Status Report

Good news for those that work in book stores by day, Scholastic Canada has released its 2011 Paperback Catalogue which reveals the new floor display for the relaunching of the series! Here are some screenshots:

So expect to see these at select locations for the relaunch in May. The floor displays themselves are priced at $95.88 each, and Scholastic has also released an Order Form PDF, as well as an HTM version for online orders. (Please remember that this is all in Canadian pricing, which is why the books are $7.99 in the form and picture above. The U.S books are still $6.99 each).

That’s all for now. All of this new info (with higher res photos from above) have been updated in books #1-3 of our relaunch book pages. If anything else comes up, we’ll be sure to keep you updated.

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! 🙂

It doesn’t look like much, but we finally have a custom header for our blog! It took about a month’s worth of frustration, and for me to learn just enough PHP in order to figure out how to do it.

So what does this mean? Well for one, the rest of the site will no longer remain isolated by that framed header I had in its place before. You can link away to individual articles all you like, without worrying that people can’t see the entire archive. The rest of the sections on the site are still framed up top, just to simplify the 100+ pages (900+ files!) I have for updating needs, but the blog is no longer held back by it, which was my biggest concern of all.

I think that’s all for now! Our blog link is hiracdelest.com/blog, so please update your bookmarks! If you notice any problems or issues, then be sure to let me know right away. I would most definitely appreciate it! Also, be on the lookout for another archive update soon. I’ve got a big one coming!

Amazon has released a higher-res version of the Animorphs #3 cover that we revealed a little while back. (Click picture below to enlarge).

For pre-order and plot details for the rest of the Animorphs relaunch books, go here: http://www.hiracdelest.com/blog/?page_id=1021

In addition to this, I have now also gone through all of the blog posts to organize them a bit better, and created two new categories: Animorphs Relaunch and Movie/TV News (see right). Hopefully this will be useful to fans who want to get all the straight facts right away, rather than having to go through our 100+ blog posts to find them.

That’s all for now. Until next time!

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! 🙂

The new Animorphs #1-3 (Lenticular Editions) are now available to pre-order in United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany through Amazon!

UK and Japan have #1-3 available, while Germany only has #1 & 2 at the moment. All of them are released with the same release dates as Canada & U.S (#1 & 2 in May 2011, and #3 in July 2011). Here are the pricing and pre-order links:

Animorphs #1: The Invasion (Lenticular Edition)

£4.49 from Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)
￥ 611 from Amazon.co.jp (Japan)
EUR 5,99 from Amazon.de (Germany)

Animorphs #2: The Visitor (Lenticular Edition)

£4.49 from Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)
￥ 618 from Amazon.co.jp (Japan)
EUR 5,99 from Amazon.de (Germany)

Animorphs #3: The Encounter (Lenticular Edition)

£4.42 from Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)
￥ 739 from Amazon.co.jp (Japan)

As for international covers, they look exactly the same as the ones that are being released in Canada and U.S. Also, it does not look like these are translated copies, but the same English ones that are being made available in North America. I also did not see any pre-orders available for France, China, or Italy (yet).

In the mean while, I’ve gone ahead and updated these links in our Pre-Order page (see right side). If anyone has information regarding other countries/translations/international covers, then please do let me know so that I can forward it to the rest of the fans.

Until next time!

Thanks to Ian Hiatt, the new Animorphs #3 (Lenticular Edition) is now available to pre-order on Amazon for both Canada and U.S! The cover has yet to be revealed, however it is priced just the same as the first 2 books: $6.99 US ($7.99 CAN), and is set to be released July 1st, 2011. Here is the full info:

(Spoiler warning, new readers!)

Animorphs #3: The Encounter (Lenticular Edition)

When Tobias and his friends were given the power to morph, they were also given an important warning: Never stay in a morph for more than two hours. But Tobias broke the time limit, and now he’s trapped in the body of a hawk — forever. When he discovers an important Yeerk secret, Tobias knows he has to do everything in his power to destroy it. But to do so, he’ll have to contend with a part of himself that’s wrestling for control. A part that isn’t human.

Pre-order from Amazon.com (U.S.)

Pre-order from Amazon.ca (Canada)

Release Date: July 1st, 2011

I’ve gone ahead and added this in our Pre-Order Page (right side), and have also updated Animorphs #1 & 2 with the new altered covers that we posted from a while back.

That’s all for now!

Thanks to a speedy response from Elaine, Dameg, and Nguyen to our post yesterday, we now have a copy of the morphing animation from Animorphs #1’s lenticular cover!

Elaine was kind enough to give me a GIF of the animation (posted below), while Dameg and Nguyen gave me the original SWF (which I’ll be placing in the video/book database later). I also went ahead and stripped the animation file of its frames, so that we can see the entire morphing process from start to finish (in the form of the older books). Here it is:

(Click here to see the animation in action!)

As you can see, this Jake model is a different Jake from the first lenticular cover that was released. We have no idea why they did this, but there is a definite difference of age between the two models, and the lizard seems to have been changed as well.

That’s it for now! Thanks again to Elaine, Dameg, and Nguyen for sending those files in! We’ll keep you posted on any more updates and changes.

About an hour ago, Scholastic made an official press release for the Animorphs relaunch, and at the same time revealed the morphing animation for Animorphs #1’s Lenticular Cover! You can see the animation here: http://bit.ly/fSdVQp. (The animation is in flash, so if anyone is able to save a copy of it, either as a gif or avi, please email me!)

As for Scholastic’s press release, it highlights a new quote by K.A. Applegate:

“I am thrilled at the re-launch of Animorphs,” said K.A. Applegate. “Animorphs had far more impact on readers than I ever expected. Animorphs fan sites and works of fan fiction number in the thousands even today. Every library I visit has the old tattered copies, some now barely held together with glue and tape. So I’m very excited at the chance to retire those dog-eared old books, to ratify the enduring faith of the die-hard fans, and most of all, to reach a whole new generation of readers. The invasion is on, the Yeerks are everywhere, and the only ones who can stop them are the small band of kids with the power to become any living creature: the Animorphs are back.”

You can see the entire press release at: mediaroom.scholastic.com.

Most of the details in there are things we already know from the 2011 Library Webcast, however it now gives us an updated release date for Animorphs #4 and #5, which are now released in September and December 2011. So the new official release schedule (along with the ISBN) is as follows:

May 2011

Animorphs #1: The Invasion (ISBN: 978-0-545-29151-4)
Animorphs #2: The Visitor (ISBN: 978-0-545-29152-1)

July 2011

Animorphs #3: The Encounter (ISBN: 978-0-545-29153-8)

September 2011

Animorphs #4: The Message (ISBN: 978-0-545-29156-9)

December 2011

Animorphs #5: The Predator

That’s all for now, but be on the lookout for more news as Scholastic moves ahead with its marketing plans for next year. And be sure to let us know if you stumble across anything interesting!

Until next time!

UPDATE: I just found out that this is our 100th Blog Post on Hirac Delest! How awesome is that?! Makes this news post even better!