Status Report

This is, without a doubt, the coolest thing anyone has ever sent me! I got it in my mail today, and was caught completely off-guard by what was inside. They were sent from Jenny (aka AniJen21), who offered to order me the advanced relaunch books from the Scholastic Store sale we had a while back.

She gave me some random excuse and told me that they’d be coming in late, but it turned out that she was being totally sneaky and getting them signed by K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant at their first-ever autograph session together in the L.A.Times: Festival of Books. Here they are:

I can’t express how thankful I am for this! This is one of the nicest things I have ever received, and I will most definitely treasure it forever. Thank you so much to Jenny for going out of her way to do this! And thank you to both K.A & Michael for their kind words! 😀

“‘Give me liberty or give me death.’

A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into.”

This is it everyone: Animorphs is now officially relaunched! Even though many of us have already gotten the books in advance, this is still an exciting thing to note about. This is the first time in 10 years that the series will finally be available in book stores!

So I want to know: What does everyone think? What do you like? What don’t you like? I posted my review on Goodreads, in case anyone is interested!

Along with this, K.A. Applegate also had her first ever autograph sessions yesterday! Michael Grant (K.A’s husband and co-writer/co-creator of Animorphs) was kind enough to give us some great photo and video updates via Twitter and Facebook:

So for those that made it to this event, let us know how it turned out. If you have any pictures that you would like shared as well, then feel free to comment below! And don’t forget: Spread the word! Animorphs is back!

Michael Grant has informed me that there is an official AMA (ask me anything) thread going on at Reddit by K.A. Applegate. She even posted a picture (see right) to remove any doubt of her being an imposter. You can check out the thread at reddit.com and ask any questions you wish there.

Along with this, I also want to follow up from our previous update and remind everyone again about K.A. Applegate’s First Ever Autograph Sessions! These are happening in 2 days, so here are the details again:

L.A. Times: Festival of Books

Saturday, April 30, 2011
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Scholastic/Diesel Booth #524

Saturday, April 30, 2011
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
CM School Supplies Booth #546

See: Full Autograph Details, and Official Program Schedule

Lastly, I have also gone ahead and updated the Support section of the site. I have been receiving repeats of many questions regarding the relaunch, so I thought it was time to devote a part of the site specifically for FAQs. Feel free to pass these along to those who are still yet unaware of the relaunch!

I have also branched off the Help Wanted part into its own page, and have now updated what we are looking for. Not everything is listed, of course, but the main idea is still that if you have something that we don’t already have, then send it to us!

That’s everything for now, but be on the look out for another update soon!

It was inevitable that when the new models were released on the official website, that the fans would compare them to the original models they grew up with from the first run of the series. However, one particular issue took priority over all other nitpicks as fans quickly noticed that the new Marco was paler and lighter from any of the previous models, and who did not match the half-Hispanic “dark complexion” (with dark skin and dark hair) that the character was often described by.

For those unfamiliar, this practice is most commonly known as whitewashing, where characters from minority backgrounds are often misrepresented in the media by being given favour to models or actors with lighter and paler skin. (If you’re looking for a more in-depth discussion about this, take a look at The Book Smugglers. They wrote a great article about some of the more popular cases from last year.)

Once fans realized what had happened, they sent out a petition and contacted both Scholastic and Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs). Marissa from Racebending also published a really well written article on her blog, as a show of support to the fans. The topic and concerns from the fans were well covered in that article, and I would recommend everyone to go read it at racebending.com

However, the issue didn’t linger for very long. Scholastic replied back quickly and confirmed that they were already going ahead to change the Marco cover model. The change will be reflected onto the new cover and official website once the photo shoot and morphing animations have been completed. Here is their full response, thanks to Blue Rampion:

“Thank you again for getting in touch with us about the Marco model for the cover of Animorphs #5: The Predator. We always appreciate hearing from Animorphs fans, and we want you to know that we have heard and share your concerns. We will, in fact, be using a different model for the actual books from the one that currently appears in our catalog and on the Animorphs web site. The first Marco book won’t be published until December 2011, so there is plenty of time to make sure we have a model who truly represents the description of the character in the books. (Please note that the website will be corrected as soon as the new photo shoot has been completed and the morph animation can be redone; in the meantime, the placeholder Marco will remain.)

While getting a new model was something we were already planning to do, we truly appreciate you advocacy on behalf of Marco. The support and passion of the Animorphs fan community has always been a crucial part of the success of the series, and we certainly want to be responsive when concerns arise.” -Scholastic

Along with this, Michael Grant also responded (for both him and K.A. Applegate) to the fans via Twitter, thanks to LisaCharly:

So there you have it. A very big congrats to the fans for sticking up for this (especially to those in the Animorphs LiveJournal Community), as well as big thank you to the great Scholastic team in charge of the Animorphs Relaunch for being so positively receptive to the fanbase’s concerns!

As for the new model, there’s no telling how long this will take, but we’ll be sure to keep you all updated as soon as the change is reflected onto the official site. For those who are interested in reading more about this subject, I’ve assembled a collection of related links for you here:

Discussion: Official Site launch & models
Discussion: Marco model petition launch
Michael Grant and K.A. Applegate respond
Racebending.com article for Animorphs
Discussion: Scholastic responds about Marco’s model
Michael Grant and K.A. Applegate apologize to fans

Until next time!

Michael Grant has released a video on his Facebook, informing the fans that K.A. Applegate will be signing autographs for the new relaunch Animorphs books at the L.A. Times Festival of Books! Here is the video:

So for those that missed it:

April 30th, 2011
L.A. Times Festival of Books

12:00PM to 1:00PM
Scholastic Booth

1:30PM to 2:30PM
School Supplies Booth

A full program schedule should be up at the official website, so be on the look out for that at events.latimes.com.

On top of this, Michael Grant is also hosting a video FAQ at his Youtube Channel (Watch the Introduction Video here). This is mostly being done for the release of his latest book Plague, the newest book in his GONE series, but I doubt that he’d turn down questions for Animorphs, Everworld, or any of his other series as well. This video FAQ is going to last until April 6th, so make sure you get those questions in while you can!

That’s all for now!

Jumping in for a quick update: Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs) just posted a very cool video of the new Animorphs Lenticular Covers in action, right from his backyard! Check it out:

The video was posted on his Facebook. So if the above video does not work, then you will have to log in! Or you can go directly there (click here).

One really important thing to note: There seems to be a new Rachel model! The video is small and blurry, but she appears to be different from the last time we saw the book morph in K.A’s Scholastic Video. I’ll post a picture once I can get a clear shot.

That’s all for now!

Update: These are the clearest shots I could get:

Okay, here is that ridiculously large update that I promised. Lots of new things, as you can tell right away from the title, so let us not waste any more time. First up:

The Mission (Book) Database: There are 80+ new international Classic covers added (And by Classic, I mean the 90’s books, so don’t freak out thinking that it’s for the relaunch). There is also 1 new inside cover added for Megamorphs #2, thanks to Matt. It was the last inside cover we were missing, so we are now officially complete with those! (I think.)

On top of this, I have also gone through all of the book pages and added videos for the ones that had their cover animations released. You will be able to see these videos right on their individual pages as opposed to the way we had it before. The book page layouts have also been slightly tweaked and rearranged to give everything a more uniform and organized look.

In addition to this, the Database has a Relaunch books section now too! I debated on how to handle this for a while, but I eventually decided that it would be best to separate it from the current Classic book pages, rather than try to merge them together. For one, it would be clutter-hell to try and organize the different marketing campaigns, promotions, products, etc, that would be related with the two book runs. I also thought it would be best to not compromise on the comprehensive amounts of detail on those current Classic pages, for fear that new readers would start reading them. Hopefully the two sections will keep things organized and at the same time be spoiler-friendly for those new to the series. I may merge them in the future, once the relaunch has run its course, but for now they are best to be kept separate.

Moving on from that, the Articles Section is now also updated: A relaunch category has been added, along with all of the official news for it so far: Scholastic’s library webcast, press release, K.A’s video, cover animation, etc.

This brings me to our very last part of the update: The Video Section. Everything is changed in there, from the way it operates, to the way it is structured behind the scenes. I have new categories set up for future Relaunch related media, and all of the videos so far have also been added in there, along with stuff we had before: morphing animations, tv show clips, trailers, etc.

So, to sum up (and for those that didn’t bother reading any of that), here is a brief rundown of everything added in for this update:

 
ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS

– Scholastic’s 2011 Spring Library Preview Webcast
– Scholastic’s Relaunch Press Release, including:

• K.A. Applegate’s video
• #1 Cover Animation

 
VIDEOS

– Restructured and new layout redesign.
– Categories and videos added for Relaunch Media (from articles).

 
MISSION (BOOK) DATABASE

Relaunch Books:

New pages for #1-6.
01: Cover Animation, Alternate cover, and related media.
02: Alternate cover, and related media.

Classic Books:

01 – Morph animation.
02 – Morph animation.
03 – Morph animation.
07 – U.K. Cover.
13 – Cover animation.
16 – U.K. Cover. Cover animation.
17 – U.K, German, and French Covers. Cover animation.
18 – German, and French Covers. Cover animation. New Trivia.
19 – U.K, German, and French Covers. Cover animation.
20 – U.K, German, and French Covers
21 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation.
22 – U.K, German, and French Covers. Cover animation.
23 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation.
24 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation.
25 – U.K, German, and French Covers. Cover animation.
26 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation.
27 – German, and French Covers
28 – U.K, German, and French Covers
29 – U.K, German, and French Covers
30 – U.K, German, and French Covers. Cover animation.
31 – U.K, and French Covers
32 – U.K, and French Covers
33 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation. New Trivia.
34 – U.K, and French Covers. Cover animation.
35 – U.K, and French Covers
36 – U.K, and French Covers
37 – U.K, and French Covers
38 – U.K, and French Covers
39 – U.K, and French Covers
40 – U.K, and French Covers
41 – U.K, and French Covers
42 – French Cover
43 – U.K, and French Covers
44 – French Cover
45 – U.K, and French Covers
46 – U.K, and French Covers
47 & 48 – U.K Combo Cover
49 $ 50 – U.K Combo Cover
51 $ 52 – U.K Combo Cover
53 – French Cover
54 – French Cover
MM#1 – U.K, German, and French Covers
MM#2 – 7th Inside (thanks to Matt), German, French, & U.K Covers.
MM#3 – French Cover
Alternamorphs #1 – French Cover
Andalite Chronicles – U.K, and French Covers
Visser Chronicles – French Cover
Hork-Bajir Chronicles – French, and U.K Covers (Didn’t notice this until now, but the U.K one has Aldrea looking at the reader!)

Phew! At this point I’d also like to add that I will forever hate Amazon and other book sites for unnecessarily adding white space to all of their cover pictures. I had to individually crop every one of those covers folks!

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. The archive is no where near complete, but we are making progress, and this update was another huge step forward. Look around, enjoy. If you see anything wrong that needs fixing, or if you have something that I don’t already have (or have it in better quality), then please get a hold of me as usual. I will do my best to get it up there as soon as I possibly can.

Until next time! 🙂

A big thanks to Paula, who shared a picture of her son holding up an ARC (Advanced Reader’s Copy) of the Lenticular Edition of Animorphs #1!

These ARCs were released as part of the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in San Diego (January 7-11, 2011) that Michael Grant and K.A. Applegate both attended.

As you can see from the picture above, these ARCs are ‘uncorrected proofs’ and are only available through promotional/publishing connections. They also seem to have been printed and released before Scholastic changed the covers, because this one uses the old Jake that we saw in the earlier version.

The actual book for Animorphs #1 is set to be released May 1st, 2011 (Click here for full info and pre-order links). For full coverage regarding the ALA event, check out www.ala.org

What can I say? Our fanbase rocks. I received an email from a fan named Rijab today, who not only forwarded me the lenticular cover for Animorphs #3, but also for Animorphs #4 and #5. These last two books are not even listed to be released until the end of next year! So yeah, needless to say, I was ecstatic to find these in my inbox this morning!

These covers are official, and are coming straight from the Scholastic Rights & Co-Editions site. Here are a few things to note:

1. As you can see, the cover morphs for all of the books are now definitely following the same animal morphing choices from the first print of the series. (#1: Jake to Lizard, #2: Rachel to Cat, #3: Tobias to Hawk, #4: Cassie to Dolphin, #5: Marco to Gorilla, etc). So, aside from the Chronicles and Megamorphs, expect to see the same treatment for the rest of the books (if they publish past the first six).

2. Like the first sneak peeks for #1 and #2, consider these covers to be a work-in-progress. These could be the final covers you’ll see, or they could be updated with further changes in the future. The alterations could be anything, as drastic as a complete recasting of the model and animal (in #1), to a different blend of the tech-skin background (#2).

3. Along with these covers, we now also have a list of languages Scholastic has the rights to publish Animorphs in, and the publishers who would be responsible for distributing these books in under those language prints. However, it is still unconfirmed whether Scholastic has decided to republish Animorphs under these languages, so don’t get too excited until we say so. Here is the list of languages available:

   Bahasa Indonesian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified only), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese- Brazil, Russian, Spanish, Spanish-Latin, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

   To see the publishers individually associated with each language, see the Scholastic Rights & Co-Editions page again and click on one of the books to see them on the right.

You may have also noticed that the covers are only available in small thumbnail formats at the moment (publicly). So if anyone finds any of these with higher resolutions, then please by all means email me, so that I can share it with everyone else here as well.

In the meanwhile though, I’ve gone ahead and added the individual books and covers into our Pre-Order Page, with summaries, ISBN, and all. I’ll be adding pre-ordering links to those once they are available.

I think that’s everything for now. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay current on updates like these.

And again, a major credit and thanks to Rijab for finding these book covers.

Until next time!

I still surprise myself when I get a little adrenaline rush from stumbling onto something like this, and realize just how much of an impact this series still has on me. Here is a very exciting new promo by Scholastic that features K.A. Applegate herself. In here, she talks about the story origins of Animorphs, about the 90s culture, and about the new relaunch coming next year! On top of that, the video also gives us our first glimpse of the new Rachel model from Animorphs #2! (Why are you still reading this? I know most of you have already clicked play):

You can also see it directly by going to Scholastic’s website!

As for Rachel’s new cover model, you can see her along with Jake at the 1:40 mark, or by clicking on the snapshot I took (above). Also, as last time, if anyone is able to get me a downloadable copy of this video, then please forward it to my email so that I can save it for the archive.

UPDATE: Thanks to a speedy response from Veronica, we now also have the actual video file for the interview! I’ll be sure to add that into the archive once I get some time.

That’s all for now! Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more updates like this on the Animorphs relaunch. Until next time! 🙂