Like the Batibat, the Kapre is a relatively gentle giant who lives in trees and smokes a big tobacco pipe.

Looks: Think Yosi Kadiri, but dark-skinned, with eyes that glow eerily.

Habitat: Big trees

Favorite food: None. The cigar never burns out.

From GMA News Online. Via

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has declared the western black rhino extinct. One of four subspecies of the black rhino, it was considered especially vulnerable to poachers who hunt the rhino for its horn, believed to contain medicinal properties.

The black rhino is one of five surviving species of rhinoceros. Sadly, most of the others are endangered as well.

As well as declaring the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes) extinct, it records the northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), a subspecies in central Africa, as being on the brink of extinction.

The last Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) outside Java is also believed to have disappeared.

The other species include the white rhino, Indian rhino and the Sumatran rhino.

This has nothing to do with comics, but it is good to note the passing of our natural world.

You had us at dinosaur, Dustin Harbin. And with “colored by Sam Bosma and Kali Ciesemier” you chained us up and threw away the key.

$40!

See the full thunder lizard-sized visual here.

Sort of Halloween-y, very crypto: Having completed the Animal Alphabet — a collaborative Tumblr blog of drawings of animals for every letter, Ben Towle is now getting started on AlphaBeasts, a similar project covering IMAGINARY beasts:

AlphaBeasts is the follow-up collaborative project to the now-completed Animal Alphabet. This time, instead of drawing real animals, we’re drawing fictional ones each week–one for each letter of the alphabet. On the first day (Monday, October 17th) everyone will draw beasts beginning with the letter “A.” The following Monday, everyone will draw beasts that begin with “B.” Rinse and repeat…

Detailed instructions on how to participate in the link.

This is so cool. Nick Abadzis writes to remind us that his strips for the 25th Anniversary of Big Planet Comics has ended: a series of gorgeous alternate endings to his GN LAIKA, about the dog who went into space … and never came back.

Four strips are up here, with tributes to “Stan and Jack (Stan referring to both the Man and Kubrick), and several iterations of how the story could’ve turned out.” The final episode definitely calls out for a sequel/spin-off.

Abadzis was recently interviewed at Mike Dawson’s Talkie Podcast.

How on earth did we miss this until now? Ben Towle is putting together The Animal Alphabet Project, drawing of critters by cartooners. Above, the N is for Naked Mole Rat by Gabriel Hardman, below L is for Lynx by Henry Eudy.

I would read the hell out of this comic.

It has become legend.

Via Very Fine Near Mint

Grant Morrison was right!

Paul, the octopus who stunned the world by correctly picking all his games in the 2010 World Cup, has died. It was not unexpected since at 2 1/2 he was up there in octopus years, but it is still sad.

Paul is in cold storage while his remains await suitable disposition — a modest but permanent shrine may be erected, say German zookeepers. While that is all nice and dandy we all know what is really going to happen: a thorough autopsy to figure out the source of his psychic powers, followed by a supervillain plot to steal his body and use it to clone an army of super soccer pickers.

We’re sad and yet glad that the World Cup is over. Sad because it was fun and exciting and we actually hung out more with friends than we have in months because we were always getting together to watch the game, and sharing it with pals worldwide through Twitter. Although the Netherlands-Spain final was the kind of shitty game that makes people who don’t like soccer continue to not like soccer, it wasn’t representative of the tourney as a whole. Sad because there was so much to see and ponder in “the beautiful game.”

But we’re also glad because things that are fun and exciting are the most fun and exciting when they come and go and leave you wanting more.

Of course, the breakout star of the Cup was not Ronaldo or Kaka or Messi but an unassuming mollusk whose psychic powers amazed the world. Yes, it was Paul The Psychic Octopus, whose stunning 8-for-8 predictions have left scientists and sports fans reeling with questions regarding cephalopod intelligence, the possibilities of psychic powers, and tentacled understanding of the passing game and the offsides rule.

Housed in a German zoo, Paul correctly predicted all of the German team’s results — including their losses to Serbia and Spain — and Spain’s win over the Netherlands. His method of communicating his predictions to his keepers was a bit unorthodox — Paul would choose a tasty bit of oyster from one of two boxes, each adorned with the flags of the competing teams in each contest — but it worked. He surpassed the efforts of other would-be animal seers at the same zoo: Petty the pygmy hippo, Leon the porcupine, and Anton the tamarin monkey, all picked wrong in other games. A South American dolphin named Sayco announced his pick and the headline “Dolphin favors Argentina” but we all know how that turned out. Paul’s biggest rival, Mani the Parakeet, picked the Dutch squad in the final.

No, it was Paul who made headlines this time out — but his terrific run in the World Cup followed a lesser performance in the 2008 European Cup where he incorrectly picked Germany to beat Spain in the final.

So how did Paul do it? Octopuses have the largest brain of any mollusk, and the limits of their brain capacity are still being studied — they can learn, use tools and recognize complicated patterns and devise cunning strategies for getting food. But they are color blind, leading skeptics to say Paul’s picks were based on the varying attractiveness of the national flags. Since there were only two choices, most say Paul’s picks are the result of random chance, like flipping a coin. But even octopus experts can’t say with certainty what really happened:

“But having said that I don’t want to underestimate how amazing these animals are and how clever they are… they’re doing pretty well for a super snail relative. They can recognise individual people in a crowd, they can do really clever things like learn to unscrew the lids off jars to get prawns out of the inside, they can collect up half coconut shells and carry them around like portable armour and jump inside if something comes along. So they’re doing cool things out there beyond their psychic abilities.”

Paul’s pick against his host country has led to death threats from angry German fans, and cries of “Fry him in a pan!” Both Italy and Spain — where pulpo is a regular item on the menu — have offered to give Paul asylum should the threats prove too much.

Sadly, Paul’s days as oracle are numbered, If he is indeed the same octopus who picked the 2008 Euros — there is some controversy about this arising — he’s getting up there in years at two and a half. Octopuses generally live only three years.

Paul won’t be with us much longer.

And as tempting as it would be to braise him up with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar in an attempt to share his psychic powers through ingestion, perhaps it is best that we let him live out his days in peace — and take the secrets of his strange powers to his watery grave with him.

The Rogue Taxidermy Show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery Past Shows. Above: “Turkelaeopteryx (aka Squirkey)” by Sarina Brewer.

§ Gene Colan has been hospitalized with a broken shoulder and will not be able to work for a while, so friends are raising money for him via an auction.

§ The Financial Times looks at the phenomenon of pop stars writing comic books

The success of the series has also opened the door for musicians to utilise graphic novels as never before. “I’m pretty sure it got into the hands of people who had never read comics before, or who just had a passing interest,” says Shawna Gore, an editor from Dark Horse Comics who published The Umbrella Academy. “It was a bridge between pop music and comics.”

§ Over at AICN, Mike Russell interviews Paul Pope about BATTLING BOY and other stuff. Pope will be a guest at Stumptown this weekend:

And the coroner in “Batman: Year 100″ is based on my granddad. He was a forensic coroner. Kind of a multitasker. It was possible for him to also be an engineer and a farmer at the same time.

§ Chris Butcher finished liveblogging the April 2010 Previews:

11:39pm: Speaking of continuing to do well, Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s FREAKANGELS gets a fourth collection in June (or later, probably) in softcover, hardcover, and signed hardcover editions. For a series serialized for free, online, it continues to do well for us in sales. It’s slowed a little bit, but honestly? Good stuff, and I’m glad to see the web-serialization to print-sales model actually works.

§ Just in case you haven’t seen Roger Ebert’s “Video games can never be art” essay, here it is. Remember when the elders told Herodotus that writing things down on scrolls would destroy literacy because people wouldn’t have to memorize things any more?

§ Over the weekend, Marvel’s O.M.I.T. promo was revealed to be a retelling of some kind of wedding that never happened between MJ and Peter Parker. Chris Sims breaks it down in his own special way.

§ For cephalo-lovers everywhere, Octo-cam.

Toy shelf space is at a premium these days, but we have to admit, this Claire Littleton Bobble Head from Bif Bang Pow!, complete with gun and a substitute baby made from animal parts, has that certain je ne sais quoi. (The hair is a little too neat, though.) It’s available as an exclusive for this year’s San Diego but you can also order in advance.

Via Vulture

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And more Kraken videos, just because it’s hump day:

The ORIGINAL Clash of the Titans set to CLUTCH! A close friend of the Kraken THE REAL THING (Sorta — it’s a Humboldt squid.)

And another one that’s really pretty scary!