May the 4th be with you!

(If you don't get it, read aloud)

(If you still don't get it, check the date of this post)

Peter is the Wolf, an online comic that has so far focused on werewolves (with just one minor character werefox seen briefly) has recently begun a new storyline. A number of new, non-werewolf shapeshifters have just been introduced in the last few panels, including a second werefox, a tanuki (sort of), plus a werecoyote, werelion, wererat and werebear. If you love shapeshifters but you haven't gotten into Peter is the Wolf yet because you tend to get bored by the over-saturation of werewolves, check it out!

Here is the official website and here are various articles.

By the way, the articles have one thing wrong. The shapeshifter in the original music video was not a werewolf, but a werecat. This is according to the making-of video and it is also what director John Landis and star Michael Jackson have always said about the Thriller music video. However, since nearly everyone thinks of that creature as a werewolf, I suspect that it probably is a werewolf in the Broadway musical version.

According to an article at Variety and the comic creator's website, the horror comic Welcome to Hoxford will be made into a film.

The plot is about werewolves who run an institution for the criminally insane - an institution where patients check in, but they never check out. It looks like it could be a good, scary film. The art, though, makes the werewolves look kind of like giant bat/rabbit creatures so I do hope they'll get a better creature design for the film itself.

Today is the official release date for Princess Resurrection.

If you want to know why this news is of interest to werewolf and transformation fans, see my previous post about this anime.

According to this newsletter and also previous newsletters, work is still proceeding on an anime movie adaptation of the first novel in Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, Split Infinity, which has werewolves as well as shapeshifting unicorns. Also, towards the end of the series, shapeshifting aliens show up, but they might not go on to adapt anything beyond the first novel, so we'll have to wait and see.

The novel series is about Phaze and Proton, two linked worlds, with one being based on science and the other on magic. On Phaze, the humans are dominant, with unicorns, werewolves and vampires being the most common non-human species. The unicorns are the only ones who get to choose their forms. Each unicorn can turn into two (or rarely three) other forms, and normally one of those chosen forms is human. Refreshingly, instead of there being a vampire/werewolf war or rivalry, as is found in so much fiction, the unicorns and werewolves are sworn enemies instead.

In related news, Warner Pictures has dropped their plans to make a movie based on the first novel of another Piers Anthony series, the Xanth series, however Disney is still apparently going ahead with plans to turn the Incarnations of Immortality novels into a TV series. The Xanth series did not have extensive shapeshifting until a number of books in, when shapeshifter Prince Dolph became a main character for awhile. The Incarnations of Immortality series has a horse who can shapeshift into any vehicle, and that's about as much shapeshifting as you get. So, of the three Piers Anthony series that had been optioned for TV or movies, Split Infinity is the one with the largest amount of content for shapeshifter and werewolf fans.

In keeping with the trend whereby a greater number of television shows are available online, and not just by pirating them, the online existences of two more werewolf-related shows have come to my attention recently:

Groovie Goolies - all 16 episodes are watchable here at joost.com. This is a 1970s cartoon that is a spin-off of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Being Human - supposedly, this is watchable on the BBC channel's iPlayer, but I haven't been able to find it. If anyone can drop me a hint on how to watch it there, I'd appreciate it.

Edited to add:
Here's some links for Being Human:

Pilot: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7EA22B9642A9D3BA

Episode 2: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4D82757FB54D3E47

Episode 3: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=847CC8AE8BC9D1B8

Episode 4: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9BF7E8BD725AE25E

Episode 5: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8F0EF3856854A758

Episode 6: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CBD8B8604C99B7FF

War Wolves premieres tonight on The Sci-Fi Channel as the Sunday Original Movie at 9PM Eastern Time (8PM Central). Also, there are werewolf movies on most of today, with Never Cry Werewolf following War Wolves.

I now have more information about three upcoming films with werewolf/shapeshifter content that I had previously blogged about:

Neowolf - The Band from Hell had been scheduled for a February 2009 release. Now, the official website says it will come out in March instead.

Shifter has been renamed Cross and Morningstar Films has announced on its blog that filming will begin this coming May or June and that a graphic novel version will appear on March 15th (see this link). Unfortunately, the further information that has become available about the plot sounds more as if this will be about vampires. Mentions of shapeshifting are now gone from the plot descriptions.

War Wolves now has a premiere date. It will premiere on The Sci-Fi Channel on Sunday, March 8th (at 9PM Eastern Time, 8PM Central). If you miss it then, you've got a second chance to see it on April 11th. You can see the trailer here.

The webcomic Bite Me by Dylan Meconis is going to appear as a print graphic novel. Although it is mostly about vampires, one main character is a werewolf.

A similar character currently appears in the webcomic Family Man by the same author. Family Man has no explicit werewolf content so far, simply because the plot hasn't progressed to that point yet, but it is supposed to mainly be about werewolves. According to the author, it is not a prequel to Bite Me, even though it may superficially appear to be one. It is more like a rethinking of some of the same characters, in a totally different setting and with a different plot. The art in Family Man is particularly high in quality.