Agent Fox "Spooky" Mulder, while Judy is cast as Gillian Anderson's FBI Special Agent Dana Scully.

Together, these two worked the titular "X-Files," unsolved cases in the FBI's database that involved possible paranormal activity, eventually leading them to uncover a government conspiracy involving aliens and UFOs, though the show also featured "monster of the week" episodes ranging from psychic serial killers to bat monsters. The show was notable for being as much a part of the horror genre as science fiction. In most stories, Mulder automatically believed in the paranormal, while Scully remained skeptical.

The series, like Doctor Who, will have a revival, beginning next year; currently, only a six episode mini-series is scheduled.

Of possible note is that, aside from being popular characters from cult sci-fi TV shows, both pairs of characters were known for there "will they/won't they" romantic chemistry; it is currently unknown if this has any bearing on the character arcs of Judy and Nick.