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Welcome to Roz Gibson, furry artist and animator in Southern California. Roz was guest of honor at Confurence and created the Jack Salem comic character that first appeared in Rowrbrazzle in 1987. Roz is a community access guest and contents are hers. See Roz’s tag for more reviews.

Animosity #4, The Walled City (graphic novel compilation of issues 14-18)
Written by Marguerite Bennet, art by Rafael De Latorre, Ornella Savarese and Elton Thomas.
Published by Aftershock Comics

The  scenario of animals suddenly developing sentience has been used recently in at least two comics (Squarriors and Animosity) and two novels (The Awareness and the Mort(e) series). Animosity  has been ongoing for several years, chronicling the journey of young human teenager Jesse, her devoted bloodhound ‘father’ Sandor, and their group of companions, including a Pallas cat, goats, a bison, a ring-tailed lemur and Kyle, an adult human who may or may not have Jesse’s best interests at heart. 

The group is traveling from New York City to San Francisco, where Jesse can hopefully find her half-brother. Sandor is eager to make the trip as quickly as possible, since he’s old and is afraid he’ll die before getting Jesse to safety. The landscape is typically post-apocalyptic, and they encounter various obstacles and allies along the way. While this is volume 4, you don’t necessarily need to be familiar with the other chapters to pick it up, since it does contain a complete story arc and there’s a helpful synopsis of ‘what has gone before’ at the beginning of the book.

During their journey Jesse and Sandor encounter groups where animals are dominating humans, animal-only enclaves, and, in this volume, a place where humans still own animals. At the end of the previous volume, Kyle has kidnapped Jesse, ostensibly to ‘save’ her from Sandor, whom he does not trust. Kyle has heard of a human-only enclave called the Walled City in the south, where he thinks Jesse will be safe. Now, in volume 4, when they arrive at the Walled City, and find the inhabitants are eager to take in any female of childbearing age—and not so interested in taking single adult men. Too bad for Kyle.

The rest of the story has Jesse trying to survive in a girl’s boarding school from hell, run by the fanatical ‘Headmistress,’ while Sandor and the rest of the group try to track her down.  In the Walled City they still keep pigs captive for meat, as well as enslaving (literally, with chains) other animals for labor. They are very big with “Humans are the superior species” philosophy, which doesn’t sit well with Jesse.

One thing to note about Animosity’s background, is that everything became sentient, including fish, insects and krill. Which makes life tough for obligate carnivores.  The problem of food shortages is covered more extensively in a side-series: Animosity: Evolution.  In the main comic it’s glossed over a bit, with the carnivore characters shown eating animals that have already been killed. But by and large the problem of carnivore diet is not dealt with.

The artwork is traditional American comic book style, inked with mostly flat colors. The artists are better at drawing the human characters than animal, but the animals are at least recognizable. The anatomy is a bit wonky, but I’ve seen plenty worse. And with the clean inks and flat colors, you can actually tell what’s going on in each panel.

Of the 4 works with animals suddenly getting intelligent, the Mort(e) series of novels is by far the best (if a rather grim read). But Animosity is a good second. Recommended for people looking for a serious story with talking animals that are not anthropomorphic.

• Buy on Comixology

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Share news on these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for anything — or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here.

繪者: Kit Ray, 作者:Vintage Potatoe

翻譯:德羅布(經授權)

Welcome to Roz Gibson, furry artist and animator in Southern California. Roz was guest of honor at Confurence and created the Jack Salem comic character that first appeared in Rowrbrazzle in 1987. Roz is a community access guest and contents are hers. See Roz’s tag for more reviews.

The Snow Cat Prince
Written and illustrated by Dina Norlund
Published by Hushbird publications

The Snow Cat Prince is a gorgeous hardcover graphic novel by Scandinavian artist Dina Norlund. I received my copy through a Kickstarter campaign, but it is available from her website: Hushbird.com (and the furry book sellers would be smart if they picked this up for sale at conventions). Unlike most of the graphic novels I’ve reviewed, this is not a zillion-volume series that will never get done — story is self-contained in this one book. What a pleasant surprise that was!

The plot is a standard “Prince searching for an artifact so he can reclaim his kingdom.” And it is definitely an all-ages title, with minimal violence (but some threat and peril).  After a short introduction setting the background, the titular Snow Cat Prince is introduced. Syv, the youngest of seven brothers, will probably not inherit the throne, and he’s okay with that.  But his six ne’er do-well brothers are concerned because he’s popular with the human inhabitants of the city, so they decide to send him on a wild goose chase to find the lost crown.

In the introduction we’re told how the evil shapeshifting foxes stole the crown from the first, mighty snow cat king, and if the crown can be found and returned the snow cat’s city will once again flourish. Syv is kind but very naive, and doesn’t question why his more powerful brothers would send him off on this important quest. Almost as soon as he leaves the city he comes across Kit—a red-haired elfin sprite who invites herself to tag along. The rest of the story follows their adventures and perils, as Syv learns a lot about the world and the real history of what happened to the crown.

The story is straightforward and simple, so it might not appeal to readers looking for more substance.  However, the artwork is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. Rich, vibrant colors with clean, easy-to-follow layouts. The character designs are a melding of Disney and manga — cute without being over-the-top about it. The book is definitely worth getting just for the art.  An excellent production in terms of printing and presentation.

I will eagerly look forward to anything else Dina Norlund puts out.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Share news on these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for anything — or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here.

What have we been missing? Apparently an on-line phenomenon called Fanlee and Spatzle. Well now Silver Sprocket bring us the Fanlee and Spatzle: Make Something Perfect full-color graphic novel. “Fanlee and Spätzle is a funny, emotional slice-of-life comic about a bear and a duck who are best friends, despite having very different approaches to life, relationships, and gender identity. Something Perfect collects the Twitter hit @pseudonymjones from 2014 to 2019, through adventures in creation, bad things, and being gay.” You heard it here. Now see it in softcover over there.

image c. 2020 Silver Sprocket

https://youtu.be/A8u7hrLuxoQ music: https://youtu.be/5mgYnwhM4eg If you enjoy, please throw a buck at us on Patreon! -- https://www.patreon.com/draggetshow all of our audio podcasts at https://soundcloud.com/the-dragget-show You can also find us on Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes & wherever you find podcasts! We have some great newshirts & merch from Merch Minion - https://dragget.merchminion.com/ Dragget Show telegram chat: https://t.me/draggetshow Robecast! 3DO, Jaguar, Xander's an old nerd - https://youtu.be/A8u7hrLuxoQ music: https://yout…

Hi, Papabear.

I struggle with self-worth as an artist, and find it difficult to see my art as anything other than garbage when compared to the countless amounts of art that I see out there. I'm not that good of an artist, but I like making comics. In fact, I'm currently working on a comic that I love doing, but every day, despite me working hard on it in my free time, I still feel inadequate and will never feel happy about myself. So I guess my question would be how I should approach my views on myself as an artist in the future.

Joshua

* * *

Dear Joshua,

Artistic types--whether they are painters, musicians, writers, or whatever--are often very self-critical. This is because the work they do is put out into the public sphere, making it vulnerable to criticism from the outside. Since many of us seek validation from others, criticism can hurt, and then we forget why we created the art in the first place.

Why do you create art? Why do you work on a comic book? Because, as you said yourself, you love to do it. 

You should draw and color because you love it, not because you want others to approve of you. This is only important at all if you are aiming to sell your artwork. That's when you do commissions and such, drawing or painting things that other people want to see.

As for the quality of your art, practice makes perfect. The more you draw, the better you will become. Work on your technique, perhaps take art classes (in a classroom or virtually), seek out advice from other artists, but most of all practice, practice, practice. Just like practicing a musical instrument, the more you draw and study technique and theory, the better you will be.

To answer your final query, stop comparing yourself to others and stop seeking validation from others. The only person you really need to please is yourself.  You are not put on Earth to get the approval of other people. Oh, and remember, some of the greatest, most brilliant artists ever born were criticized and even ostracized by the public.  Public taste does not equal good taste, necessarily.  In fact, public taste is often bad, dull, and insipid.

Be an artist because you love it. Draw your comic book because it makes you happy.

Hugs,
Papabear​

Bill Siracusa’s Overnight Shift is a bear romance with werewolves. We’ve got Dale, the big grumpy park ranger; Adam, the hunky electrician spending the night rewiring the ranger station; and Kate, the other ranger who leaves them alone until the end of the story. You can probably guess what happens next. Dale feels territorial about the interloper on his turf, on top of feeling somewhat ill; they have some tense conversations where it slips out that they’re both into guys, then they have a couple beers and make out. And then it turns out Dale is a werewolf.Bit of an adult content warning, a couple illustrations in this book show exposed male genitalia, so be careful about reading this book in public!I did appreciate that they got over the “will they/won’t they” phase so quickly, and the thing holding them back was the perfectly reasonable question of whether the other guy was even interested. It would have been nice to have some clue to how Dale got infected with lycanthropy, but the foreshadowing is well written. Dale could have had some mundane illness before he changed, and for a couple pages after he flees Adam’s kiss it seems like Adam just came on too strong to him, until Adam finds the claw marks on his arm. When the transformation sequence does come up it’s suitably graphic, and seems rather painful, in Dale’s case at least. It’s a little strange that Adam not only has a much less painful transformation, compared to the tingling after your foot falls asleep, but retains most of his mind while Dale seems barely able to speak and partially amnesiac. I will, however, dock Siracusa points for using the tired “pack dominance” trope, even after Adam notes that that theory of wolf pack dynamics is outdated in real life. Once Adam has gotten Dale-Wolf in a sleeper hold and hogtied him with spare wiring he starts to act like the sub in a BDSM scene, though it’s possible that was Dale rather than the wolf.Overall I’d say this is a pretty decent gay werewolf erotic story, if you’re into big hairy men fucking and turning into wolfmen this can kill an afternoon (in a good way).

Today, May 3rd, the FWG administration announced a series of proposed changes for which the membership was to hold a vote. It was soon made apparent that we had overlooked some significant details and that discussion and restructuring of the proposals would have to take place.

In accordance with this realization, we hereby announce a discussion period during which the finer points of the proposals may be analyzed with the care they deserve. This period will extend through May 9th, during which time all FWG members are invited to share their thoughts and concerns. A new vote will be held thereafter. Official discussion will be taking place >in this thread on our forums.

We apologize for the hasty rollout and thank you for your understanding. We look forward to hearing from you.

Hello once again FWG Members! We know there’s been a lot of guild news going on lately, but we want to get a few big things done so we can focus on more fun projects. As mentioned in a previous announcement, while we did not need votes for our guild officers this year we will still be holding a very important vote.

First we intend to explain the changes being made. A link to a form for FWG members to vote will be included at the end of this blog post so be sure to go vote if you can!

We wish to bring to a vote an update to our by-laws. You can view our current by-laws >here. While these are well written, we noticed some things needed updating such as:

• A general update to remove services we no longer offer (like a Shoutbox) and update to services we currently use
• The addition of officer positions made by the previous administration that have been excellent and effective
• A more detailed procedure for removing members of the guild if necessary
• The ability for the Cóyotl Awards Chair to be voted for (we had no actual method for choosing our chairperson previously)
• Actually have a procedure for if and when guild officers may not be able to perform their duties for how they could be replaced
• Modernize voting procedures for the future

The amended by-laws being brought up for vote can be found >here. All changes are highlighted in red.

We also wish to strengthen our Code of Conduct. Our current Code of Conduct can be found >here. We wish to make minor changes like with the by-laws to update services, but also would like to make one other large change.

We would like to add a section on unacceptable content to the Code of Conduct. We believe there are certain subjects that should never be presented within a positive light. This is in line with what we have seen from publishers within the fandom and we want our guild to reflect this as a part of our core values.

We would like to offer a general content warning as some of these things might be triggers for some within our community. >The full listing, alongside the changes we wish to make to the Code of Conduct can be found here. Changes to the Code of Conduct are highlighted in red.

Edit: Due to fantastic feedback from guild members, we have realized the previous wording for the Code of Conduct may have created problems for many members of the guild. We have changed the language within the amended Code of Conduct to reflect this. We will be accepting any re-votes from members that would like to change their vote due to these changes.

We have also now created a forum thread for discussion that you can find >here.

We would now like to bring these amendments to a vote! Voting will remain open for two weeks, from May 3rd through May 16th. The link below will take you to the official voting form.

>FWG By-Laws And Code of Conduct Voting Form

 

We want to once again thank our members for being so awesome while we get a lot of work done within the guild. We hope these changes will be able to make the guild bigger and better than ever before!

 

Well at least somebody is getting out and about! Papercutz have a brand new full-color comic series, Brina The Cat. The first volume is called The Gang of the Feline Sun. “Brina, a city cat, moved to the mountains with the owners for a summer holiday. Here she meets some stray cats who call themselves ‘The Gang of the Feline Sun’. The new friends convince her to escape her owners and become a free cat. But while Brina enjoys her newfound freedom and all the new types of delectable bugs the countryside has to offer, her young owners are panicking over losing her, a member of their family. Brina must make a choice to live with her owners, where it’s safe (but confined) or go free in the wilderness.” Written by Giorgio Salati and illustrated by Chirstian Cornia, it’s available now in hardcover and paperback editions.

image c. 2020 Papercutz

原作者: Rick Griffin

翻譯: 德羅布

(經原作者之授權)

A fun run through of the news with delicious friends on video call.

FurCast is sponsored by Twin Tail Creations. Use coupon codes REDWOLF or BLUEFOX to save 15% on silicone products during checkout. Free FurCast Themed Colorations are also available which can be applied as a color choice to your toy purchase.

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Link Roundup:

• Tycoon needs our help with a video
• Many Nintendo accounts broken into through credential snuffing
• Telegram teases group video calling features
• Anthrocon is canceled (just after last episode)
  • Anthrocon’s Tweet
  • Journalist Tweet
  • WTAE Article
• Xavycake passes away in motor vehicle accident
• Eurofurence also canceled
• VirtualFurence
• DownHomeFC
• FWA defaults to rolling over reg, gives partial refunds
• Buncha drama over the bisexual pride flag copyright
  • Reply from BiNet

News:

• Mini Generator Cheaply Converts Heat Into Electricity
• Oregon Man Drove to 11 Different Wendy’s for Free Nugs
• Keywest Cancels Hemmingway Look Alike Convention
• Human Grabber Social Distance Violations in India
• Japan Wants you to call their Lonely Eels
• Zoom Fatigue is a Real Thing

Emails:

• Hiroji the Sergal – “Thoughts on FC-363 Vegans for Satan – discussion on COVID”

[Live] Frostate

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Bearly Normal and Taebyn launch their newest endeavor. A PodCast about, well, really just about whatever they feel like.  Come spend time with them. It's 30 minutes, well, spent.

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Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, Cheetaro, TickTock, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting #1, COVID, Cons and Math

Hello there Furry Writers’ Guild Members, this announcement is especially for you! We have over 200 members in our guild listings including those with associate memberships. That’s an incredibly impressive number we should be proud of!

The truth of the matter is though, these numbers do not accurately reflect guild activity. We have run into specific issues while trying to do more work to support our members. Some of these things include:

• Authors changing the handle they go by online
• Authors changing fursonas in general
• Authors transitioning in some way (we don’t want to use the wrong pronouns for members)
• Links now going to dead websites
• Links going to wrong accounts (having moved accounts on sites like FurAffinity)
• The email registered with us is no longer accurate (we need this for confirming votes in things like the Cóyotl Awards)
• Some writers have left the fandom entirely, have stopped writing, or are unable to be found with any information we have.
• Without an accurate number of membership, running votes for things like changing membership criteria, which require 30% of guild members voting to make changes, is essentially impossible

With these things in mind we intend to do a full update of the guild listings beginning now and ending May 31st. We are asking all members of the guild to fill out this form to remain in our public listings.

>FWG Directory Listing Update Form

When we update our website we will be populating our membership listings to only show those that have updated their information to have a more accurate look at current guild membership. We want to stress no one is losing their guild membership through this. Any member will be free to rejoin our listings even after the deadline.

We sorely need updated information on members to promote them. We also want to show writers that are reasonably active for those that visit our website. Readers of anthropomorphic literature can use these listings to find authors to read and potentially commission, so we want this tool to be strong to help support our members.

To ensure we get the word out on this change we plan to do several things:

• We intend to reach out to members on all available platforms we have available: email, social media, etc. to inform them of this update.
• We will keep our previous list so that if any members miss the deadline they will only need to update information to be put up on the website
• We will be respectful towards members of the guild who may have passed away since their listing was added. We’re hoping to research any names we can and maintain their membership in memoriam. If any guild members know other members specifically to mention, please let us know.

We understand this is a big shake up for the guild but it is important for our continued functioning to do this. We’ve needed to make these updates for a long time so it’s time to bite the bullet and make it happen. Thank you for your continued support! 

 

[FBR Note: We received this review from Leo Award nominated author Gre7g Luterman and are just posting it for your pleasure. This review is unedited.]Snakes aren’t the most intelligent creatures on the planet—domestic snakes especially. Anyone who has kept one as a pet can tell you; even eating—one of the most basic things a creature can do—can be challenging for them. It’s a miracle that they survive at all!But what if they weren’t quite that stupid? What if they were as smart as people? They’re so drastically different from us physically… how would that difference in perspective manifest in their personalities? Furthermore, what if mice—the most basic food source for just about every breed of snake—lived alongside them? Forget for a moment about how unlikely that might seem, but what if it happened?Frances Pauli spins a tale in Disbanded, putting just such a scenario into motion. The story stars Sookahr, a young and well-meaning snake who is born into a world that is fundamentally unfair. Their society is a caste system, for starters, and who you will be and what will be your place depends entirely on things you can’t control—be it the type of snake you are, your coloration, or even whether you were born a snake at all.Whether he picked it or not, Sookahr likes the role he landed into. He’s going to be an architect, and he’s pretty good at it. Fresh out of school, he’s been tapped by his favorite professor with an opportunity to prove himself to the Circlet—the ruling caste. But to do so, he’ll have to go on an adventure to prove himself. And, unsurprisingly enough, his adventure in the jungle doesn’t go well. In fact, it immediately brought the movie Apocalypse Now to mind. All we needed was for Sookahr’s buddy, Lohmeer, to have an uncontrollable shouting fit of “Never get out of the f’ing burrow! Never get out of the burrow!” and we’d be there.Disbanded does start a little slow. Sure, Sookahr seems like a decent enough sort of person, but it takes a while before the telling proves that we need to care about whether he succeeds. We’ll see that much more is on the line than just whether he will become a successful architect or not, so stick with it. The payoff will be worth the read.One thing that amused me about the story is that Pauli sets Sookahr up to realize something that we the reader realizes far faster than he does. Each time he wonders about this, the reader ends up shouting at the pages, “It’s obvious, stupid! How can you not realize this?” He is still a snake, after all. But we get so convinced that this is going to be the story’s “big reveal” that we find ourselves rolling our eyes at the melodrama. Well, don’t worry, this is not going to be the big reveal. Pauli pulls the ol’ switcheroo on us and the realization we think will be played up as earthshaking-when-it-really-isn’t is revealed almost incidentally. The big reveal actually happens about 2/3rds of the way through the novel and will make you wonder where this story could be going.Note that Disbanded is told in first person. I love first person narratives, but not everyone does, so your mileage may vary.Finally, it’s worth mentioning that when Sookahr hatches (not a spoiler, this is chapter one) a mysterious voice promises him that he will change the world. By the end of the book, the world really hasn’t changed all that much, but Pauli has already confirmed that book two is in the works, so we can assume that all this world-changing still lies ahead of Sookahr.Fortunately, Sookahr does get out of the f’ing burrow, and he will make the world a better place, even if he must do it one down-trodden creature at a time. Disbanded was a good story and I’ll certainly be reading the rest of the series when it comes out too.

Hello everyone! I’m incredibly thankful to be the new president of the Furry Writers’ Guild. We have a lot of things to get to in this big update so let’s get started! As my reign of terror begins (wait perhaps I should have worded that better) I want to first personally thank our previous administration for all the work they have done to keep the guild running. It takes a lot of behind the scenes effort to keep things running smoothly and they all deserve to be applauded for it! 

I outlined a lot of plans within my platform and intend to hit the ground running on getting them going. There is a lot coming down the pipeline, so for now we’re going to give a brief update and give some specific details in the coming days. I’ll try to keep things as brief as possible. So no more preamble, let’s get to it!

Modernization And Updates To The Guild

First we would like to announce our brand new official discord channel! This channel has some fun features including a special beta reading program that you can find details on by joining up. We also have specific discussion channels and plan to host fun events using this new platform. 

We’ll be transitioning from using the Slack channel to using our Discord in full over the next week, so be sure to join if you enjoy our Coffee House Chats. Remember: our discord channel is open to the public, not just members of the FWG so we hope you will all join us there!

Our New Logo!

We will also be updating the website in the coming days; in fact you may have noticed we’ve already made some changes! We have needed A fresh new look will bring some excitement to the guild, and with that comes our brand new logo. I know our lovely fox typing away has been a mainstay of the guild for a long time, but it’s time to give the guild a more modern look. 

Full Update Of Guild Member Listings

Alongside the visual overhaul of the website, we would like to make sure our guild listings are also up to date. We’ve been taking greater efforts to help promote members of the guild and have noticed a lot of listings aren’t up to date, people have changed handles, fursonas, and some links to websites are entirely dead. 

As we have to update the website theme to something currently supported by wordpress, it may involve serious site maintenance as is. There is no better time than now to get this done. Hopefully we can tackle this one and have it done before the end of May. We will be giving a full update on this project tomorrow, but any FWG members wanting to get ahead of the game and submit their updated info can do so here.

A Vote To Amend The By-laws and Code of Conduct

While I was able to win the presidency unopposed, we will still need to hold a vote about updates to the Code of Conduct as well as the Guild By-laws. Some updates are needed in general, like to have a process to decide the Cóyotl Awards Chair as well as add other processes we have needed for some time. We also hope to reorganize officer positions to better define each role as well as officially add roles that were temporarily made during the previous administration. 

Through this, we hope to also make it so volunteering for positions in the future won’t be too large a workload to discourage people from helping. Speaking of, we will likely being reaching out for volunteers to help with things soon so keep an eye out!

We also intend to bring up for discussion and potentially a vote, changes to our Code of Conduct. We would like to consider strengthening it to reflect the values of the guild as well as be in line with what the majority of publishers within the furry fandom expect when receiving submissions. We will have an update with details and a call for a vote coming to you this Sunday.

I understand that this looks like a lot and I cannot lie: the guild is going to be busier than usual as we try to make these important changes. One of my major goals as president is to bring in more active members and have many fun activities for those looking to join our ranks. I hope that by getting us organized proper, we will have a better ability to do this going forward. Here’s to the exciting future of the Furry Writers’ Guild!

Hey, look what we found on Twitter: A new “pixel art” game developed by EggNut and available on Steam. “Backbone: Prologue is the first act of a noir role-playing detective adventure. You are raccoon private eye Howard Lotor, a second-class citizen of a dystopian Vancouver, BC inhabited by animals. Interrogate a diverse cast of characters, collect evidence, and choose which leads to follow.” There’s a better trailer up on YouTube as well.

image c. 2020 EggNut

被吵很久喔www

不客氣(幹

 Cat – https://e621.net/post/show/2136427

Raccoon – https://e621.net/post/show/1919507

Dragon – https://e621.net/post/show/1622217

Panda – https://e621.net/post/show/1450403

Bunny – https://e621.net/post/show/2127607

Fox – https://e621.net/post/show/1537213

喔幹

蛤???
繪師：https://twitter.com/ChillTeaAmirite

傲嬌owo
出處：https://twitter.com/WiredTail

我就不獸控制

蛤

有夠可疑

F

馬ㄌ薯

你以為你是直男嗎? 不再是了

阿斯

反駁樓上的

OwO

恩

呃呃呃

不會啦幹

Courtesy of Changa Lion and the Confurence Archive, cover art by Ken Sample. 5 years after it was founded, the club newsletter covered news from 9 American club chapters and the 1982 release of Don Bluth’s Secret of NIMH.

Sy Sable co-founded the first furry con and helped grow a new worldwide furry fandom, with 1970’s roots in a small clubhouse in Los Angeles.

On 4/4/2020, Sy Sable (Mark Merlino) sent this brief history of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, founded in 1977. His story comes from recent message trading with someone interested in the C/FO and those involved. He couldn’t connect her to people out of contact for over 20 years, but he could tell how the club started. 

Today, there’s a worldwide network we could call capital-F Furry fandom, but some key founders were “proto-furries” who met at the C/FO. The club introduced new and unusual imported Japanese anime that was starting to reach America through rare home video tech. Club members loved anime for featuring adult, science fiction and action themes unlike 1970’s American animation aimed at kids (then dominated by studios like Hanna-Barbera.) There was a lot of “giant robot” anime, but certain fans preferred to combine adult themes plus traditional “funny animal” comics and animation that eventually spun off their own, new hybrid fandom.

Sy was a founder who went on with partner Rod O’Riley to host 1980’s science fiction convention room parties, then ConFurence in 1989, and longstanding monthly parties at The Prancing Skiltaire in Southern California (when not under quarantine in 2020). The C/FO had other chapters and there were other fan groups, but this is a major root. Another founder, Fred Patten, wrote about the C/FO in How Home Video Created Anime Fandom — or check Fred’s review of Joe Strike’s Furry Nation history book that covers this. (Fred was also a writer with Jerry Beck, East Coast C/FO chapter founder and animation historian, tying in much more history.) Sy says: “This is from my perspective and drops names something fierce… but it IS my personal take on things.” ( – Patch)

In the early 1970’s, Star Trek fandom led to fan introductions through Loscon, the LASFS, and ASIFA Hollywood.

Here is how it happened, from the beginning. I attended a Star Trek convention in the 70’s with a friend. I had no previous experience with fan conventions and I was amazed. They had recreated the bridge of the Enterprise, and it was even better than the actual set. It was not made for money, nor for a production, it was built just because they were fans. They eventually used that set (which could be dismantled and moved, unlike the real set) to film promotions for the syndicated TV Star Trek show (and some commercials). The point is that this was my introduction to the concept of fandom. 

I discovered that there were several fan conventions (science fiction and comics, mainly) happening in my area during any year. I went to Equicon/Filmcon which was a fan ran media convention in LA, and volunteered as a projectionist. I ended up running the department. Back then, if you wanted to screen science fiction films, you had to rent 16MM films from places. This is how I got into screening films for fans. It turned out that one of the oldest (literary) science fiction fan clubs in the US was in Los Angeles (started in the 1930’s). The Los Angeles Science Fiction Society (LASFS) met in their own permanent club house in Burbank every Thursday night. That club had an annual convention, Loscon (2 years old at that point). 

I have always been a fan of animation, starting with Disney films (when I was a child) and later including anything animated; Hosted TV shows that showed early theatrical cartoons, even from Europe and the USSR, early animated shows made for TV (basically TV comic strips, they had so little animation) and shows from Japan that were translated for US TV. Amazing 3, Astroboy, Gigantor, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer, Marine Boy, etc. When I was in college and the university, I pursued my interest by tracking down existing animation studios and actually met many of the greats, including Tex Avery, Walter Lance, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and more modern well known creators like Ralph Bakshi. I made friends with a background painter at UPA, Ron Diaz, and he introduced me to others in the industry and in ASIFA Hollywood, the local chapter of the International Animated Film Society (the letters are out of order since the organization was founded in France).

ASIFA Hollywood hosts the Annie Awards, one of the most prestigious animation industry events — Fred Patten’s friend Jerry Beck is president.

From ASIFA Hollywood, I met Wendell Washer, a story board artist for Filmation — and some of his friends, including Judy Niver (also an animator) — and Robin Leyden (a special effects contractor) who was also a fan of Japanese animation and had some B&W video tapes of Astroboy, which had been off the air for many years. Wendell was also very interested in animation, and a collector. He had a Sony Umatic VCR (3/4″ cassette, broadcast equipment). He was recording animation off TV, including shows from Japan that were broadcast on UHF stations in Southern California on Japanese local networks. The shows were recent productions from Japan, 16 MM film that had burned-in subtitles produced by Kiku TV in Hawaii. I had been watching these shows myself, and I was amazed that someone was keeping copies. I had a Umatic VCP (player), and on the last day of Loscon (1972 I believe), I happened to have the player in my car, along with some of Wendall’s tapes of Uusha Raideen and Getta Robo G.

At Loscon, I set up the player with a TV in a meeting room at the hotel and began showing the tapes. Eventually we had about 20 people watching, and really enjoying the episodes. (Including SF authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell.) Fred Patten was also there. When we were asked to leave the meeting room, we moved the rig to the Dead Dog room party and continued the screening. Afterward, Fred asked me how many episodes and shows I had, and I told him about Wendell’s collection.

Fred suggested we have an “informal” screening at the LASFS clubhouse every month. The 2nd Saturday was available, so I hauled my TV (they didn’t have one, being a “book club”) and Umatic VCP, and the monthly screenings began. 

The weasel mascot for the club was named Fanta. She was a skiltaire, an alien race created by Mark Merlino. Merlino was also known as Sylys Sable, the co-founder of the first furry convention ConFurence in 1989. pic.twitter.com/WQpk02WYHl

— City Pop Possum (@KaiserBeamz) May 29, 2019

Starting the C/FO for anime screenings and importing rare videos from Japan.

At some point (in 1977), we had managed to add material to our screenings, thanks to Marc Kausler, an animator and film collector. People with contacts in Japan began trading tapes with other fans. By that time I had my own VCR (a Sanyo V-Cord II, because it had still frame and slow-motion features, which no other consumer VCR had), and I began making copies for our (my) own video library. In May (I believe) Wendall, Judy, Robin, Fred and I met in a park near Judy’s house and decided to become the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. I remember the weird name was Fred’s idea (but he later denied it). The reason it was called “cartoon-fantasy” is because they (not me) believed that the term “animation” was too “insider” for typical fans, though everyone knew about “cartoons”. The “fantasy” part was because we were also getting live-action adventure shows from Japan (like Ultraman, Spiderman (Jp), Tiger Mask and many 5 member “transforming ninja” team shows), which were also popular at our screenings. 

After a couple of years Fred told us that the LASFS did not want to host our screenings. He said it was because they could no longer guarantee our 2nd Saturday dates (but I suspect that it was because the club was always anti-media. It was a “literary” club, after all.) Judy Niver suggested we could move to the Animator’s Union Hall (Teamsters), in North Hollywood, and they eagerly agreed to host us. The meetings continued for a couple of years at the hall, including two visits from Dr. Osamu Tezuka and some young animation students from Japan. We even had the first (non-film festival) screening of “Cleopatra, Queen of Sex”, Tezuka’s soft-porn animated feature. It was here that Robin Leyden presented Tezuka with the statue of Astroboy he had made as a gift. At some point Judy decided she was not interested in the club and we had to move again. 

The Prancing Skiltaire youtube channel is curated by Changa Lion, who also runs the ConFurence Archive for vintage materials of the C/FO and more.

For a year or so after leaving the Union hall, we met at the home of Louise Hitchcock, who had set her place up as a pub, with a large meeting room and game room. (Louise and I became a couple for a few years, and that is when we had two skiltaires as co-mascots, based on her and I). We searched for a new venue, and a fellow LASFS fan and friend who had a dance studio in Inglewood volunteered his place (in the Youtube video above). The C/FO met there for a long time, passing it’s 20th anniversary at that location. We have guests like Fred Ladd, creator of the US Gigantor and Kimba, and the founders of the first US TV producers of Giant Robot and SF Japanese shows. 

During all this, I began organizing (myself) screening rooms (using video tape) at various science fiction and comic conventions. I had a lot of problems with some of the convention organizers who claimed I was a “pirate” and would get the convention in trouble for showing “copyrighted” material. Though at the same time, they wanted to add my videos to the convention programming! I was not just showing anime, I was also showing classic cartoons, SF films and TV shows like the comedy SF show Quark (which nobody claimed at that point). Fred suggested that these screenings were “sponsored by the C/FO”, and some were labeled that way.

At the time, I developed a set of rules to protect myself from possible problems with copyright I called “Catch 33” (a pun on the famous WWII story Catch 22). It goes like this: If the video screening room is not promoted in any convention literature, then the video screening room cannot be considered a way to attract attendees. If the video screening room is not a part of the convention program, and takes place in a room open to anyone that happens to be in the hotel, then people are not “paying” to see the screening (you don’t need a con badge to be in the video room). There may be a printed schedule for the room, but it is only available at the con information desk, and also posted outside the video room. These rules worked. In the 20+ years I organized video screening rooms, I (nor the convention organizers) were ever bothered by anyone about copyright or “public screening” problems. At Worldcon Phoenix in 1978, I had an agent from the film security board (looking for bootleg video tapes bring sole in the dealer’s room) in my screening room enjoying the videos, and his colleagues had to come find him. They gave me no trouble. 

So, there you have it, the history of the C/FO, according to me. Of course I left stuff out, but this is how it happened based on my personal recollection. There are still active chapters of the C/FO — Los Angeles and San Diego I believe — and maybe even regular screenings. 

I hope you enjoyed this personal history of the first US anime club. 

– Mark (Sy)

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