Upcoming Red Panda / Flying Squirrel material

That the Masks of the Red Panda digital comic from earlier this year is being collected into a trade paperback is less "news" than it is confirmation. The only unexpected aspect of it is that it is being published by IDW rather than Monkeybrain, who released the original mini-series.

Dimensions: 104 Pages, 6.3 × 10.24 × 0.39 in
Published: March 4, 2014

Racketeers, gangsters, the occasional power-mad supervillain - all have fallen before the iron resolve of the city''s masked protectors. But when forces with powers from beyond this world threaten to bring their war to the streets of Depression-era Toronto, can even the Red Panda prevent disaster? Bringing to life characters from The Red Panda Adventures, Decoder Ring Theatre''s award-winning radio drama series, Mask of the Red Panda is pulse-pounding pulp perfection for all those who love the classic two-fisted adventures of the golden age of radio, classic movie serials, and the hero pulps.

So that's cool.  I enjoyed the limited series a great deal and looked forward to having a print version for the collection.  The only disappointment is that it is not being published by a Canadian company.

My attempts at locating details about the book actually led me to find out about other Panda-based (and of course, his lovely partner, The Flying Squirrel) projects.

As mentioned in a comment to an earlier post about The Red Panda, a fourth novel is due to be released soon.  It will be titled The Pyramid of Peril. It was expected to be released in 2013 though at this late point in the year, that seems a little unlikely now.  Would love to treat myself to a Christmas present though!

What I did not know (for certain) is that more comics are planned. Here's the portion of the Red Panda Adventures wikipedia page which makes reference to this.

After the initial three-issue series a Kickstarter campaign was run to create a "full-cast video comic" of the series. The intent was to raise money for not only the video, but also to fund new issues of the comic. At the close of the campaign, Taylor announced that enough money had been raised to provide for at least 8 new issues of the series. His plan is to do four 2-part stories.

The comics were well-received (at least critically, I have no idea how much they sold) so on that level this doesn't come as a surprise.

The "four two-part'ers" claim may not be solid; on the Kickstarter updates page, writer Gregg Taylor stated that they would make 10 books if they reached $13,000 in funding.  They came close; 12,009 was raised.  It was close enough that they will still consider releasing ten.

As something of an aside, if you're not doing so already, keep an eye on Monkeybrain Comics.  They offer a variety of quality books and have a number of Canadian talents on their roster including Paul Little and Charles Pritchett working on a title that I've just discovered entitled Anti-Hero.  A-H is written by Jay Faerber of Dynamo Five and Noble Causes fame.  Good stuff.