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Grumpy Cat, the professional name of the mixed breed cat Tardar Sauce, is getting her own comic book! Considering that she draws the biggest lines at any event she shows up at and has 31 million YoutTube vies, I’d say…it’s about time. The comic will co-star her real life brother Pokey, and if you get a little Garfield Odie vibe, well…it’s Grumpy’s time.

The comic will debut as a three-issue mini series this fall.

Dynamite is proud to announce a collaborative licensing partnership with Grumpy Cat Limited to develop print and digital comic books and graphic novels featuring “The World’s Grumpiest Cat” and her brother, Pokey. Grumpy Cat will debut the first of her all-new misadventures in a three-issue miniseries, released in Fall 2015, and collected into a hardcover graphic novel in time for the holiday season. Dynamite also plans to launch a website this summer where new Grumpy Cat comic strips will go up online every week.  
 
“With her ever-present pout and sassy disposition, Grumpy Cat has won the hearts of people everywhere. I can tell you, we’re thrilled, just absolutely thrilled, to bring this adorable curmudgeon’s misadventures to the comic world!” says Keith Davidsen, Marketing Manager of Dynamite Entertainment. “One of the most important responsibilities for today’s comic publishers is creating content that will attract fresh new audiences to experience the wonders of the medium, and Grumpy Cat is the perfect combination of unbearable cuteness, instant fan appeal, and established multimedia presence to make just such a thing happen. If you love the memes, the videos, and that irresistable scowl, then get ready for the wildly fun antics of Grumpy Cat and Pokey in Dynamite’s all-new, all-sensational Grumpy Cat comics!”
 
Grumpy Cat’s global following includes 7.6 million Facebook fans and over 31 million YouTube views. Since her photos first went viral in 2012, Grumpy Cat has gone from Internet star to real-life celebrity. She has two New York Time Best Selling Books, her own Lifetime movie Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever (voiced by actress Aubrey Plaza), has made numerous appearances including the MTV Movie Awards, American Idol, The Bachelorette, The Today Show, SXSW, Good Morning America, and even hosted WWE Monday Night Raw. Grumpy Cat is Friskies official “Spokescat”, has filmed videos with Disney and Sesame Street, and appears in commercials for McDonald’s and Honey Nut Cheerios. Licensed Grumpy Cat merchandise is currently available at retailers worldwide.
 
Dynamite Entertainment’s Grumpy Cat comic books and graphic novels will be available to consumers through the comic book specialty market, and its graphic novels will be available at major bookstore chains, online booksellers, and independent bookstores courtesy of Diamond Book Distributors. Grumpy Cat comics will also be available for purchase through digital platforms courtesy of Comixology, Dynamite Digital, iVerse, and Dark Horse Digital. Fans and retailers are encouraged to follow Dynamite Entertainment and Grumpy Cat’s official social media channel for the latest updates regarding creative teams and release dates.

Bigfoot is Missing!

J. Patrick Lewis and Kenn Nesbitt (Children’s Poet Laureates, past and present)
Illustrated by MinaLima (Miraphora Mina & Eduardo Lima)
Chronicle Books          4/1/2015
978-1-4521-1895-6
40 pages      Ages 7+

“What beast stalks the dim northern forests?
What horror tunnels under the sands of the desert?
What monster lies in wait beneath murky lake water?

“Bigfoot, the Mongolian Death Worm, the Loch Ness Monster—these and many more creatures lurk within these pages. Are they animals yet discovered? Are they figments of imagination? Only eerie whispers and sinister rumors give us hints at the truth.

“Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis (2011-2013) and Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt (2013-2015) team up to offer a tour of the creatures of shadowy myth and fearsome legend—the enticing, the humorous, and the strange.”

Review

“CRYPTOZOOLOGY is the study of hidden animals, or those whose real existence has not yet been proven.”

Have you ever wondered about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or any other cryptid? If so, then this interesting picture book is for you, regardless of age. Is this nonfiction or fiction? That will depend on whether you believe any of these extremely unusual creatures are real, or from the imagination.

I do love the layout of the book. Reading feels like a world tour of the odd. You must look everywhere to find the poems: missing posters, park signs, classified ads, and on plastic bottles stuck in the mud of a swamp. Immediately, you will realize an ingenious poet—uh, two ingenious poets—wrote Bigfoot is Missing .

Kids will enjoy this book, especially if they like the weird and unusual. The illustrations are colorful renderings of the cryptid’s home, be it park, ocean, or roaming the United States. Despite the subject matter, not a single scary page or poem exists in this kid-friendly picture book. Bigfoot is Missing  is a great choice for April Poetry Month. For those unsure what to believe, the authors included a short descriptive history of each creature.  Chronicle Books offers a teacher’s guide, in line with several common core areas.*

BIGFOOT IS MISSING. Text copyright © 2015 by J. Patrick Lewis and Kenn Nesbitt. Illustrations copyright (2015) by MinaLima. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA.

Purchase Bigfoot is Missing at Amazon—B&N—Book Depository—Chronicle Books.
Learn more about Bigfoot is Missing HERE. (check it out!)
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Meet the former Children’s Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, at his website:  http://www.jpatricklewis.com/
Meet the current Children’s Poet Laureate, Kenn Nesbitt, at his website:  http://www.poetry4kids.com/
Meet the illustrators, MinaLima, at their website:  http://www.minalima.com/
Find more picture books that are wonderful at the Chronicle Books website:  http://www.chroniclebooks.com/
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*“Correlates to Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards: Comprehension and Collaboration, 2-5.2; Presentation of  Knowledge and Ideas, 2-5.4, 2-5.5; Reading Standards for Literature: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, 2-5.7” (from Chronicle Books Poetry Picture Books teacher’s guide)
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Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews

As you can imagine, we’re not the only website counting down Halloween month. Chris Schweizer, comics educator and the man behind the delightful Crogan’s Adventures series from Oni, is posting a mostly daily monster picture  and here’s today’s the Florida Swamp Ape. You can see the rest in the link like this Ghost Rider in the Sky:

Somehow we missed this piece by Bobby Timony when it went up but here at the beat we never miss a chance to big up The Rescue Rangers. Seriously how great would this team be?

Of course, they are still wild animals!

As cat people, we’re not really sold on on the whole “dress your pets” humiliation tool, however for those who like to dress their doggie, Marvel and Fetch are introducing a line of Marvel-themed pet attire called cool pets. The line of toys, apparel and accessories will be available at your local PetSmart.

The line will feature a wide array of Marvel-themed pet products for dogs including toys and apparel. Additionally, a wide assortment of aquatic products will follow shortly after and all will be available in PetSmart stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico as well as online at www.PetSmart.com.
 
“Marvel Super Heroes are a family affair and therefore, should include the family pet,” said Jamie Kampel, Director of Licensing, Marvel Entertainment. “As we continue to look to expand the presence of the Marvel brand to new product and retail venues, the pet category is a natural extension. Fetch has developed a truly unique line, and having PetSmart on board as our premiere retail partner will enable us to make a huge statement for the Marvel brand in the pet category.”
 
Steven Shweky, President of Fetch…for cool pets! added, “Fetch is approaching licensing from a different direction. Instead of using brands that would typically only appeal to children, Fetch has licensed brands that resonate with the ‘pet parent.’ Marvel is the perfect brand to reflect our approach.”

Like the Batibat, the Kapre is a relatively gentle giant who lives in trees and smokes a big tobacco pipe.

Looks: Think Yosi Kadiri, but dark-skinned, with eyes that glow eerily.

Habitat: Big trees

Favorite food: None. The cigar never burns out.

From GMA News Online. Via

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has declared the western black rhino extinct. One of four subspecies of the black rhino, it was considered especially vulnerable to poaches who hunt the rhino for its horn, believed to contain medicinal properties.

The black rhino is one of five surviving species of rhinoceros. Sadly, most of the others are endangered as well.

As well as declaring the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes) extinct, it records the northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), a subspecies in central Africa, as being on the brink of extinction.

The last Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) outside Java is also believed to have disappeared.

This has nothing to do with comics, but it is good to note the passing of our natural world.

You had us at dinosaur, Dustin Harbin. And with “colored by Sam Bosma and Kali Ciesemier” you chained us up and threw away the key.

$40!

See the full thunder lizard sized visual here.

How on earth did we miss this until now? Ben Towle is putting together The Animal Alphabet Project, drawing of critters by cartooners. Above, the N is for Naked Mole Rat by Gabriel Hardman, below L is for Lynx by Henry Eudy.

Grant Morrison was right!

Paul, the octopus who stunned the world by correctly picking all his games in the 2010 World Cup, has died. It was not unexpected since at 2 1/2 he was up there in octopus years, but it is still sad.

Paul is in cold storage while his remains await suitable disposition — a modest but permanent shrine may be erected, say German zookeepers. While that is all nice and dandy we all know what is really going to happen: a thorough autopsy to figure out the source of his psychic powers, followed by a supervillain plot to steal his body and use it to clone an army of super soccer pickers.

We’re sad and yet glad that the World Cup is over. Sad because it was fun and exciting and we actually hung out more with friends than we have in months because we were always getting together to watch the game, and sharing it with pals worldwide through Twitter. Although the Netherlands-Spain final was the kind of shitty game that makes people who don’t like soccer continue to not like soccer, it wasn’t representative of the tourney as a whole. Sad because there was so much to see and ponder in “the beautiful game.”

But we’re also glad because things that are fun and exciting are the most fun and exciting when they come and go and leave you wanting more.

Of course, the breakout star of the Cup was not Ronaldo or Kaka or Messi but an unassuming mollusk whose psychic powers amazed the world. Yes, it was Paul The Psychic Octopus whose stunning 8-for-8 predictions have left scientists and sports fans reeling with questions regarding cephalopod intelligence, the possibilities of psychic powers, and tentacled understanding of the passing game and the offsides rule.

Housed in a German zoo, Paul correctly predicted all of the German team’s results — including their losses to Serbia and Spain — and Spain’s win over the Netherlands. His method of communicating his predictions to his keepers was a bit unorthodox — Paul would choose a tasty bit of oyster from one of two boxes, each adorned with the flags of the competing teams in each contest — but it worked. He surpassed the efforts of other would-be animal seers at the same zoo: Petty the pygmy hippo, Leon the porcupine and Anton the tamarin monkey all picked wrong in other games. A South American dolphin named Sayco announced his pick and the headline “Dolphin favors Argentina” but we all know how that turned out. Paul’s biggest rival, Mani the Parakeet, picked the Dutch squad in the final.

No, it was Paul who made headlines this time out — but his terrific run in the World Cup followed a lesser performance in the 2008 European Cup where he incorrectly picked Germany to beat Spain in the final.

So how did Paul do it? Octopi have the largest brain of any mollusk, and the limits of their brain capacity are still being studied — they can learn, use tools and recognize complicated patterns and devise cunning strategies for getting food. But they are color blind, leading skeptics to say Paul’s picks were base on the varying attractiveness of the national flags. Since there were only two choices, most say Paul’s picks are the result of random chance, like flipping a coin. But even octopus experts can’t say with certainty what really happened:

“But having said that I don’t want to underestimate how amazing these animals are and how clever they are… they’re doing pretty well for a super snail relative. They can recognise individual people in a crowd, they can do really clever things like learn to unscrew the lids off jars to get prawns out of the inside, they can collect up half co

9 Comments on The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus, last added: 7/13/2010

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Shuma said, on 7/12/2010 5:08:00 AM

What is the weight of the Octopus?

Shuma said, on 7/12/2010 5:08:00 AM

What is the weight of the Octopus?

Marc-Oliver Frisch said, on 7/12/2010 6:17:00 AM

I found the final pretty enthralling, even though the Dutch took the notion of “cracking” Spain a little too literally.

Then again, I went in expecting a tense, tight, battle-chess-with-a-ball kind of thriller with not a lot of goals.

Torsten Adair said, on 7/12/2010 6:50:00 AM

And here’s another coincidence:
The German word for “octopus”…
Tintenfisch (ink-fish)

Paul is a common octopus, which means he can secrete a nerve toxin.

If you read Paul’s biography on Wikipedia, you’ll discover the mathematical odds of his feat. Interesting… the system used in Oberhausen did not account for ties in the group stage.

Kid Kyoto said, on 7/12/2010 8:56:00 AM

Will Paul be getting his own comic or joining the X-Men?

BoozerX said, on 7/12/2010 3:10:00 PM

Is Doop in disguise.

Viru said, on 7/12/2010 3:27:00 PM

PulpoMania is hitting Spain. Today at the Team Spain reception, will +1 million people out in the streets, you could see all kinf of octopus memorabilia.

Brian Spence said, on 7/12/2010 8:44:00 PM

Nerd alert: it’s actually offside rule, not offsides.

mark coale said, on 7/12/2010 11:57:00 PM

Just wanted to mention Alfonso Alfonseca.

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