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Happy Halloween
Crow
Here is a thesis film by Sonja von Marensdorff of the School of Visual Arts [1]/ as for the ecology of this world ... I have all the questions. [1] http://www.sva.edu/
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On hiatus with a house move
Furry news, reviews, interviews and more will be back after a while. The site has been active since 2014 with 1115 articles published. It will be nice to get going again with cool plans in the works, and more than 100 possible story projects kept on file. Check back later and thanks for reading. – Patch
C’mon
Dammit! Chatah Spots makes me want to run out and get a fursuit and a cinema camera. (But that road leads to madness and VERY empty wallet ...) "Do Everything, Regret Nothing C'mon by Panic! At The Disco, Fun."
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TigerTails Radio Season 12 Episode 07
Best of Fur What It’s Worth – S8 EPISODE 2 – MOM! MOM! MOMMY! MOMMY! MUM! MUM! MAMA! MAMA! - Roo and Tugs have this week off. Instead, we present a re-airing of our fabulous episode with the Moms of Furries! - NOW LISTEN! - See the show notes right here!
NOW LISTEN!
See the show notes right here! Best of Fur What It’s Worth – S8 EPISODE 2 – MOM! MOM! MOMMY! MOMMY! MUM! MUM! MAMA! MAMA! - Roo and Tugs have this week off. Instead, we present a re-airing of our fabulous episode with the Moms of Furries! - NOW LISTEN! - See the show notes right here!
[Live] Gay Bull In The Stable
The audience votes for our trashy pumpkin carvings, plus lots of news.
Link Roundup:- Pumpkin Contest
- Pumpkin Contest Results
- Celebration as Northern Ireland wakes to legalisation of same-sex marriage
- Telegram SEC hearing delayed a year
- The problem with the endangered species list
- Durham’s famous 5 foot 8 bridge will be raised
- ‘BoJack Horseman’ Season 6 Part 1 Review: The Final Season Kicks Off with Consequences and Contemplation
- Elon Musk sends first tweet through Starlink system
- Japan Approves Scientist’s Plan to Create World’s First Humanimals
- Most Expensive Camera Unboxing Ever | $400 000 Chronos Ring
- Furpock Hotel Tweets
- An Anonymous Company Will Pay $128,000 For The Rights To Your Face
- Cows are Painted to Look Like Zebras
- Incredible Invisible Shielding
- Would you use this see-through toilet?
- Iowa Family Blood Soaked Basement
Temper, Temper!
And now thanks to Animation Scoop we find out about Dino Girl Gauko, a new collection of anime shorts by director Akira Shigino (Osomatsu-kun). “In this Netflix original comedy series set in Japan, Naoko Watanabe is a typical 14 year old, except that she possesses a strange gift and curse. When her anger exceeds a maximum level she turns into Gauko the fire breathing dinosaur girl!” Look for it to premier on Netflix this November the 22nd.
image c. 2019 Netflix
Hothouse 10 – All the Rage
This short if from the National Film Board of Canada's Hothouse 10 [1] where they challenge filmmakers to use found sounds as the basis of their shorts and make something in 3 months subverting the sound's meaning in some way. This short reminds of an old Emo Philips joke: "I think fur looks better on an animal than on a human being. So I dress my dog in a mink teddy." "A mink walks into a fur store. Fantastic Mr. Fox meets The Shining in this stop-motion cautionary tale of what happens when we don’t think enough about what we buy." [1] https://www.nfb.ca/film/inside_hothouse_10/
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Mickey Go Local – Rainforest Hunt
Disney Southeast Asia [1] has a new Mickey Mouse web series that draws heavy inspiration from Paul Rudish [2]'s rather brilliant series [3]. While not at the same level of budget they do seem to manage well with what they have and the character designs are rather cool. Quite cute. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Channel_(Southeast_Asian_TV_channel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rudish [3] https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series)
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The Shadybug
Another cute animated commercial for the Netherlands based ASN bank [1] where they highlight the idea of not taking money from dictators. I gotta say this would be an interesting sequel to bugs life ... just saying. [1] https://www.asnbank.nl/home.html
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Rukus movie review
This unusual movie got 5 support articles before I was ready for a personal review. It’s hard to nail down, so the work got really labored over, but it deserves the effort. – Patch
Rukus was an artist from Florida who committed suicide in 2008 at age 23. He was a mercurial muse to his friends. Linear storytelling about him could make a sad movie, but Rukus comes from many directions. It overlaps documentary of him, with his boyfriend reflecting on their relationship, and his friendship with film maker Brett Hanover. His enigmatic presence weaves through Hanover’s personal life, which goes from trouble with OCD to finding completion in relationships and art. The life of Rukus becomes points on a trajectory of escape from pain.
The directing style frames lo-fi video with dramatized memories, daydreams and fiction from Rukus. They’re re-enacted by younger and older stand-ins for him, and voiced with animation. It’s one of those arty movies that doesn’t easily boil down to one commercial line, but it’s directed with purpose. When the pieces don’t fit together neatly, the negative space holds a chewy assortment of themes.
There’s repressed abuse, disconnection, and love outside of hetero norms. It touches on conflict with anti-gay religion in the Southern US, but it’s more involved with a setting in furry fandom. Furries have a loveably eccentric subculture of fans for talking-animal media that appears in fantasy art by Rukus, internet role-play, a hotel convention, and a stage play. Those feed the human connections in the movie. You also get to see a costumer called a “whore bear” and a moment of tender toes-in-nose contact that turns into crosswired love.
The movie is outstanding for merging fiction and documentary while drawing from a subculture rarely seen in any feature film. It premiered at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, where furries came for group fursuiting (with full body costumes that make unique “fursonas”). That’s sort of like how Comic Con cosplayers emulate Hollywood superheroes, but those don’t keep their powers when the movie ends.
Rukus casts animal shadows behind misfits who play muses for each other, and delivers bittersweet satisfaction. You can see it now on rukusmovie.com.
Just watched Rukus on Vimeo – an intersection of the furry world and the indie film circuit I never expected to witness. But I loved it! https://t.co/rKOvjsLJGv
— Apollo (@Apollo_Wolfdog) October 17, 2019
Lots to process tonight. I still miss him.
— Vulp-o-Matic 3000
(@triadfox) October 19, 2019
More reading between the lines — Figurative bridges and liminal places
There’s 6 bridges crossing the San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate is in the most movies. Outside my window, the Richmond-San Rafael bridge is glittering with traffic. In 1964, a troubled woman stopped her car in the lane there, got out, and leapt to her death. A journey cut short like that changes those left behind.
She was the wife of sociologist Erving Goffman. He focused on microsociology (personal relations between individuals) and symbolic interactionism. That’s about the theater of everyday life, and how people manage impressions they give to others. It can involve not feeling at home in your own skin, hiding insecurity or depression behind smiles, or role-play that helps make bridges to other people.
Goffman avoided publicizing his life, but the loss led him to write crypto-biographical work. He studied insane asylum inmates for a paper about stigma, mental illness, and institutionalization called The Insanity of Place:
Although the author does not make direct references to himself, he appears to be drawing on his own painful experience… It is hard to avoid the impression that we are dealing with a “message in a bottle” intimating how the author coped with a personal tragedy at a crucial junction in his life.
Brett Hanover described Rukus as happening in liminal space between people: social media and virtual worlds, punk houses in the south, and furry fandom hotel conventions. They’re temporary sanctums of liberation. Contrast with what Goffman called a total institution (a place cut off from the wider community, where people lead an enclosed, formally administered life.)
Rukus brings sanity to displacement felt by it’s subjects. Hanover gives his own biographical view that puts heart in the transitions from view to view. In one scene, the boyfriend of Rukus tells how he was found dead. It segues to a child stand-in telling his fantasy story to Hanover, which pulls out to show the movie crew. It lightens what came before, and loops back to where the movie started. Friends and animal shapes become ushers for Rukus to cross a bridge, and the hole he left is filled with elegaic spirit.
A critical look at the spirit of the movie might ask if it has to do with the zeitgeist. Maybe a little, when current news and politics has so much struggle about border walls and who belongs in places.
The insanity of place came up on Nextdoor, the neighborhood based social media platform. For the bridge outside my window, a pedestrian-bike lane was attacked as a waste, like everyone would be happy with just cars. The theme was “stay in your lane.” That drama fuels Best of Nextdoor, a misanthropic comedy channel with 8 times more followers than the company’s (and an ironic PR thorn in their side). When neighbors are jerks on social media, sometimes all you can do is laugh.
That ties to one of the year’s most talked about movies, Joker, with a sad clown who’s isolated and powerless in a degrading city. There’s a key scene with subway traffic where he violently fights bullies to gain his power, leading to media sensationalizing. The movie’s budget and PR force it to power over public notice, unlike Rukus with it’s intimate use of role-play.
The media ties to one more ingredient about the furries in Rukus. They’re shy about exposure from a history of tabloids exploiting them as freaks. It’s a small movie that dignifies with politics of caring, instead of forcing a message. We need more personal media like this about people crossing bridges together and finding their place.
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.
Werewolf The Apocalypse: Earthblood
Finally a video game version of White Wolf Publishing tabletop RPG: Werewolf the Apocalypse [1]! I have all the questions about this but at least it looks more like the original version of the game where the pack is fighting against the forces of the Wyrm [2] and corporate environmental disaster. "With his former pack in danger, Cahal returns to find Endron, the energy arm of Pentex [3], installing an extraction site and destroying the forest around his Caern." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf:_The_Apocalypse [2] https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Wyrm [3] https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Pentex
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Oh Fiddlesticks! Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra looks to hire fursuit creator for mascot costume
Winter Weight
These bear based commercials have been an ongoing ad campaign of SCANA Energy [1] that's been going on for a few years and here are the latest. I really dobelieve more companies should use spokes-bears. https://youtu.be/bU2Ui7CcRNY [1] https://www.scanaenergy.com/
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TigerTails Radio Season 12 Episode 06
Furry support: Good Furry Award open for nomination, MidAnthro launches scholarship.
In a group that loves supporting itself and its creators, funding is key. Some furry fandom activity can be a self-sustaining occupation, like creating art or fursuits. It can be nearly impossible for most fandom event organizing or writing. Corporate sponsorship is treated as toxic; crowdfunding is never a guarantee. It’s why things work the way they do, such as *ahem* the time-consuming work of news writing for nonprofit community benefit.
Awards that support furries who qualify are very rare. I’d seen flyers at cons for a furry writer’s residency program (although details aren’t turning up), and then there’s the Good Furry Award.
The Good Furry Award was established in 2018 by Grubbs Grizzly. It gives annual recognition to one winner for outstanding spirit in the furry community. The first one went to Tony “Dogbomb” Barrett. The winner gets a crystal trophy of recognition and check for $500 to use for anything they want. Grubbs says he made it because:
It seems to me that every time something negative happens in the fandom, people focus on that too much to the point of giving the entire fandom a bad reputation. Rather than paying attention to the few furries who cause trouble, I would like us all to focus on furries who do good things and are good people. Let’s give those furries some attention instead!
Nominations are open now. You can do it here: http://www.askpapabear.com/good-furry-award.html
The Cobalt The Fox Memorial Scholarship from Mid-Atlantic Anthropomorphic Association, Inc.
An annual $1000 educational scholarship is coming from The Mid-Atlantic Anthropomorphic Association, a Maryland nonprofit that organizes events like Fur the ‘More and Fur-b-Que. It honors Cobalt The Fox, their staffer who passed away in October 2017.
Who will it support? Details are pending for how to apply. Fur the ‘More’s chair Kit Drago told me: “it will likely be competitive. The application process is expected to have several criteria and questions as well as an essay.” (I wonder if the criteria could favor students in art or things like environmental/animal science, but wait for updates.)
The press release:
The Mid-Atlantic Anthropomorphic Association, Inc. (“MidAnthro”) is pleased to announce a new program which directly contributes to the furry community.
For MidAnthro staff, volunteers, and executives, the furry fandom has been a welcoming, warm, and supportive home. Whether each of us has been here for a few weeks or for decades, we’ve gained lifelong friendships, learned valuable lessons, and experienced the positive power of a diverse, creative community.
MidAnthro’s mission is to promote charitable giving, social responsibility, and education in creative disciplines via community-driven events. We have a vested interest in making this mission a reality for our fellow fandom denizens. In the words of our flagship program event, Fur the More, we want to “Go Further and Do More”.
David Gonce, better known as Cobalt to his friends, was an inquisitive, charitable, and supportive member of the furry community. Not only was Cobalt a staff member for MidAnthro events, but they were also a volunteer at for the Community Fire Company of Perryville. Cobalt, despite his positivity, abruptly left us on October 7, 2017. His presence, positivity, and friendship have been missed by everyone in the organization since then.
In furtherance of our goals as a non-profit organization, to help the community we so love, enjoy, and embrace with open arms, and to honor someone from that community who we unexpectedly lost two years ago, we are launching the David “Cobalt the Fox” Gonce Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship program is our way of commemorating Cobalt’s charity, kindness, and inquisitive nature.
The scholarship is open to anyone in the furry community pursuing an educational program at an accredited technical school, college, university, or training program and is valued at $1000 for one recipient for the current year.
For more details on the scholarship program, requirements, and the application process as it continues to develop, please visit http://www.midanthro.org.
Thanks for talking about this. My goal is and always have been to try and help our community grow, and be a positive light in a world often living in shadows.
We will be looking for volunteers interested in serving on a scholarship committee soon. https://t.co/y2B4jc7YgT
— Kit Drago 
(@kitdrago) October 21, 2019
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.
What A Versatile Little Alien
Recently at Los Angeles Comic Con we came across the work of Jonathan Hallett. He’s a career storyboard artist for a living, but in the original art he creates on the side he has a very special affinity for the alien half of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch — so much so that he draws the little blue one (and the pink one, Angel) as just about every other character from every other story you can possibly think of. (With an occasional visit from Toothless of How To Train Your Dragon, as well.) Visit his Etsy store, Stitchtoons, and see what he has to offer.
image c. 2019 by Jonathan Hallett