I have been a fan of Bill Willingham as a writer (his art is good but not spectacular) ever since he wrote and drew the Elementals comic book in the 1980s. I still think that Elementals vol. 2 #15, July 1990, is one of the most perfect superhero comics ever written, and I have been reading his Fables for DC Comics/Vertigo since it started in 2002. (The second story arc of Fables, “Animal Farm”, was on the ALAA’s Recommended Anthropomorphic Reading List in 2002.)

But I’ll admit that I totally missed his first novel, Down the Mysterly River (Austin, TX, Clockwork Storybook, April 2001, 230 pages, 100 copies), when it came out ten years ago. Now Willingham has heavily revised it and it is published as a major children’s fantasy under Tor Books’ juvenile Starscape imprint, with twenty-five chapter heading illustrations and an endpaper map by his Fables partner, Mark Buckingham.

Starscape describes it as a “children’s book”. It is, but of the sort that has reviewers comparing it to the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, the Oz books, The Wind in the Willows, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, and others with lots of talking animals and/or are dramatic fantasy adventures – books that most Furry fans will have read. While I wouldn’t rate it quite as high as a classic, this is an adventure that readers of all ages will enjoy.

Tor/Starscape, Sept. 2011, hardcover $15.99 (333 + 1 pages); Kindle $9.99; audiobook $24.99.

For historical purposes, a collection of links and other tidbits posted to Newsbytes in August.

Humphrey B. Bear, a character familiar to generations of Australians, is up for sale. The mute brown bear, with his waistcoat, straw boater and yellow bowtie, first appeared on Australian television in 1965, and entertained pre-schoolers for decades.

Over the years, the show Here's Humphrey won several Logie Awards, and Humphrey appeared on PBS in the United States. He was also given a special "Citizen of the Year" Award at the 1994 Australia Day celebrations.

In 2009, however, Banksia Productions - which owns rights to the character - went into liquidation, and they're looking for buyers for Humphrey. The winning bidder will get four Humphrey B. Bear costumes, plus all intellectual property rights (including 1776 taped episodes of Here's Humphrey).

This fall appears to be setting itself up for a string of new blockbuster video game titles, ranging from Star Fox 64: 3D, to Sly Cooper [4]: Thieves in Time, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, a pair of Tekken games, and even the little-heard-of 3DS title, The Rolling Western.

The past few days have been very active with animal-related stories from around the world:

• An animal rights activist from Ukraine is protesting poor living conditions for zoo animals, living in the lions' den for five weeks to raise money for them.
• A pair of cougars have been shot after they began attacking humans in Alberta.
• Ukraine's government has vowed to end a sickening local tradition of animal abuse.
• An Idaho man is in hot water after prancing around in a bunny suit.
• A truck carrying bees has flipped and closed a major highway near Edmonton, Alberta.

Wired UK and BBC News report that the mitochondrial DNA in all polar bears today descends from a single Irish female brown bear who lived 20,000 to 50,000 years ago.

Read more: Ancient Hybridization and an Irish Origin for the Modern Polar Bear Matriline

Flying first class may help you avoid luggage charges, but it doesn't mean you can pack endangered animals in there, as the BBC News reports.

A man flying from Bangkok to Dubai was arrested by undercover police after trying to check in suitcases containing rare juvenile animals: two leopards, two panthers, an Asiatic black bear and two macaque monkeys, all sedated and packed in carefully-crafted containers.

Freeland Foundation director Steven Galster observed the arrest:

It was a very sophisticated smuggling operation. We've never seen one like this before. The guy had a virtual zoo in his suitcases.

Knut the polar bear, who gained international fame as debate raged over whether he should be hand-reared or euthanised, has died at age four.

Police know drug users, dealers, and traffickers use elaborate methods of protecting and concealing their illegal goods, but this one is a first in Canada: thirteen black bears, found by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a marijuana plantation in Christina Lake, British Columbia (near the US-Canada border).

The bears were apparently trained to guard two fields of marijuana plants and fed to become docile and trainable, defending the hidden plantation containing over 2300 plants.  The closest past parallel was police finding a two-meter (six-foot) crocodile at a grow-op in 2003.

Read more at WDIV-DT - ClickOnDetroit.com and The Windsor Star.

An animal rights activist has been convicted under hunting law after interfering with state wildlife biologists, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports. Susan Kehoe was found guilty after preventing Division of Fish and Wildlife personnel from tranquilizing a black bear to change its radio collar.

Kehoe, who is 60, was also convicted of resisting arrest after refusing to put her hands behind her back. Judges ruled her defense of arm surgery in 1999 unconvincing given her practice of hiking and climbing with recording equipment.

A Pennsylvanian man has been found guilty of illegally killing a 707-pound bear using bait, and has been fined US$1,800 and ordered to pay court costs plus $5,000 in restitution.

Charles W. Olsen Jr. was arrested in November, after a quick-thinking police officer noticed his car loaded down with pastries, took down his license plate number, and notified Game Commission officials at nearby bear check stations of his suspicions.

The restitution is reportedly the first of its kind under guidelines covering "trophy bears."

BC tabloid The Province has caught on to the fact that Polish newspaper Gazeta Olsztynska used an image including 4chan meme Pedobear in a story on the Winter Olympics.

The modified image's author, Michael Barrick, says it was also used by a Spanish sports blog.

Pedobear made an appearance at Anthrocon last year, handing out free candy.

Bears killed and devoured a monkey in front of horrified visitors at a Dutch zoo, officials and witnesses said.

Visitors reported that the grisly scene began as several bears chased the monkey, a macaque, onto a wooden structure at Beekse Bergen Safari Park.

They said a bear tried unsuccessfully to shake the monkey loose, ignoring attempts by keepers to distract it. The bear then climbed up and grabbed the monkey, mauling it to death and bringing it to its concrete den, where three bears ate it.

(Full article can be found on CNN)

Remember Chicago's "Cows on Parade" statues? Well, Zurich decided to follow suit, but use bears. Only this particular one, painted up in bondage gear, was deemed to be unsuitable for the place it was going, right next to some of Switzerland's most prominent banks. Full story on Yahoo! News

Apparently, according to the Tropical Medical Bureau news, Greenland is apparently to allow the hunting of polar bears - an endangered species - by the first half of the year.

Why they are doing this is beyond me -- polar bears are an endangered species; isn't there some sort of law to stop them?

SP