TAZ Quest for Burger

Who is your favorite Looney Tunes character? Bugs Bunny...Daffy Duck...Porky Pig? Mine is the Tasmanian Devil. Probably because like me he is a wild and crazy guy who isn't always the most articulate person in the room. I've been a fan of TAZ way back to when able to remember first watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid.

TAZ: QUEST FOR BURGER is a new, original movie from Warner Bros Animation that will be focused on the Tasmanian Devil. Get ready for the comedic and touching adventure that proves every misfit can be a hero, with Taz: Quest For Burger, which is having a straight to digital media release on June 6, 2023. This movie meant for family audiences has a run time of 72 minutes and will be available from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.

After an outlaw abducts her father and steals their town's food supply, a feisty adolescent Bandicoot named Quinn recruits The Tasmanian Devil to help her find the thief. Taz may be an ill-tempered rogue with a fearsome reputation, but he and Quinn will have to work together to track the criminal through the wilds of Tasmania and save her community.

Are you geeked about a movie starring the TAZ? 

OFFICIALLY LICENSED BUGS BUNNY X MLB ART SERIES

With Major League Baseball being played in empty stadiums this year, fans are going to have to be enjoying games from home during the season. Have you done anything to make a space around your house more comfy while watching games on television or streaming them to another type of electronic device? Now is a perfect time to remodel a man cave, den, office or game room!

For those of you who are looney about both baseball and Bugs Bunny, check out this new artwork by artist S. Preston. It is a minimalist print depicting Bugs Bunny as a ball player from your favorite team. I think S. Preston's imagery of Bugs sporting the Old English D is very sharp looking. These art prints are available with Bugs Bunny representing all 30 MLB teams.

Known for his sports inspired pop art including his popular Minimalist Baseball Stadium art series, S. Preston has just released an all-new series, MINIMALIST BASEBALL BUGS––MLB EDITION. This series is an official collaboration with MLB™ and Chuck Jones Gallery, featuring quirky sets of wall art for all 30 MLB teams available just in time for the return of baseball and the 80th Birthday of Bugs Bunny. These prints are a fun way for pop culture and baseball fans of all ages to show team spirit and an appreciation of Looney Tunes!

With initial dreams of becoming a professional athlete, S. Preston blended his unique artistic talents with his passion for sports, doodling his way to beautiful minimalist art that would deeply connect with sports fanatics. Minimalist ballpark designs led off his success, and from there, he moved on to MLB mascots, moments, trophy designs and princesses dressed in local team gear, eventually achieving national recognition and becoming one of only four licensed MLB artists. In 2016, S. Preston’s artwork made the permanent archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, and he is a lifetime member of the coveted institution.

MINIMALIST BASEBALL BUGS – MLB EDITION will be available in limited quantities of 100 variants per team, with an MSRP of $80.00. For more information visit sprestondesigns.com/collections/baseball-bugs-team-variants

BEST BUNNIES IN COMIC BOOKS

The Easter Bunny hopped by our house this morning dropping off some baskets full of goodies for my kids. My son's happened to be full of comic books including a few issues of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham. It made me wonder if bunnies had ever been featured in comic books and indeed they have! Here is a roundup of some of the best bunnies in comic books over the years:

BUGS BUNNY

That crazy rabbit who first became popular as the main character in short films shown at movie houses in the 1930s hopped to the printed page for comic book adventures in the 1940s. He has continuously been featured in comic books since his first appearance in Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies Comics #1 published by Dell Comics in 1941 and which had a 153 issue run through 1954. Bugs Bunny got his own comic book series from Western Publishing that ran from 1953 - 1983. At this time DC Comics began to incorporate Bugs Bunny into their publications as Warner Bros. owned both the rights to Looney Tunes characters and the comic book company. DC Comics is currently publishing a monthly Looney Tunes series full of adventures with Bugs Bunny and his friends as well as occasionally including that wacky wabbit in spin-offs and cameos with the other superheroes in their fantasy universe.

USAGI YOJIMBO

This comic book series by Stan Sakai is about a rabbit rōnin on a warrior's pilgrimage. Usagi Yojimbo has been nominated for 20 Eisner Awards ( the Oscar of the comic book industry) and won 5 awards for BEST LETTERING (1996/2012/2015/2018), BEST SERIALIZED STORY (1999) and TALENT DESERVING WIDER RECOGNITION (1996). The samurai bunny in these tales is based upon the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi and has teamed up on a number of cross-over occasions with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In fact, Usagi Yojimbo recently was picked up by IDW Publishing, the comic company that also has the license for TMNT.

CAPTAIN CARROT

Multi-verses have become a popular story telling tool for comic books. It allows for different scenarios and spins on superhero stories from mainstream storylines. Captain Carrot is based in Earth-C of the DC Comics superhero universe. This is a dimension where this bunny is the world's greatest superhero and leads a team of animals known as the Zoo Crew. Captain Carrot has teamed up in cross-overs with heroes ranging from Batman to Donald Duck as well as had is own comic book series. A great hero for kids, and kids at heart, to enjoy! His stories are sure to give you a fuzzy feel good feeling.

HULK BUNNY

Speaking of multi-versus, the Bruce Banner of Marvel's Earth 8311 which is inhabited by sentient animals instead of people transforms into the HULK BUNNY when he gets angry. Hulk Bunny can be seen in the comic book and cartoon adventures of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham.

JAXXON

Even Star Wars comic books have a bunny in them! Jaxxon the space bunny was introduced in Marvel Comics original Star Wars run in issue #8. This green-man sized rabbit looking alien teamed up with Han Solo on a number of missions until George Lucas intervened saying the character was to silly to be associated with the Star Wars brand. After not being seen since his 15 appearances in the 1970s era Star Wars comic books Jaxxon is back! He has recently been included in the pages of IDW Publishing's Star Wars Adventures series aimed for young readers. Shows you that you just can't keep a good bunny down!

THUNDERBUNNY

Thunderbunny is a 1980s comic book character that combines the traits of Bugs Bunny, Shazam, and Venom. The premise is a human boy named Bobby Caswell who bonds with an alien artifact that turns him into a giant super-powered pink rabbit. Thunderbunny hopped among a few different publishers but just never took off with comic book readers.

BUCKY O'HARE

Created by Larry Hama (the guy behind G.I.JOE comic books, Bucky O'Hare was published by Continuity Comics in the mid-80s. The comic book series revolved around a ragtag crew of funny animal space swashbucklers led by a fearless bunny in a fight against the villainous Toadies. The comic book series inspired a television cartoon series, toy line and a video game that was available to play both at arcades and on the NES home gaming console. Jaxxon's creators must be envious!

There you have it! Seven of the best bunny rabbits to grace the pages of comic books. Happy Easter!

DC Comics is going Looney in November

Comic book cover artwork is the big differentiator between print and digital publications. Collectors and hobbyists really want standout art that can be displayed or pulled out and shown off in a collection. Knowing that these covers play a big part in drawing customers into comic book stores and sustaining the market for traditional print comic books, publishers are commissioning more and more artwork for variant covers for their titles to keep fans satisfied and encourage them to buy multiple copies of the same issue just for the cover art. That's why you are starting to see issues more regularly with multiple covers and comic book publishers creating specialized marketing campaigns to promote the sale of variant covers. DC Comics for example likes to regularly have monthly themes where all their issues will have a corresponding variant covers featuring artwork tied to it.

For example in 2015, March was "Movie Poster" month with each title having a variant cover that was tied to a memorable movie. Aquaman was based off of "Free Willy", Batman & Robin was inspired by "Harry Potter", Green Lantern had a "2001: Space Odyssey" vibe to it and Justice League played off the popularity of "Magic Mike." In July all the variant covers had promotional artwork tied to the Cartoon Network's animated television series Teen Titans Go! which features youthful versions of DC Comics superheroes. August's theme is "Bombshells" which transformed DC Comics  characters into WWII pinup-inspired creations that grace the covers of 21 of its most popular titles throughout the month.  They'll continue their popular Halloween inspired Monster Mashups in October.

Fans of Bugs Bunny and his friends will want to pay special attention to the month of November as DC Comics variant comic theme is Looney Tunes.  Looney Tunes, like DC Comics, is owned by Warner Brothers so there is some corporate cross-promotion going on here but I don't care because I like both of these brands and the pairing make for some wacky fun. There will be over two dozen hilarious variant covers that pair up DC Comics super heroes like Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman with the likes of the Tasmanian Devil, Wile E Coyote, Sylvester the Cat, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and numerous other Looney Tunes characters.  For non-regular comic book readers, just note that the art and script for the stories inside are the regular continuance of that title's story line and doesn't feature a special adventure tied to the cover artwork.  I've heard of parents picking up comic books with variant covers that would appeal to their kids only to get home and find out the story and cover didn't correlate.  These monthly themed covers are fun for displaying or for sprucing up a collection, but they most often don't relate to the stories inside.

Here are a few of my favorite Looney Tunes covers that are coming out in November 2015:

CLICK HERE for a gallery of all the variant Looney Tunes covers being published by DC Comics this November.