Margaret Atwood is coming to television again, this time from one of her graphic novels. WOW! Unlimited Media has officially optioned the comic War Bears for an animation series adaptation. This news comes to us from Deadline.

War Bears isn’t the first time Atwood has dipped her toes into the world of comics, that honor goes to Angel Catbird. But what sets the two apart is that War Bears has a bit of a meta side to it. While the cover of the comics features a young bear-human hybrid fighting evil-doers, the comic actually focuses on her creation! We follow Al Zurakowski, an aspiring young artist, and his publisher Gloriana Topper, as they struggle to get their comic up and running during the second world war in Canada.

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Atwood explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly on how the story was inspired by V-E Day, the day that the Allies declared victory over the Axis in Europe, as well as the end of the comics industry that was born in Canada.

From the Page to Television

     WOW! Unlimited Media

WOW! Unlimited Media is a Canadian animation company that was formed from the merging of Rainmaker Entertainment, Frederator Networks, and Ezrin Hirsch Entertainment. Rainmaker, previously known as Mainframe Studios, is well-known for producing some of the first CGI-animated shows for television such as Beast Wars: Transformers, ReBoot, and the Barbie film series for Mattel.

Frederator has a long history of television animation. Along with being the largest distributor of independent animation online; their in-house animation studio, Frederator Studios, has had a hand in such shows as The Fairly Oddparents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, Bee & Puppycat, and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!. Michael Hirsch, the CEO of Wow! Unlimited Media, expressed favorably about the upcoming project.

Ken Steacy, who was the artist of the original graphic novel, expressed equal excitement about returning to the characters. Steacy’s previous works include Jonny Quest (1987), Batman (1986) and Star Wars (1986). In 2009 he was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame.

Currently, there is no news of a release date, cast, or distribution of the show. But War Bears looks like a project for fans of comics and comic history alike! We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes peeled for sure!