Status Report

In case you missed our earlier post today, Scholastic published a press release about the relaunch of the Animorphs series, and also gave us a look at the morphing animation for Animorphs #1’s lenticular cover. To read the full news regarding that, go here: http://www.hiracdelest.com/blog/?p=1328

In the mean while, it looks like Scholastic is going ahead with one of its marketing plans and updating the Official Animorphs Website (The last update was back in 2001, when #54 and the Anibase were released).

Right now they only have a new banner (which is strangely featuring the old covers, when we have already confirmed the new ones), but I’m guessing that this is just a temporary sign to go up with the press release as they get a new design ready. Here are some pictures for the before and after:

OLD DESIGN (Last Updated 2001)

NEW UPDATE (December 9th, 2010)

We’ll keep you informed on any further changes and updates made towards the Animorphs relaunch.

Remember when we posted the new lenticular cover for Animorphs #1 a few weeks ago? Well, I went back to the Ute Körner Literary Agent (our original source) to perform a little google-fu on there server, and I ended up with a nice little surprise! I found a file which led me to the rights section on Scholastic, which then led me to a PDF, giving us an exclusive look at the lenticular cover for Animorphs #2! It was posted along in combination with the cover for Animorphs #1. And as you can see from the pictures below, I went ahead and cropped it out of that for you guys as well.

Based on what we’re seeing here, it looks like Animorphs #2 is following the same style as the first cover. Currently we are only seeing Rachel in mid-morph, but as previously mentioned with #1, you won’t see the full effects of these lenticular covers until you actually hold one in your hand. The animation is supposed to provide a transition from human to animal when you tilt them from side to side.

Also, it looks like the animal/tech skin layout is staying. Based on the covers for #1 & #2, it will likely change to whatever skin/fur/scales the featured animal on the cover has. This will hopefully be good news for those that weren’t fans of the first cover. It also looks like the animal choices for the covers are being taken directly from the first print of the series (ie. #1: Lizard, #2: Cat, etc, etc). So expect the same from the rest of the future reprints, with the exception of Megamorphs and Chronicles.

Animorphs #1 & #2 are set to be out together next year on May 1st, 2011, and the schedule for the following books are already planned for the next 2 years. Here they are:

Animorphs #03: The Encounter – July 2011
Animorphs #04: The Message – October 2011
Animorphs #05: The Predator – January 2012
Animorphs #06: The Capture – April 2012

Anyway, that’s all for now. The new cover has been updated in the pre-order page as well (on your right). Be sure to follow us on Facebook & Twitter to stay updated for future posts. We’ll let you know if anything else comes up. Until next time!

Looks like the staff over at Scholastic are just as excited as us for the upcoming reprint of the series. A number of staff members created a group costume that mimicked the step-by-step morphing process for the new cover!

I really love this! Great group effort! You can see the original Scholastic Halloween Blog Post for more pictures. If any fans have Animorphs Halloween pics for this year too, then feel free to to pass them along to us as well! (You can see the ones from last year here and here.)

Thanks to an impressive effort by Eva, we now have fan-made English translations for the entire Animorphs #1 German audio book! This ‘book’ is actually done in a manner of a radio play, supporting a full cast, with sound effects and music.

I was really lucky to have been able to get a hold of this rare copy many years ago, and I’m so happy that I can finally understand it, and now (more importantly) share it with the rest of you!

To start listening, simply go here (or, for future reference, Database > Merchandise > Audiobooks). Simply click on one of the chapters to begin streaming and follow along with these awesome fan-made translations.

Again, a major thanks to Eva for putting in such an impressive amount of time and effort into this! We seriously appreciate it!

Finally some good news for our Canadian fans (i.e. ME). Animorphs #1 & #2 (Lenticular Editions) are now available to pre-order on Amazon.ca for $7.99.

And because we might soon be getting pre-order availabilities in other countries, I’ve created a separate page on this blog that will have all of the pre-order links in there. Take a look on your right, under ‘Buy Animorphs Books‘ for the full info.

We’ll keep you updated as more countries are available.

For fans in Australia and New Zealand, a schedule is finally available for the upcoming appearances by Michael Grant (co-author/co-creator of Animorphs). He will be there to promote GONE and Magnificent 12 with his son Jake (aka, the REAL Computer Jack).

Australia
Oct 27th – Nov 6th

New Zealand
Nov 9th – Nov 13th.

Specific time & locations: See michaelgrantdownunder.com

Also, here is a new promo for GONE, starring Michael Grant himself!

Following up from our previous post, you can now watch the entire webcast by going to the Scholastic Librarian Preview website and clicking “Watch Replay”. The entire thing is about an hour long, so if you want to skip directly to the Animorphs bit, scroll down to the 36:20 mark to see David Levithan talk about the series.

Update: Major thanks to Kyle Maloney (who commented below) for the quick overnight delivery of this video! You can now watch the entire Animorphs portion of the Scholastic webcast in the video above. Heck, go ahead and even watch it on his Youtube page so that he gets the views, and click ‘Like’!

More importantly, be sure to spread the word! New fans, old fans, and even readers who you think might be interested in Animorphs. Share the video, share HiracDelest.com. Animorphs is out next year!

At this point, we have no way of embedding or saving the video for our own site. However, I’ll do my best to see if I can collect it for our video section before Scholastic replaces it with their next webcast in April. (If anyone knows the best way to do this, then feel free to contact me. Either by email, Facebook, or Twitter). Also, if anyone wants to transcribe the video for me, then feel free to do so, and I’ll add it along with the video!

That’s all for now. More coming soon!

Wow, lots of news recently! For those that missed it, Animorphs got a dedicated time slot in the Scholastic Spring 2011 LIVE Preview Webcast today, and the Animorphs segment portion of it was presented by David Levithan (V.P. Editorial Director of Scholastic). The live webcast is now officially over, but will soon be available to watch on Scholastic again (No idea when exactly, but we’ll make a new post as soon as it does!)

Update: Just received word that it will be available 6pm ET on Wednesday, October 20. We’ll post the link once it’s available!

In the mean while though, here are a few pictures that I quickly snapped while it was being talked about:

I didn’t get a chance to listen to everything, but Mr. Levithan was talking about the relaunch of the series from the 90s, and how it would work for audiences today. The snapshots I took also officially confirms the Animorphs #1 book cover that we posted recently. (And in case anyone is wondering about the 3rd pic, it’s him trying to re-enact the morphing pose, from himself to a moose, lol. He was doing this because he mentioned that they couldn’t show the full animation effects for the lenticular morphing online.)

Going along with that, Scholastic is also planning a full on assault with marketing plans for the re-release. The first book is already in their Online Catalog, with a Summer Series Ad PDF that finally displays the full before-and-after of the first cover! Behold, our new Jake model for Animorphs!

Set within the catalog, there is also a 12-Copy Mixed Floor Display item available for retailers, which will hold both Animorphs #1 & 2, but no pictures are available for it yet.

Lastly, here are also some marketing plans of what Scholastic intends to do with upcoming relaunch of the series:

Marketing Plans

Over 35 million copies of the original series in print!

• 100,000-copy announced first print
• National media campaign
• Select author appearances
• Major advertising campaign, including:
• In-theater advertising in select markets
• Online advertising linking to special content on Animorphs website www.scholastic.com/animorphs update, including:
• Games & Video
• Summer camp sampling
• Outreach to Animorphs fan sites

Quotes / Reviews

Praise for Animorphs

“Engaging… impressive.” –School Library Journal

“There’s clearly something about Animorphs that has kept kids enthralled.” –Publisher’s Weekly

I think that’s everything for now. Expect more updates soon! Lots of things are coming up, and we’ll try to stay on top of it all to keep you fully updated!

Animorphs #1: The Invasion, and Animorphs #2: The Visitor are now both listed on Amazon.com and are available to pre-order! Both are priced at $6.99 (US) and will be available in paperback. Here is a brief product description provided by Amazon for Animorphs #1:

The wildly popular series by K.A. Applegate is back! The first six books of Animorphs return, with striking new lenticular covers that morph.

The Earth is being invaded, but no one knows about it. When Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco stumble upon a downed alien spaceship and its dying pilot, they’re given an incredible power — they can transform into any animal they touch. With it, they become Animorphs, the unlikely champions in a secret war for the planet. And the enemies they’re fighting could be anyone, even the people closest to them. So begins K.A. Applegate’s epic series about five normal kids with a limitless amount of forms and abilities.

Interesting thing to note about the wording from the description above: It says that only the first six books are returning with new covers. If we refer this back to our previous post, it seems as though that they really are the only ones confirmed to be re-released at this point (Not the entire series, as previously believed).

My guess is that more of the series will reprinted once Scholastic has taken a look at the sales figures behind these releases. We have no idea what their plans are after that, but we can assume that they are going to continue re-releasing them if enough people are still buying them.

Aside from that, nothing else is new. Pre-order links are posted below (please use them from here if you can). We’ll be sure to keep you updated if anything else comes up!

 

Pre-Order Animorphs #1: The Invasion (Lenticular Edition)
Release Date: May 1st, 2011

Pre-Order Animorphs #2: The Visitor (Lenticular Edition)
Release Date: May 1st, 2011

**You can help support Hirac Delest if you pre-order from the links above. You will NOT be charged anything extra for doing this! All it will do is add in Hirac Delest as a referral for your transaction(s). In return, Amazon will give us a tiny percentage of your sale, which will then go entirely towards paying for the hosting and domain fees for this fan site, keeping us online and running ad-free. Doing us this small favour would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

A big credit to RAF‘s Magdaleen, who posted a sneak peek at the upcoming cover of the 2011 Re-Release Edition of Animorphs #1: The Invasion! (see right).

As most of you know from our previous posts, the new covers are supposed to be lenticular, meaning that they will transform and change right before your very eyes. So the image that you currently see is only a still of what is to be an animated version. It’s also very possible that this isn’t the final version, as the release date for the book isn’t for another 7 months.

As for the source, the image itself was found on the Ute Körner Literary Agent site, which also included an entire page blurb about the relaunching of the franchise. Here it is:

Scholastic will re-launch the internationally bestselling Animorphs series in Summer 2011, starting with a six-book arc. In its heyday, the Animorphs series sold over 20 million copies worldwide and was translated in 26 languages and was turned into a popular Nickelodeon TV show.

For the re-launch, Scholastic has updated the covers to give them a fresh, modern look: in keeping with the eye-catching nature of the original covers, the new books will make use of morphing lenticulars: the characters transform right on the covers.

An updated look gives the series new vitality for a new generation of readers.

Animorphs is sci-fi at its best: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and a lot of fun.

The page also has a downloadable PDF which contains the above blurb, along with the release dates for the rest of the books! This is the schedule that we are currently looking at:

Animorphs #01: The Invasion – May 2011
Animorphs #02: The Visitor – May 2011
Animorphs #03: The Encounter – July 2011
Animorphs #04: The Message – October 2011
Animorphs #05: The Predator – January 2012
Animorphs #06: The Capture – April 2012

Out of all of this though, the biggest surprise about this page is the fact that you can currently also ORDER a reading copy of this re-release! (However, that seems to only be available to those who have the proper publishing credentials to do so).

Lastly, there is also a heavy emphasis on the fact that Animorphs has been published in 26 languages. At the moment, we have nothing confirmed regarding translations in other countries, but we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that info for our international fans!

That is everything new that we have learned at this point. However, there is one piece still missing, and that is the animated version of this cover. The PDF that contains the cover talks about an animated gif being attached, but it can’t be found anywhere! If anyone happens to stumble upon it, then please do email us ASAP! We’d love to take a look at this thing in action!

That’s all for now, we’ll be sure to post more info as we receive it. And again, another big big credit and thanks to Magdaleen for finding this!