Herobear and the Kid was a renowned and award-winning black & white all-ages comic book series created by animator Mike Kunkel back in the 1990′s. It told the story of a lonely young boy who receives a rag-doll white bear as a present from his grandfather. Unbeknownst to our young hero, both his grandfather and that toy bear are very special. Soon enough the bear springs to life as an 8-foot-tall, caped, flying ursine superhero, and as his sidekick “the Kid” our young protagonist is off with his new friend on adventures. Now, Boom! Studios have announced that Mr. Kunkel will be re-launching the Herobear series through their Kaboom! imprint this coming June. Comic Vine has a write-up about it, including a preview of the special “animation cel” variant cover that will be available at some retailers.

image c. 2013 by Mike Kunkel

Out in the wide Arizona desert, near a top-secret military research facility, there lived a young kitten with the unusual name of Three.  Then one day, there was a terrible accident at at the facility… That’s the story behind Sonora, a new full-color comic book series written by Mike Kessler and illustrated by Erin Taylor. After a terrible explosion, the surviving animals of this desert region awaken to find they have gained amazing powers…  Some of them will use those powers for good, and others… will not.  Published by Bleating Goat Comics, whose web site has information about this and other independent comic books.

image c. 2013 Bleating Goat Comics

In 1990 Tatsunoko Studios of Japan released the “science-fiction historical gag battle anime” known as Kyattou Ninden Teyandee. It was fan-subbed in the U.S. as Ninja Pizza Cats, and eventually Saban Entertainment released it to television in a dubbed version called Samurai Pizza Cats. For many years, the rights to the show have been up in the air, but now Discotek Media have announced they will soon be releasing the entire series to DVD. According the review at Anime News Network, the series “revolves arouund Nyankii, a secret ninja team that protects the robotic animal inhabitants of Edoropolis (Little Tokyo) from the evil ninja organization Karakara.” That hardly begins to describe just how crazy this thing is. Discotek will be releasing two different DVD box sets: A 52-episode dubbed version and a 54-episode subtitled version.

image c. 2013 Discotek Media

Wired has an article and interview with Pixar artist Everett Downing, who made a New Year’s resolution to create a new superhero for each day of the new year. That was three years ago, but Downing currently has 285 new heroes and plans to have 365 by the end of 2013.

Many of the superheroes are not anthropomorphic, but the Wired article shows several that are, including the Hulking Mulch, Lance-a-Lot, Dober-Man, and unnamed others.

What are Downing’s plans after he finishes? “A comic book ‘one-shot’ featuring the best of his creation seems like the logical next step.”

The Cartoon Brew has reported earlier on Warner Bros. making tests of live-action/CGI versions of Marvin the Martian and Hong Kong Phooey for “live-action” features featuring the cartoon stars. Now the CB has that test footage, thanks to director Alex Zamm.

While Marvin the Martian is borderline anthropomorphic (what else could he be?), Hong Kong Phooey, based on Hanna-Barbera’s 1974 TV cartoon, is undeniably anthropomorphic.

The Cartoon Brew says, “Quick! Check these out before they remove them from the internet…”, which presumably means that this may be considered too embarrassing to leave up for long, due to the literal toilet humor..

For Hannukah, the Cartoon Brew brings us this 3’42” film from independent animator Nadav Nachmany’s Kniedalach Productions of Jerusalem, Samurai Jew: The Eighth Night, about a Jewish superhero fighting evil ninja pigs to save an anthropomorphic jelly doughnut. (Nachmany spells it 'Channukah').

After years of comics, cartoons and movies, they’re still a lean, green fighting machine.

Born in 1984 as an underground comics parody of various martial arts and mutant comic books, the reptilian superhero team known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turned 28 last May, making them a bit old to still be considered teenagers.

Doctor Doom! The Red Skull! The Mirror Master! We have been menaced for decades by such flamboyantly costumed comic book supervillains as Galactor! The Green Goblin! Black Adam! The Yellow Claw! But not until now, with the publication of Alter-Ego #112, August 2012, have we known how narrowly we have missed one of the most bizarre costumed villains of all: an overweight wooly-bear caterpillar named The Fat Furry!

Or … have we? Bwhahahaha!

Is Planet Chanbeena in Galaxy #28 a planet of Christian anthro cats? Check out 0:58 to 1:31 minutes of this first episode of Tokusou Sentai DekaRanger. Watch further into it to see Doggy Krugger, the DekaRangers’ bright blue anthro wolf commander.

Evergreen Media Group has acquired the rights to Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, a cartoon series from the 1960s. Courageous Cat, created by comic book artist Bob Kane, was a parody of Kane's better-known creation: Batman.

Courageous Cat and his sidekick were a crime-fighting duo who lived in the Cat Cave, and, when summoned by the Cat Signal, would race to the scene of the crime in their red Cat Mobile. Courageous Cat would then fight the bad guys with his all-purpose Cat Gun.

As with the recently announced Paddington Bear film, Evergreen will be rebooting the Courageous Cat franchise with a blend of live-action and CGI.

Save the Day by D.J. Fahl is a 2010 novel published by FurPlanet; it's both a gay-coming-out story and a superhero drama. It's a decent read, although there's room for improvement.

The novel is set in contemporary America (Portland, mainly), except superheroes are a new phenomenon that have only appeared in the last 15 years or so. There are maybe a couple dozen people with extraordinary powers and advanced technology around the world, and the world is still learning to deal with them, from the social to the political to the legal side of things – like launching a class-action suit against the estate of a supervillain for damages.

New from Image Comics this July: “Man of Action Studios — creators of the international hit Ben 10 — return with an all-new big book for little readers! Livingston is a peaceful fruit bat whose life changes when he is bitten by a vampire and transformed into a vampire bat!  As Batula — an avenging creature of the night — Livingston develops a taste for adventure and a need to prove that no matter what he looks like on the outside, he’s still the same bat on the inside. A full-color story book by Frankie Stein creators Steven Seagle [writing] and Marco Cinello [art]!” Visit Image Comics’ preview page to find out more about Batula (and see some interior art).

image c. 2012 Image Comics

I was preparing this announcement, but GreenReaper has given away part of it on Newsbytes.

Fred Patten, who has been writing Furry book reviews since 1966, and who edited the first anthology of anthropomorphic short fiction, Best in Show, in 2003, has edited two new anthologies of anthropomorphic s-f & fantasy that will both premiere in June 2012.

1. Already Among Us: An Anthropomorphic Anthology, will be published by Legion Publishing of Birmingham, AL on June 4. It will be available in a $18.95 hardcover and $9.99 trade paperback (x + 390 pages), and $8.99 Kindle version, with a wraparound cover by Roz Gibson.
2. The Ursa Major Awards Anthology: A Tenth Anniversary Celebration, will be published by FurPlanet Productions of Dallas, TX. It will go on sale at Anthrocon 2012 on June 14, as a $19.95 trade paperback, x + 380 pages, with a wraparound cover by Blotch.