Here’s the official description of the long-awaited graphic novel World of Warcraft: Dark Riders: “A stalwart mage searches for a powerful artifact, stolen by Dark Riders, only to find his son accused of murder. A righteous priest, driven by a mysterious fervor, investigates a savage Wolf Cult. As the paths of these two men join, a fantastic adventure emerges! Supported by a cast of brave heroes, the two find out just how dangerous the wolf cult and dark riders are.” Hmmm, so just how furry is this thing? Well, check out the front cover below! And will the Tauren be involved too? We’ll have to wait until April of 2013 to find out for sure, but you can order this full-color hardcover book at Amazon right now. It’s written by Mike Costa, illustrated (inside) by Neil Googe, and published by DC Comics.

image c. 2012 DC Comics

As if there weren’t already enough anticipation for the upcoming (When? WHEN??) Mists of Pandaria expansion pack for World of Warcraft, now Blizzard Entertainment and DC Comics have joined forces to bring us the World of Warcraft: Pearl of Pandaria graphic novel in hardcover. It’s written by Micky Neilson, illustrated by Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, and set to go on sale September 5th. According to the WOW-Pedia, the graphic novel is “set before the Shattering and will give a look at Pandaria before the mists protecting the island were clear.” Check out the preview at BlizzPlanet.com too, which includes some interior pages from the book.

image c. 2012 Blizzard Entertainment

Various sneak-peaks of The Mists of Pandaria, the new expansion of the World of Warcraft on-line gaming universe, have begun to make their way around the Web. This new realm (actually new continent) was announced at Blizzcon (Blizzard Entertainment’s regular WOW convention) last October, and WOW-fans have been going crazy about it ever since — some positive, some negative, but all of them loud. This new expansion (the 4th) introduces new levels, a new fighting class (“Monk”), and as we noted a new continent known as Pandaria. Several new races are introduced in this expansion as well; some of them playable and some of them simply background or enemies. Chief among the playable ones are the Pandaren, a race of anthro pandas — based on both the giant (black & white) and red pandas of Earth. Of note for players of the game: Unlike most of the races introduced so far in the game, the Pandaren do not align themselves with either the Alliance or the Horde at the start of their adventures. Players develop the characters over several levels, and only at the end of that quest do they decide which traditional alignment they will take. Other anthro-type creatures in this new expansion include the Hozu, a monkey-like race, and the Mantids, who (of course) are insect-like. Much more about all of this can be found on Wikipedia. As of this writing the official release date for this new expansion is still shrouded in mystery (mists?), but several leaked preview videos have been showing up on YouTube.

As foretold by ancient lore, a race of anthropomorphic pandas – and their homeland – are to feature in World of Warcraft's new expansion, Mists of Pandaria.

The game also raises the level cap and adds a monk class, combat methods, and pet battles.

This week a user on gamer website MMO-Champion noticed that Blizzard Entertainment (creator of popular MMORPG World of Warcraft) had, on July 28, applied to register the phrase "Mists of Pandaria" as a trademark.

This lead to speculation that the next WoW expansion will centre around Pandaria, the home of the Pandaren, a race of anthropomorphic beer-loving pandas who first appeared as an April Fool's joke in the leadup to Warcraft 3.

At this point it is not clear if the application is a genuine clue to Blizzard's future plans, or a piece of misdirection. Nor can anyone, at this point, say if WoW players might get "a chance to play furry alcoholic martial arts masters".