You know Alan Moore, the genius behind many graphic novels including V for Vendetta and Watchmen and From Hell? He’s crowdfunding a new film and I was watching the promo video on Kickstarter when I was caught off-guard by a fleeting musing over utilizing menacing squirrels a la the Birds in Hitchcock’s movie of the same name.
Here’s the Kickstarter page. It’s right around 03:29.
The art is priceless.
ShockTilYouDrop.com is reporting a director and cast are being sought for “Squirrels,” a new horror movie (!!) about squirrels gone awry.
I expect it’s the usual we-upset-the-balance-of-nature premise that turned rabbits and other creatures to the dark side going back to the 1950s.
But…squirrels..?
At left, Timur Bekmambetov, the man behind the idea.
Debbie Ohi, who’s a great children’s-book illustrator I enjoy following on Google+, has a Pinterest board titled “Evil Squirrels.”
We can only hope it was a momentary fancy (!); it does look to have only 10 or so items (including some of her great art work).
Indulge yourself: photos tagged “squirrel” on Flickr.
The Edinburgh Zoo is short one Scarlet Ibis as a squirrel took pity on a caged brother creature and gnawed ceaselessly, with no thought to its own dental costs, to free the rare bird.
More on the BBC website about this squirrel-enabled escape.
I’ve just started reading this article in the Chicago Reader, Chicken of the Trees (Food & Drink section), by Mike Sula.
As a gardener, I can fully appreciate the frustration and fiery red anger when you see your cherished tomato lying on the ground with a single bite marring its lovely matte finish. Or in our case, there’s the stoic resolve with which we greet each spring-into-summer when cherries ripen and drop to the ground with the single tell-tale bite. (It must be said that the local birds enthusiastically assist the squirrels in this enterprise.)
But we’ve not yet thought of “harvesting” the little guys. I’m going back to the article to read more.
Illustration is a fragment of art accompanying the article, by artist Peter Thomas Ryan.
Remember, the truth is out there, as they used to say on the X-Files.
What could be the reason for the seemingly random appearance of distinctly deep-violet squirrels? This article reports on an incident in Pennsylvania (US) and makes mention of earlier sightings in England and in Minnesota (US).
If you read that article you’ll notice (as you can see in the photo to the left), that the coloring is somewhat splotchy.
Of course, there’s a Facebook page for Purple Squirrel now, too.
This image is popping up like mushrooms on Facebook. Does anyone know its original owner? If so, let me know so I may attribute. It does catch the imagination in a delightful way.
The Time Magazine website has in its archives a slideshow of a photo spread from the 1940s. There was a squirrel who, as a young pup, was found and adopted by a very nice fellow who undertook to dress said squirrel in clothing.
It’s something not to be missed.
