Flanimals

Flanimals
Flanimals book cover
Author(s)	Ricky Gervais
Illustrator	Rob Steen
Cover artist	Rob Steen
Country	England
Language	English
Series	Flanimals Series
Subject(s)	Creatures
Genre(s)	Humour[citation needed]
Publisher	Faber and Faber
Publication date	2004
ISBN	0-399-24397-6
OCLC Number	57311839
Dewey Decimal	[Fic] 22
LC Classification	PZ7.G3265 Fl 2005
Followed by	More Flanimals

Flanimals is a children's book series written by comedian Ricky Gervais. The book, illustrated by Rob Steen, depicts a list of seemingly useless or inadequate animals, and their behaviour.

The cover Flanimal is the Grundit. The book is published by Faber and Faber, which has also published the sequels More Flanimals, Flanimals of the Deep and Flanimals: The Day of the Bletchling. Flanimals: Pop Up was published October 2009 by Walker Books in the UK and March 2010 by Candlewick Press in the US.

Several models of different Flanimals are available on the official site.

List of Flanimals

• Blimble Sprent – A fast-moving Flanimal without arms that sprints around everywhere to avoid its destination, and eventually dies of exhaustion.
• Blunging – A hadrosaurid-like Flanimal that lives in big family groups.
• Clunge Ambler – An ape-like Flanimal that hugs everything it sees.
• Coddleflop – A mushy puddle which protects itself by flipping on to its head, although as its back is no more protective than its front this stretegy is not very successful.
• Flemping Bunt-Himmler – A mimic of the Mernimbler, only wider and flatter.
• Frappled Humpdumbler – An octopus-like Flanimal who scrundles along the other.
• Glonk – A reptilian humanoid Flanimal which does absolutely nothing for its entire life and then dies.
• Gum Spudlet – A Flanimal resembling the Coddleflop, main prey of Grundits.
• Grundit – A dopey heavily-built Flanimal with a bump on its head.
• Hemel Sprot – A fast Flanimal that always looks backwards to where it's been. It is shown as a green blob, which moves using its two legs/feet. It is the prey of the Sprot Guzzlor.
• Honk – A small Flanimal that sleeps most of the time, waking randomly to emit an extremely loud honk and then going back to sleep.
• Mernimbler – A small, furry, incredibly cute Flanimal, which changes into an agressive adult form when someone strokes it and says how cute it is.
• Adult Mernimbler – An incredibly aggressive goblin-like adult stage of the Mernimbler.
• Munge Fuddler – A crab-like Flanimal that 'fuddles' everything it sees.
• Munty Flumple – A dopey optimist that falls in love with anything.
• Offledermis – A Flanimal born inside-out to avoid its own smell. It has its heart above its inside-out eyeballs and constantly leaks.
• Plamglotis – An ape-like Flanimal with no arms that swallows its hands so it can walk.
• Plumboid Doppler – A Flanimal with green eyestalks and a lumpy squint-sack.
• Print – A humanoid Flanimal that dives off high places, but always lands on its head.
• Puddloflaj – A large water balloon-like Flanimal, often ridden by the Grundits for no clear reason.
• Sprine Bloat-Trunker – A Flanimal that is created by a splunge pipe in the Sprog and Hemel Sprot recycling factory where it also is recycled.
• Sprog – An aggressive beetroot Flanimal.
• Sprot Guzzlor – A large Flanimal that preys on Hemel Sprots.
• Underblenge – A Flanimal with extremely strong suckers on its underside that allow it to stick to anything. However, this leaves it incapable of movement.
• Wobboid Mump – A blind eye floating in jelly, which spends its life looking for the reason for its existence.

Originality dispute

In August 2010, Norwich-based writer and artist John Savage issued a High Court writ, claiming that the original book is based on his own work, Captain Pottie's Wildlife Encyclopedia. The writ claims Savage's artistic and literary copyright has been infringed by Gervais. A spokeswoman for Gervais said the concept and illustrations existed before Savage's work.

Adaptations

Originally ITV had commissioned a television series based on the books, which had a predicted air date of 2009, but it was later scrapped.

On April 28, 2009, Variety reported that a 3-D, computer-animated feature film is in production at Illumination Entertainment, known for its 2010 summer blockbuster Despicable Me. Gervais will exec produce the film and also lend the voice to the lead character.

External links

• Official site
• Pictures from the book in the BBC website
• Flanimals on Ricky Gervais's site
• Flanimals on Rob Steen's site
• Flanimals on MySpace
• Flanimals at the Big Cartoon DataBase