The rise of smartphones has led to an explosion in casual gaming and no smartphone game has received more ink than Rovio’s Angry Birds, with more than 12 million copies of the game sold via Apple's App store alone.  In order to make the most of the success of those "Angry Avians," Rovio has hired former Marvel exec David Maisel to help the company develop of coherent media strategy for its properties.

 

Though there has been talk of a computer-animated Angry Birds feature film, Deadline reports that a 52-episode series of short cartoons is coming first.  The 3-minute cartoon shorts will be released to a multitude of platforms by next fall, with a feature film, which is in development, not expected until 2013 or 2014.  Meanwhile the animated shorts will give Rovio a chance to develop the "Angry Avians" as individual characters and perhaps to explain the entire phenomenon’s central mystery—why are these darn birds so infuriated all the time?