Rumor has it, that an Animorphs 2.0 might be in the works...with Scholastic!

[Essam 293]

There WILL be new covers. (Our Scholastic source told us that they are supposed to be “ventricular”. Neither of us knew what that meant, but we’re guessing 3D covers).

"Ventricular" is a medical term describing the "push" part of an animal heart.  "Lenticular" means "lens-shaped" and (among other things) describes a type of printing that looks different from different angles.

Lenticular printing can be used for two things.  

First, you can make a decent, not perfect, 3D effect that's much larger and less expensive than the plain-light holograms on credit cards etc.  It looks pretty darn cool, especially because lenticular printing is rarely used for this purpose so it catches people by surprise.

Or, you can use it for a sad-looking animation that never really works out right, the old "tilt to make Mr. Cheezy's arm wave" gag.  

I think I know where Scholastic is going with this.  Yeah.  "Tiltamorphs."    I'm jaded though, believing that there's not much that can top the Japanese covers.

Actually, here's what I'm worried about: lenticular printing is even more expensive than normal hard cover.  It's not so much a problem of real printing costs (maybe another $1 per volume), but that there's an industry rule that you have to make people pay more for fancier covers.  (Seriously.  Hardcover usually costs 25 cents more per volume than soft to print.)  Last time around, Animorphs was priced to sell.  It looks like they're going for a higher price point this time, what my terribly cynical self fears is a privishing attempt to kill off 2.0.

I was confused when reading that email, so thanks for clearing up the term. I've made changes to the blog post and given you proper credit.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Crap. Honestly, I'd hope for nothing more than a fix of typos and KASU's.

Agreed

I'll bring the torches, you bring the pitchforks.

Deal!

Anybody here happen to have some pull with Scholastic? We might be able to influence them without the pitchforks. Hooray ambition!

[DinosaurNothlit]

Crap. Honestly, I'd hope for nothing more than a fix of typos and KASU's.

Why?  I mean, us fans can go and fix the typos ourselves, that much is easy.  And some pretty good efforts have been made at explaining away the KASUs, and getting rid of them altogether would be pretty simple to do, too.

I don't want to set my expectations too high, of course, for fear of being disappointed.  But don't see how a re-write could possibly be bad.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

It just feels wrong to me for them to mess too much with the series. At what point does it stop really being Animorphs anymore? How does it work if there are two versions of the series around? Does that divide the fans? It feels a bit sacrilegious to change the past, even in fiction. We may not entirely agree with everything in Animorphs, but that's how it happened. Besides, I'm not sure how much I'd like a rewrite if KAA's not doing it, but then, I think I'm fairly biased towards her writing style (over any of the ghostwriters, for example).

[Myitt]

This is great!  Dave sent the info to io9.com, linking hirac delest and the RAF Blog.  Hopefully it gets posted!

[RYTX]

^ Pretty much what Aluminator said

This is one of the very few stories I'm involved in, and I really don't want to risk it falling on me. The good and the bad of the series, I'll take them together so long as their consistent. I'd even take a continuation of the series, but to start over and rewrite from book one; I'm looking at them on my bookshelf right now, and I can't help but think these are my Animorphs. The jokes, the awesome parts, the crappy parts, the parts that make you cry, those are mine those have revelance to this chunk of my life
To redo, even to expand in it just somehow feels debasing to that.

Also, my biggest fear is like I said, modernitiy. Scholastic can't just aim for the old fans, there's not nearly enough of us who will go in for that, and one of the big things on Animorphs that I'm sure most of us felt, was that maybe, maybe it was happening somewhere in the world where Powerpuff girls still had marathons, Marco's dial up was laughable and Arnold could believably save a drowning man. But that's not how it is today
If they start at book one with the present day notion in mind and Jake stops mid mission to pick up a cell and tell his mom he'll be in late (I'm exagratting of course, but you get my drift), that derides what I have now. A story I literally grew up with and that grew up with me
I'd hate to have to alter it to accomadate what was so good to me, even if the new is good too

[Terenia]

On the other hand, will the books sell to today's kids when they're filled with references that were originally meant for kids of the mid-90's? I'm not sure how many youngin's these days will get/care about Hansen references, or understand who Jason Jeremy McCole is supposed to be. However, if it was Mack Teflon or something...

[DinosaurNothlit]

On the one hand, I definitely see your point.  Yeah, these are the books we know and love, and yeah, I'd hate to see them ruined.

Then again, they can't hardly do a much worse job of that than the TV show has already done . . .

But on the other hand, I think it would actually be very interesting to see how things would change if Animorphs was re-set in a more modern setting.  If it's done well, of course.  How would cell-phones and the modern internet change their security considerations, for example?

I guess, my only desire is just that, whatever they're doing, I want it to be done well.  Re-release the old series, or write a new one, I don't care, I just want well-written, thoughtful books.  But then I look at the existing books that have actually become popular (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.) and my stomach clenches.  Oh man, I sure hope Scholastic doesn't try to go in that direction . . .

Okay, so I should amend my above statement.  They have to be well-written, thoughtful books, and they have to keep the same general tone as the original books.  Now, that isn't too much to ask, is it?

[Aluminator (Kit)]

I'm not sure how many youngin's these days will get/care about Hansen references

Hey, to be fair, I totally didn't get that one when I was first reading the series anyway 

You know what well-written, thoughtful books keep the same general tone as the original books? The original books  I'm actually really curious now to see what Scholastic decides to do with this, though.

[Myitt]

Guys, if you can, send an e-mail to tips@io9.com, saying a simple message like "Animorphs is being re-released in fall 2010" with a link to http://blog.animorphsforum.com

It'll up the chances that both RAF and the Animorphs re-release get spread to a broader nerd audience.  There are quite a few articles on io9 that involve Animorphs, at least in passing.  Go ahead and search "Animorphs"!

[goom]

anybody up for making dec 14^th (when we officially found out) a RAFholiday?

[Darth Revan]

Maybe the holiday should be reserved when Ani2.0 is official.

[adeon222]

I'm with Parker on that one...

[SuperBlue]

oooooh elaborate new covers!? I'm so gonna buy every single one. Maybe they'll change what Jake morphs into on the first cover, I never thought that morph was very appropriate for #1

[Aluminator (Kit)]

I wonder if this means that someday my somewhat worn, yet still complete, original Animorphs collection will be super valuable. I'm not selling, by the way