It’s been a few weeks since my last celebration of Werewolf Wednesday, but when I woke up in my Boston hotel room this morning, I had this inspirational image by Tandye in my inbox, so I knew the time was right. Being married to a talented artist who loves werewolves as much as I do is what you might call “an optimal scenario” (and she’s available for commissions on DA & FA). Now that Tandye’s set things in motion, let’s do this.

I’m playing MacGuffin’s Curse (a game you might remember from a prior post) by Brawsome. I’ll wait until I’m a few more hours into it before I do a review post about it, but it’s the most fun I’ve had in a point & click game since Quest For Glory. The artwork and music are delightful, and the writing has me laughing out loud. It’s available for iOS, OS X and Windows for $5, I think you should go buy it.

Artist Robert DiFiore has created an 11-page journal comic about the results of an unexpected encounter in the woods. It’s called There Wolf, which will make Mel Brooks fans smile. Lovely Prismacolor artwork, and I like the Wolfman-influenced werewolf design.

Among the main characters of Sony Pictures Animation’s Hotel Transylvania is a werewolf named Wayne, voiced by Steve Buscemi. Here’s the trailer, in which Wayne is visible for 0.75 seconds (in the sauna). Apparently he’s at the hotel with his whole family. “Werewolf family with Steve Buscemi as the dad” is a sentence that just about balances out the misery implied by “Adam Sandler as Dracula”.

Anathema. Lunatic Fringe. Jack and Diane. Lesbian werewolves are A Thing, but maybe Jack and Diane isn’t the best thing – at least, not for people who’ve been led to expect actual werewolves in the movie, lesbian or otherwise. Bradley Rust Gray’s film screened at the Tribeca Film Festival to mixed reviews, at least from “professional” reviewers. I haven’t seen the film myself, but the reviews make it seem like it’s short on werewolves and long on kludgey romance and ruined Japanese food. Then again, it currently has an audience rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, so WHO KNOWS. If you saw it, I’d love to know what you thought.

Scooby-Doo and the Werewolf is a new Scooby-Doo iPad app that will delight you while your child clamours to play Angry Birds Space. It’s no Reluctant Werewolf (if that wasn’t a childhood favourite of yours, get out), but 1) werewolves, 2) Velma Dinkley, and 3) Velma Dinkley. Yessssss.

My pal Jason sent me a nifty Listverse article about 10 Real Life Werewolves. All your old favourites are there, but there are few I’d never heard of before, too. A well-curated and nicely illustrated list. Thanks, Jason!

And last but not least, The Foxloft has got three exclusive werewolf t-shirt designs you may want to check out – two by Kyhot, and one by Cara Mitten. All three are terrific, but Cara’s “White Werewolf” has an especially classic design that will appeal to fans of horror werewolves and those that prefer a more tribal aesthetic.

This concludes Werewolf Wednesday! I’m going to go look at pictures of Velma now.

“Feeding Ground is an intense and terrifying thriller with a subtle but pointed commentary on immigration in modern America,” said Pressman. “The graphic novel is so cinematic in nature — as soon as I read it, I knew we could make a film that would resonate with a wide audience.”

I think “cinematic” is an understatement. After reading the first issue, I wrote that the “heat, desperation and simmering violence of the Busqueda family’s world is evident” in every panel, and if it can be successfully translated to the big screen… wow. I’m very excited for the three friends who created the book – Swifty, Michael and Chris. For more on the deal, including background on the names involved (Pressman’s done some fun stuff), read the whole article on the THR site. And if you haven’t read Feeding Ground yet, the first issue is available for free on Graphicly.com, and the whole thing is on Amazon for less than $20.

As a writer myself, and the spouse of an illustrator, it’s in my nature to root for independent creative types, particularly when they’re talented, focussed and driven. Those three words form a creative version of the Project Management Triangle, and to find all three of them in effect at the same time is extremely rare. Creative people who makes smart, cohesive and well-executed stuff wants to get their stuff out there so people can see it (and buy it), but for every Miss Monster or Scott C., there’s a hundred equally-talented creators who mean well but just can’t get their shit together. Rachel Deering is in the company of those creators that have somehow achieved the mystical trifecta, and Anathema’s first issue has already proved she knows how to use that condition to produce something awesome.

$4,480 is not an insignificant amount of money, but if everyone who’s visited Werewolf News in the last month put a quarter in the jar, we’d have helped her clear the hurdle with room to spare. If you’ve been on the fence about whether to pledge or not, please, now’s the time to make a no-risk, guaranteed-to-pay-off investment in something great. Remember, you get something for your contribution, and if the project doesn’t get funded, you don’t pay anything.

If you’ve already pledged something, consider following David Fuller’s example and boost your pledge amount a little bit. In fact, I’m going to go do that right now. Boosting my pledge from $75 to $85 means I get to buy two less coffees this month, and it gets me a tiny bit closer to enjoying a lesbian werewolf comic series created by someone who’s really good at it.

A week or two ago, I was asked to provide a Twitter signal boost for a search being undertaken to identify this handsome devil. A number of people came to our collective rescue and identified the creature as a were-hyena (or werewolf) created by Spectral Motion for an ultimately deleted scene from Blade: Trinity. Not content to leave it there, reader Nyetwerke sent in this video of Spectral staff building the suit. Fascinating stuff!

Hugh Sterbakov, Emmy-nominated and Annie Award-winning writer of Robot Chicken, has released his debut novel City Under The Moon. He was kind enough to provide me with a review copy, which I’ll be diving into during my train commutes starting next week. The opening page was enough to hook me – have a look at the sample and see for yourself. If you dig it, you can get it at a $4 discount on Amazon.

My cause of the month is coming along nicely! The Anathema Kickstarter is $6k-and-change away from its $20k goal, with a week and a half to go. I’ve pledged more money to it than I’ve spent on Werewolf News in the last year; if you haven’t pledged anything, I want you to feel bad about yourself for five seconds and then please, go chip in five or ten bucks. Remember, if the fundraising goal isn’t met, you don’t get charged.

Subterranean Press has just published a very bestial 5,600-word short story by Locus-nominated author and charming geek-dandy Hal Duncan. The title of the story is Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill! I made that link open in a new window so you can go read the story when you’re done here. Read it. It’s filthy in all the right ways.

My Werewolf Wednesday cohort David Fuller is in search of the best tune to wolf out to. Today he looks at 11 werewolf-related songs spanning a variety of genres (including a selection by yours truly), and asks you to vote for your favourite (or suggest your own). Have a listen!

Here’s some follow-up! As mentioned in the previous Werewolf Wednesday, Simon Sanchez wrote in to tell me about his comic Nazi Werewolves from Outer Space, but he neglected to provide a link. He’s now provided a link to the comic’s Facebook page, which contains purchase information and some delightfully campy samples.

And that concludes this Werewolf Wednesday! Thanks for reading!

David Fuller has an excellent interview with Rachel Deering, writer / creator of that Anathema comic I’ve been crowing about lately. I’m always interested in hearing what creative werewolf fans have to say, especially those that can actually deliver on their creative vision. Rachel’s one of those.

Here are two nice lookin’ shirts on RedBubble, designed by HeartJack: Sons of Lycanthropy and Memorial Werewolf Hunt. Love the designs, although I can’t condone the second one.

I’ve only watched the first five minutes of RED MOON, a very silly but highly agreeable little film by Sirocco Research Labs. When I get a minute I’ll watch the rest for sure – I’m compelled by four words: Soviet werewolf submarine captain.

Want some more compelling words? Nazi Werewolves from Outer Space. This sounds like a Rob Zombie concept album, but it’s actually a graphic novel by Simon Sanchez and Dean Juliette. That’s literally all I know about it – Simon emailed me about it, but the email just said “‘Check out my new comic. It’s called “Nazi Werewolves from Outer Space.’ I have a fan page for it on Facebook.” No links or anything. So, maybe it’s good? If you read it, let me know.

Hannah Kate, proprietor of the She-Wolf blog and organizer of the upcoming Manchester Monster Conference, has just posted a delicious essay comparing the portrayal of werewolves and teenage girls in tween-targeted fiction. Monster High vs. Sweet Valley High was an excellent (if ultimately dispiriting) lunchtime read, especially if you’re familiar with either of the franchises.

Lastly, Werewolf News has a Pinterest account, which I hope will replace the now-defunct Fuzzy Camera. If you thought Pinterest was the domain of picky brides-to-be, amateur home decorators and fashionistas… you’d probably be right. But I aim to get some monstrous werewolf stuff in there! All up ins, to paraphrase Jerry Holkins.

And that concludes the first Werewolf News Werewolf Wednesday!

If you didn’t read that review, or if you are very forgetful, you can get acquainted with Anathema via this 5-page preview of issue 1. Or, avail yourself of this tidy summary from the new Kickstarter page:

Anathema is a six issue limited series horror comic that tells the story of Mercy Barlowe, a tormented young woman with a dark side. She must fight through treacherous lands and unspeakable horrors to reclaim her lover’s soul, which has been stolen by members of a sinister cult, bent on resurrecting a terrible and ancient evil.

In issue #1, we saw Mercy’s world torn asunder, and watched as she accepted the curse of the wolf. Can Mercy learn to harness her horrible new powers and stop the raven cult before they succeed in their vile plan? Mercy needs your help to see her journey through!

The campaign runs until April 30th, with a goal of $20,000. As I’m writing this, over $4,000 has been pledged so far. The money will pay for illustrator Chris Mooneyham and colourist Fares Maese to finish what they started: creating the visuals to accompany Rachel Deering‘s story. Given that the first issue’s goal was $6,000, we’re getting a pretty wicked discount on the remaining five. Your thrifty mom would totally approve (just don’t tell her it’s a horror comic about a lesbian werewolf avenging the murder and soul-theft of her lover – some moms get weird about that).

In addition to the comics themselves, there are some excellent pledge rewards, including a copy of the now-unavailable issue 1, original artwork pen & ink from issue 1, pinup art from Chris Mooneyham, and a general sense of satisfaction. I was too slow / poor to get the pledge item I really wanted ($500 for the 2-page spread of Mercy’s first transformation), but you can bet your ass I’ll be ponying up a solid contribution a little later this week.

Now, since I really believe this project needs to happen, I’m going to try a two-pronged approach for the “ask” portion of this post. If you are a nice and gentle person, read item 1 below. If you are a snarky comic snob, read item 2.

1. Werewolf friends, I implore you: help get this awesome comic series completed. I’ve chatted a bit with Rachel and she’s every bit as excited and committed to this project as Jeff Davis was about the Teen Wolf show (and look how that turned out). Alas, Rachel doesn’t have an MTV-style budget, so please consider pledging a few bucks. I will love you forever.
2. Only Kickstarter contributors and a lucky few reviewers got copies of Anathema’s 1st issue. When positive reviews started popping up, Twitter and the blog-o-sphere began to roil with the mewling cries of comics fans who missed the boat the first time around. If your voice was among that warbling cacophony, here’s a second chance to climb aboard. Stop scratching that neckbeard and get your credit card out!

In conclusion, Rachel Deering makes a good comic and you should help her out. Thank you and good day.

From the book’s page on Becky’s site:

As a lone hunter tracks an elusive beast through the forest, he reflects on his life and past love through a series of flashbacks, bringing the story to a climax that is as romantic as it is violent. This powerful mini-comic lends itself to multiple read-throughs, never giving concrete answers but (like the best enigmatic endings) leaves your own conclusions satisfying.

The story is simple but well-realized, and the black & white artwork is full of ominious hard shadows and evocative close-ups. I didn’t find the ending enigmatic at all – by the last few pages, it’s pretty clear what’s going on, and although I find most short stories leave me wanting more, I was completely satisfied with the conclusion of WOLVES.

The original print run has sold out, but as I mentioned all the way back at the top of this post, a digital version is available on iTunes for $0.99. You can also get it from Graphicly for the same price.

In July 2011 I posted about one of the first Kickstarter projects I ever contributed to: Anathema. The goal was to fund the illustration, colouring and printing of issue #1 of a werewolf comic that writer Rachel Deering called “a return to classic horror in comics”. Now, seven months after that post, and five months after the project surpassed its Kickstarter goal, the first issue of Anathema is circulating among Kickstarter contributors. I got my claws on a PDF and sat down to read it yesterday, during a break at work.

I’m going to leave the formal analysis of Anathema to people who actually know how to review comics – I’m just a werewolf fan with a blog. Instead, because I’m a silly git, I decided to live-tweet my reading, making (spoiler-free) comments on every page of the book. I’ve reproduced those tweets in chronological orders, and I’m going to let this stand as my formal review of the book.

Time to read @racheldeering‘s Anathema! Even the intro on the inside of the front cover gave me chills.

I’m gonna live-tweet this reading, page by page, omitting spoilers. Page one: okay, dad’s a dick. Lovely colours, though.

Page 2: Authentic emotional response to characters I just met. Great panel layout. Dad’s going to need some Bactine!

Page 3: First overtly supernatural incident. Intense but not too dramatic. Love the time-shifted narration. That’s flame-resistant hair!

Page 4: Third segment of this page expresses her isolation perfectly. Well done Chris Mooneyham.

Page 5: I want to live in Henrich’s house and visit his manicurist.

Page 6: Jeez, what a drama queen.

Page 7: UGH that TONGUE. Put it away, dude!

Page 8: Great colours and lines. Any of these panels could be posters. Nice work explaining the crows, too.

Page 9: Any of these could be levels in a Zelda game that I would play the fuck out of.

Page 10: Great character design. Brilliant work to tie the plague doctor’s mask concept into the design. The glow around the moon!

Page 11: Come on, Henrich, give up the goods. Also, you look like Christopher Lloyd. This is not a bad thing.

Page 12: Where can I get me some of those?

Page 13: Come on, at least freshen the linen. Nice transition out of the scene.

Page 14: I probably shouldn’t be reading this at work.

Page 15: When Anathema gets made into a movie (as it inevitably must), this’ll make a great little nasty sequence.

Page 16: Part of me is disappointed that there’s no “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” moment.

Page 16 cont’d: I’m impressed with how solid these characters are. Henrich could’ve been a 2-D quest-giver, but he’s richer than that.

Page 17: Holy fuck, lady, where’s your climbing gear!?

PP 18-19: BAD. ASS. A lot of werewolf fanboys (and a few werewolf fangirls) are going to pin this spread over their beds.

Page 20: Immediate thoughts: this would be a great video game, either 1st-person slasher or 2D side-scroller. I like that she mentions pain.

Page 21: PRIMAL. “As I, myself, become the object of fear.” This is exactly what I love about horror and werewolves.

Page 22 / last page: Great setup for the next issue. This isn’t a cliffhanger, this is a gun, loaded and cocked.

So, yeah. Verdict on Anathema, issue 1? Basically, you need to buy this thing as soon as you can, and then we need to fund the other issues.

Go follow @racheldeering and pester her to sell you a copy – she’ll have some pretty soon, I think. DAMN, I’m all riled up!

So, while that wasn’t a proper review, over the course of 25 tweets, I exclaimed over the quality of the writing, the art, the colours, the characters and the layout (and, come to think of it, I meant to mention the lettering too). I also said that Anathema would make a great film or video game, and although I didn’t tweet about it, I pitched a little fit when I got to the last page because it’s over and I need more. The book was a terrific effort by writer/letterer Deering, artist Chris Mooneyham and colourist Fares Maese, and I think Kickstarter contributors (and fans of horror comics in general) are going to love it.

I want to take a second to expand on my comment about page 21: This is exactly what I love about horror and werewolves. The “this” I’m referring to is the vicarious indulgence of a particular blend of righteous fury and macabre glee that I think horror fans (and most people in general) are familiar with, even if they don’t want to admit it. Articulated as a thought, it might go something like “I want to do terrible things to people who deserve it, and suffer no repercussions.” Act so in real life and at best you’d be a sociopathic asshole, but channel that desire into a fictional vessel like Anathema’s grieving anitheroine (or the miserable little brother from The Wrong Night In Texas) and you’ve got werewolf therapy – a wonderful outlet for a very dark but very human urge. This is one of the things I’ve always loved about werewolves, and although not every werewolf story manages it, Anathema delivers.

So. Er. If that sort of thing sounds good to you, or if you just want to read an awesome werewolf comic where a lady fights werewolf-style for the soul of her murdered lover, watch Rachel Deering’s Twitter profile for Anathema issue #1!

io9

From the interview:

io9: Are you able to enjoy a book, when you’re reading a book? Or do you see a screenplay straightaway?

Simon Beaufoy: It’s quite difficult to read a book now, I took to reading poetry (because I thought that will be alright. And it’s not. I just started adapting an epic poem. So that didn’t work, called Sharp Teeth it’s a really fantastic novel length poem. It’s gangland LA. Except the gangs happen to also shapeshift into dogs. It’s all about the pack dynamics — it’s very mad, but really fabulous. So poetry wasn’t even safe from the adaptation process.

Will it be animated?

Yeah probably not, that would be too easy. We have to make life much more difficult for ourselves and use real dogs. That would be the best, because that would be truly terrifying. I think animation would allow too much distance from it.

Beaufoy doesn’t bring up much of anything new, but it’s interesting to know they’re not considering doing something animated. That’s kind of a shame – an R-rated (traditionally!) animated feature would die at the box office, but damn, wouldn’t it look good? Especially if they used the book’s cover art as a design cue!

Riven is a stone killer of a werewolf story with a fragile young woman as a protagonist. It was irresistible for us to create and we’re betting the readers will agree it was well worth the wait,” said Bo Hampton. “She’s adopted from a Romanian orphanage at the age of three and brought to America. At the age of thirteen an accident puts her in a coma—but doctors are completely baffled because her brain waves spike every thirty days—in direct correlation with the full moon.”

Katya has been in a coma for five years, and when she awakes, everything has changed. Now she is a gorgeous teenager with a mysterious, gruesome past, becoming aware of a growing, terrifying power inside her body, triggered by the touch of the full moon, eager to break free . . . Can Katya solve the mystery of her blood-drenched nightmares before they become reality?

Katya, the solution to the mystery is: you’re a werewolf. Now go and enjoy yourself!

Riven goes on sale August 22, 2012 – nine days before the second full moon of the month (a blue moon). Probably not intentional, but a nice coincidence!

As of today, you can get issue 1 of “Monster Dudes” from Graphicly.com for $0.99, which in my opinion is great value for money, considering how often I chuckled while reading it. Writer Dave Scheidt was kind enough to share a copy with me, and between his lovingly screwball MAD Magazine – style comedy and Matt Fagan’s artwork, I had an Officially Good Time. Check it out, and if you like it, go to the Facebook page and pester them to include more werewolf stuff!

It seems like there a lot of ways a journal-style project like this could go wrong: clumsy narrative info-dumps, poor pacing, inauthentic voice, incidental or uninteresting illustrations. Werewolves suffers from none of these problems. The events we expect to read about – the attack, the mysterious symptoms, the strange people following her and wooing her brother – are detailed but not belaboured. Alice is clearly frightened but there’s no overwrought hand-wringing or dire pronouncements. The entries do a wonderful job of conveying Alice’s emotions and the increasing tension and danger of the story – but there’s also a melancholy sort of sweetness, too, and a real sense of sisterly concern when she writes about Mark. The writing is intimate without feeling voyeuristic, which is quite a feat considering we’re reading a teenager’s private thoughts.

The text in Werewolves is balanced out with an abundance of beautiful illustrations, rendered in what looks like graphite and watercolours. The palette is predominantly a range of warm greys, with one or two bright colours picked out as highlights. In the first half of the book, these bright colours are lively, but as the story progresses, the highlights become increasingly sanguine. Given the subject matter of the book, much care and attention is given to drawing werewolves in various stages of transformation, in styles ranging from portraits of Alice’s new “friends” (and an amazing double self-portrait) to anatomical studies of werewolf hands, feet, jaws and the like. Although Haller (or should I say Alice?) has drawn some of the most ferally gorgeous werewolves I’ve seen, her portraits of humans are stunning. As with the writing, so much of Werewolves‘ art is about conveying a mood rather than action, and there are some real successes – the drawings of those kids snarling and grinning in their hoodies, for instance, or an achingly sweet image of Alice and Mark’s mother.

I have just one complaint about Werewolves, and I’m laying the issue at the feet of the book’s designers, Kasey Free and Katie Stahnke (if you don’t know what the word “kerning” means, you can skip this paragraph). The journal entries are set in a clumsy handwriting font with perfectly regular leading. The writing style and illustrations are organic, but the machinelike regularity of the lettering goes a long way towards trashing the verisimilitude so carefully crafted by the words and images. I appreciate that books have to be produced on a timeline and under budgetary constraints, but seriously, Chronicle Books, you should have allocated the funds to get this thing hand-lettered. Design nerd rant: over.

Werewolves came out over a year ago, and I’ve been in love with it for nearly as long. It’s a nearly-perfect blend of emotionally authentic teenage anxieties and chaotic scenes of lycanthropic carnage. I highly recommend you pick up a copy – Amazon has it for stupid cheap at the moment. Read it a dozen times and you’ll still find yourself leafing through it to admire a passage or drawing. I certainly did – that’s why it took me a year to finally write this review!

From the Extinct web site:

Texas,1985. On the first full moon of the year a small town named Spring Valley gets taken over by werewolves. Teenagers Jimmy Reynolds, (the town outsider), Nick Evans (his best and only friend), and the girl next door, Lauren Finch, have to make the werewolves EXTINCT. Can they live long enough to figure out why Jimmy is the only one who can save the town?

Writer / creator Fabian Rangel Jr. populates Extinct‘s world with classic 80′s archetypes who look, say and act as though they’re from a werewolf-centric version of Monster Squad. All of your favourites are here: snobby prep girl, unaccountably ostracized everykid, his wise-crackin’ rebel sidekick, the jock villain with the amazing mullet. Somehow, Fabian takes these stock characters and combines them in a way that effortlessly invokes the “holy shit, anything could happen!” energy that made Exctinct‘s 1980′s ancestors so amazing. As Fabian writes in his blog:

This comic is my love letter to all of those awesome 80s movies where kids had to take down monsters. It’s influenced by The Monster Squad, The Lost Boys, and also The Goonies, Teen Wolf, and even The Breakfast Club. It’s pretty much just 80s as fuck.

The werewolves in Extinct (and there are a lot of them) are of a design that will appeal to most Werewolf News readers. They’re tall, rangy (if a bit top-heavy) and artist Jethro Morales has given them lupine faces with just enough humanity to make them unnerving. There are some awesome transformation scenes, too, if that’s your thing (of course it’s your thing). Letterer Ed Brisson‘s work is crispy – crispy. The guy could put on a clinic about leading.

Individual issues of Extinct were meant to be distributed by Diamond, but that didn’t happen because of Reasons. Instead, you can order the graphic novel (which contains all six issues) from your local comic shop – it’s on page 304 of this month’s Previews. If you’re a werewolf fan craving a hit of some authentic 80′s action/horror sweetness, I recommend you go get your car keys now, because you’re going to want to read Extinct.

“If you were longing for an HBO series about werewolves, forget that and buy FERALS,” Lapham says. “It’s everything that TV show would be if it existed — which it doesn’t — and more, because we have no rules. This is a solid series full of true horror and violence, and built on strong characters that has no limits in terms of where we take it.  No limits.”

Despite appearances, the creatures in Ferals aren’t strictly werewolves.

…this isn’t a take on the mystical werewolf, full moon and all that. This is about a different kind of person. There are different forms to them but they don’t change back and forth like the Hulk… There are several other tricks up a Feral’s sleeve, and we’ll see that and some other more altered forms of the Feral condition, but we’ll save that for the comics.

The title will be published by Avatar, and issue 1 should be out in January 2012. For more, read the full article at Bleeding Cool. Below are two more issue 1 cover treatments – a wrapper version, and the (NSFW) “gore” cover the wrapper is ostensibly covering. Werewolves or not, Andrade Jr. can draw some mean monsters.

The nominees are:

1. Kelsey ‘Boobs’ Bornstein (in ‘Boobs’ by Suzy McKee Charnas)
2. Sergeant Angua (in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series)
3. ‘Wolfgirl’ (in The Company of Wolves)
4. Nina (in Being Human)
5. Kitty Norville (in Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville books)
6. Brigitte Fitzgerald (in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed)
7. White Fell (in Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf)
8. Leah Clearwater (in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series)

I nominated Brigitte Fitzgerald, but she’s up against some pretty tough company. Read through each contributor’s analysis and post your vote (or write in your own) on the She-Wolf blog, then come back here and defend your choice (unless you picked Brigitte).