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A fuzzy mess… the good kind. We can not possibly thank our fans enough for continued support over the last 8 years. In celebration of the “big 301” we threw a party, drank, retold fun stories, laughed & had a great interview with friends. Here’s to another 8 years and another 301 episodes!

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Watch Video Interview:

AvWuff & Gnaw from Kerfluffle join us in studio to discuss the history, planning process and involvement in their semi-frequent furry party based in Toronto, Ontario. Interview B-roll courtesy of Arctic Sky Wolf’s YouTube channel.

Link Roundup:

• Paradox’s Werewolf T-Shirt from WerewolfVDesigns

News:

• Dogs Hold Grudges While Wolves Kiss And Make Up
• Woman Comes Home To Find ‘Pole-Dancing’ Koala
• Accident-Prone Koala Rescued For Third Time After Getting Stuck In Fence
• New Study Finds Creative People Are More Likely To Murder Others In Their Dreams
• Phillie Phanatic Shoots Baseball Fan In the Eye With Hot Dog

FC-301 Steakback Outhouse - A fuzzy mess... the good kind. We can not possibly thank our fans enough for continued support over the last 8 years. In celebration of the "big 301" we threw a party, drank, retold fun stories, laughed & had a great interview with friends.

A fuzzy mess… the good kind. We can not possibly thank our fans enough for continued support over the last 8 years. In celebration of the “big 301” we threw a party, drank, retold fun stories, laughed & had a great interview with friends. Here’s to another 8 years and another 301 episodes!

Download MP3

Interview:

AvWuff & Gnaw from Kerfluffle join us in studio to discuss the history, planning process and involvement in their semi-frequent furry party based in Toronto, Ontario. Interview B-roll courtesy of Arctic Sky Wolf’s YouTube channel.

Link Roundup:

• Paradox’s Werewolf T-Shirt from WerewolfVDesigns

News:

• Dogs Hold Grudges While Wolves Kiss And Make Up
• Woman Comes Home To Find ‘Pole-Dancing’ Koala
• Accident-Prone Koala Rescued For Third Time After Getting Stuck In Fence
• New Study Finds Creative People Are More Likely To Murder Others In Their Dreams
• Phillie Phanatic Shoots Baseball Fan In the Eye With Hot Dog

[Live] Steakback Outhouse

Dear Papabear,

The other day, I had a rare day out into the capital with one of my friends and I managed to meet up with a few of hers. One of them took me by surprise as he was an older guy, mid-40’s as a guess, with a nice round tummy. And, I do certainly have a thing for older, round-tummied men.

Once the day out had ended and I was back home, I wrote him a message asking if, because he was single, if he’d ever consider having a male companion. He told me he was cool with me being gay and liked me as a friend, but was only really interested in women. It’s a bit of a blow to discover this is a straight-crush, but that’s besides the point. Even if it never goes romantic, he still seems like he’ll be a great friend to me.

The point is that he’s a smoker. He told me he only does about 3 a day, so it could be a lot worse. But, regardless, smoke is still smoke. I’ve had a highly adverse attitude to smoking for as long as I can remember, partially because of how it’s a key sign of falling for peer pressure, partially because of all the health-risks it imposes (I do actually wander if I have some milder form of asthma, given how easily I get out of breath when I attempt to run or jog, but I’ve never been diagnosed or anything. I also can’t help but think that it can’t taste all that good to kiss someone who smokes. Perhaps that’s something that could be resolved with a good tooth-brushing, but if it tastes as bad as it smells, I’m not all too sure.

All that being said, I did still fancy this guy, despite knowing he smoked. He was friendly and charming and, in my eyes at least, a very good looking fellow. So, I do question if smoking should be something I put to one side when looking for guys. Therefore, I ask, what should I do if I come across another man I fancy and they also turn out to be a smoker? Do I favour my metaphorical heart, or the one that pumps blood around my body? Or, maybe something in-between?

I guess this is the curse of being attracted to rounder guys. They might be better for rubbing and snuggling up against, but they’re rarely the result of a healthy lifestyle.

Hugs,
Anonymous 

* * *

​Dear Furiend,

Since this fellow is straight then there is no issue about kissing, and since he only smokes three fags a day, I'm sure you can hang out once in a while and avoid the smoke. Put that one aside.

Yes, smoking is a bad habit and I, too, avoid smokers. My parents were horrible smokers. I would come home from school and there would be fog banks of smoke in the house and the walls turned yellow with tar. I am convinced, too, that this was the source of all the earaches and infections I got as a child, which eventually led to a burst abscess in my ear and partial deafness. I despise smoking, especially cigarettes. I do admit, though, that I love the smell of a good pipe. It's weird that I find pipes sexy and attractive, but cigarettes make me retch. And it's not just the mouth of the smoker that is affected. Most smokers' clothes also smell of smoke, as do their homes. So, yeah, blech.

I wouldn't necessarily call smoking a moral failure, however. My mother started smoking after she gave birth to my sister and gained weight. This was back in 1962, and her doctor recommended she take up smoking to lose weight. There are still people today who smoke as a way to keep from eating too much. Also, cigarette companies fill the tobacco with nicotine to deliberately get people addicted, so there's that. As for older guys with tummies being unhealthy.... Hehe, well, when you get a bit older and your metabolism slows down it becomes more and more difficult to keep yourself thin. Back when I was in my twenties I could eat about anything and my weight was 140 lbs (63 kg). Today, I give a sideways glance at a brownie and gain three pounds. It is even harder for women than men to lose weight because of their physiology being designed to maintain fat to sustain producing children. Another thing, too, can be medications. My fiance is overweight because the medications he takes for various problems stemming from his military service cause him to gain and maintain pounds.  There are a number of drugs out there that do this, and you can't do much about it if you have to take the medicine to survive. So lets' not be too judgmental, shall we?

As for falling in love with a chubby smoker.... Fall in love with the person, not the appearance, when it comes to weight.  Habits are a different matter.  Sometimes, if you fall in love with someone who, say, smokes, you can convince them to stop and help them to do so. (BTW, furs, vaping is bad for you, too; don't be fooled.)

Same with more difficult things such as alcohol and illicit drugs.  It can be a tough row to hoe, though, and you really have to love them deeply to commit to that kind of stress.  If you are just meeting someone like that for the first time it might be best to say, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Take it on a case-by-case basis. There is no catch-all answer that applies to everyone.

Hugs,
Papabear

Ok, So this apparently is a thing. SQUIRREL!
View Video

Dear Papa Bear,

Hello! My name is Coffee, and I am in my first relationship. I don't really know if it is a very official relationship. It was a bit sudden. It started when in a discord vc we got married as a joke and it was all fun and stuff. The day after he asked me if I would like to go on a date and date him. I had never really dated anyone before, I mean you could count kindergarten dates but I don't, and so I was pretty stunned that this would happen. He's a nice guy and he cares about me, but I don't know. I'm not sure if I like him as much or in the same way he likes me. The guy, let's call him Jake, I think likes me quite a bit. The problem is we live quite far apart. We have 13 hours between us, and so it can be a bit difficult keeping up with each other. This is not to say we haven't tried like working it out I guess, we had our date (we went on a movie night) and are planning to go on another one. However I don't whether this is fair for him, or I guess myself. He deserves being with someone that cares about him as much as he cares about them, and I guess I do too, which I think is a bit selfish. I'm not sure what to do. I kind of want to break up with him because I'm not as into the relationship as I would want to be, but I really don't know how to go about it. Do I vc him? Text him? I feel like it would be best to do it over vc but I don't know if I'm up to it. If I was given more time with him to really get to know him maybe I'd like him more but IDK. I apologize for this brain dump, I realize it might be all over the place but that's just how my mind is working through this problem right now.

Coffee (age 17)

...
Dear Papabear,

I submitted a question about my relationship situation around a week ago and I wanted to remind you of it. I also wanted to tell you of some recent developments! I got some advice from a friend of mine that the next time my boyfriend (?) (I forgot what I called him in the last letter so I'll call him Wolfie) and I had a date that I should see how I feel after the date and break it to him. I'm grateful for her advice, and I trusted that she had my best intentions in mind. We have been friends for a couple of years now and we've helped each other through some hard times. Well, Wolfie and I were having a doodling date that night, so I made myself some coffee and put a little liquid courage in it before heading up and getting on VC. 40 minutes into the date he started kinda asking questions, and I told him how I felt. It might have been the extra ingredient in my coffee or my guilt but what I had struggled to tell him in previous conversations just spilled out. He understood where I was coming from and, albeit close to tears, told me that it was alright and that he would be willing to wait for as long as I needed. I thought, and still think, that Wolfie has a heart of gold and everything and that he loves me, but I guess this is the same problem as the one you discussed in your latest "He Wants to Hear I Love You Back" letter, but in the opposite person's view. I haven't felt a spark and we haven't spent much time together, and so I'm really not sure how to go about this. I've only ever had 2 crushes in my life, both of which were because the guy was extremely cute/handsome and neither of which were romantic. I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I explained to Wolfie that I felt guilty in keeping him from finding someone who loved him like he loves me, but he insisted that he could be patient. 

I hadn't really thought about it, but this new development has kinda made me question my romantic orientation. Am I demi? Am I aro? I've tried to read up on the romantic spectrum, and a lot of the aromantic stuff says that aromantics don't have an instinctual want for a romantic relationship, so I don't think I'm aro because I still feel the need to be held and still have some want for a relationship maybe way down the line. But at the same time, I'm not sure if I'm demi simply because my thoughts around relationships always were centered around the question of sexuality, and not so much romanticism. 

I hope that this information will maybe help you keep a clearer picture of my situation. 

Yours Truly,

Coffee

* * *

Dear Coffee,

You're overthinking this with regard to your sexual/romantic orientation. The reason you're having a hard time connecting romantically to Wolfie/Jake is simple: distance. You are 13 hours apart, right? Your relationship is mostly via the phone and the computer. This is a fairly new development in human relationships, so there is still much debate on social media and among sociologists and psychologists as to how feasible and practical LDRs really are. If you want Papabear's opinion, a relationship with little or no physical contact is lacking an essential ingredient that will leave both parties wanting. They simply are not satisfying.

Is it possible that, in the future, the two of you will be living in close proximity? If not, my opinion is that you are better off just being friends and that, in addition, this has no relevance to your romantic orientation. That is something you can only figure out when you've had a couple relationships of a physical nature (not meaning sex necessarily, but human beings need touch, hugs, kisses). If you do plan on living near each other or even with each other at some point, then have patience until that comes along and perhaps don't break it off just yet. Young people are always in such a hurry to make decisions about their lives that really should not be rushed into. You have time.

Hope this helps.

Hugs,
Papabear​

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Tomori’s Legacy, by Beryll and Osiris Brackhaus.
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, May 2018, trade paperback, $15.99 (165 pages), Kindle $4.99.

Tomori’s Legacy is the Brackhaus’ Packmasters #3. I reviewed #1, The Relics of Thiala, and #2, Raid on Sullin, favorably. This #3 is the shortest, but it’s no less rip-roaring, space-opera fun. The cover, again by Darbaras (Dávid László Tóth), features Cat, the series’ narrator.

The Packmasters series is set in a far-future interstellar community. Cat (the narrator), Ferret, Bear, and Wolf are four bestiae, bioengineered anthro-animen in hiding, led by Ana, a young human with semi-suppressed Packmaster powers. The bestiae are considered beneath contempt by most humans, and were enslaved by an arrogant cult called the Packmasters who used them to try to conquer the galaxy. The Packmasters were apparently all killed by the rest of humanity in a bloody civil war a generation ago, and the bestiae were all slaughtered except for a few that powerful humans kept as pets. Ana, a mistreated adopted orphan now in her early twenties, escapes with the help of Cat. They gather three other bestiae and discover that Ana has Packmaster powers; but instead of her using them to dominate the others, they form a pack of friends with a telempathetic bond under Ana’s leadership, Cat’s guidance, Bear’s piloting, and Wolf’s muscle (plus the mostly-childlike Ferret). They steal a luxury space yacht, the Lollipop, belonging to a corrupt human Senator, Viscount Tomori, and flee to Vandal, a distant space station towards the Fringe of the galaxy that is (what else?) “a wretched hive of scum and villainy”. But Tomori comes after them. The Relics of Thiala ends with Tomori and Bear dead. In Raid on Sullin, the remaining four form a tighter family, Bear is replaced as pilot by Ferret, and they are joined by Ten, a battle-hardened gazelle who is no less deadly for being a herbivore.

To quote the beginning of the blurb for Tomori’s Legacy, “Viscount Tomori is long dead, but his affairs just don’t want to rest in peace.
[…] Now Ana and her pack are part of the power struggle among the crime lords of the Rim, and have to return to Darkside before things get out of hand.”

The climax of The Relics of Thiala is the bestiae and Ana stealing Viscount Tomori’s space yacht and fleeing to Vandal, a criminally-owned space station; Tomori’s coming after them; and the fight in which he and Bear are killed. Raid on Sullin begins with the authorities of Vandal ruling that they acted in legitimate self-defense, and “to the victor belongs the spoils”. Ana, Cat, Ferret, and Wolf are the new owners of the Lollipop. They are immediately sidetracked into the adventure of Raid on Sullin.

Tomori’s Legacy begins with their return (with Ten, the gazelle) to Vandal, where they are stunned to learn that they weren’t given only the Lollipop. They are the new owners of all Tomori’s property. Since he had run his clan as his personal possession, they now own his criminal businesses, including a shitload of thugs and schemers who each want to take over and become the new boss of Clan Tomori.

Yuki Tomori, the Viscount’s niece, spells it out for them:

“‘Maybe you are not aware of the extent of the Syndicate’s aggravation with us. They have cut off all our business connections and frozen our accounts. Our products are stacking up with no way for us to sell. We simply can’t afford to have you killed. If this continues just a few more weeks, Clan Tomori will cease to exist. And you will walk away empty-handed.’

[…]

‘I see,’ Ana said slowly. Judging from the way I sensed her thoughts racing, she was scrambling to understand what was going on as well. ‘And what do you propose?’

‘Come back to Darkside. Assume control of Clan businesses. The Syndicate has made it clear that they will accept nothing less as proof that you have indeed claimed your due. Only then will they stop blocking us.’” (p. 18)

“Unaware of the fact that we were just now catching up to what she was talking about, Miss Tomori continued. ‘I will be honest with you: Comtessa Tomori, the late Viscount’s wife, has ordered me to agree tp anything you might demand and promise you everything to lure you back to Darkside, but she will be plotting against you the moment you step off your ship. The idea of losing control of the Clan to an outsider infuriates her to no end. She hated the Viscount as much as everyone else did, but she obviously wants to lead the Clan herself now and one day pass it on to her son, Kato. You have been to Darkside. You know what a cesspit of human refuse it is.’ She smiled slyly. ‘I, however, have only to gain under your leadership. The Viscount had my mother and father, who was his brother, killed when I was very young. He only kept me around as a curiosity and even now I am used as the expendable sacrifice by being sent to talk to you. I know that the Comtessa fully expected you to have me killed as her first messenger. So I pledge to you my loyalty and swear to serve you.’

What a dangerous viper. If I had needed any more convincing that this woman could not be trusted, this would have been it.

‘Can I have the hot chocolate with ice cream?’ Ferret interrupted Miss Tomori’s scheming.” (p. 19)

Ana and the bestiae, despite their misgivings, go to Darkside, a deadly desert world. They plan to stay only long enough to free the bestiae there under criminal gangs’ control, although they can certainly use the profits from Clan Tomori’s businesses. They have some advantages that the Clan doesn’t know about, such as their telempathetic bond, Ferret’s apparent naïve childishness (now mostly an act), and Cat’s pretending to be a barely-controlled predator:

“At least I looked the part of [a] dangerous criminal. The various scrapes I had been in during our recent adventures had taught me that I needed better protection, so I had spent some of our hard-earned money buying some pieces of armour. Granted, I had picked them more for how cool they made me look than how good they actually were. The armguards were useful for storing additional knives and the new jacket had a deep hood that hid my ears and with a little squinting made me look like some sort of sinister assassin. Being an all-black cat would have helped a lot, but my pink nose and the cheerful colour of my fur were things I’d just have to live with.” (p. 36)

What will Ana and the others encounter on Darkside? Can Yuki Tomori be trusted, or will she betray them – and how? What unexpected surprises will Cat and the other bestiae get? Tomori’s Legacy ends on a cheerful note, but with the reader looking forward to Packmasters #4.

– Fred Patten

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Roo and Tugs hosted this episode as a surprise livestream on YouTube live, clearing out the mailbag and interacting with the audience along the way! We discuss everything from pie to religion and everything in between. It's like a lost episode on crack!





NOW LISTEN!
Show Notes
Special Thanks

YOU - our audience! Thanks for joining our stream!
David 31, Bobby Thornbody, and Timid Grizzly for our idents!
Everyone who was patient with us getting into the mailbag!

Music

Opening Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller– Cloud Fields (Radio Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Potty Break & Close: Fly Octo Fly Remix - Online Release. USA: Soundcloud, 2018. ©2018 Retrospecter. More information is available on Soundcloud. Remix used with permission. Based on Off The Hook: Ebb & Flow ~ Fly Octo Fly - Octotune. Japan: Nintendo, 2018. Original song ©2018 Nintendo.
Space News Music: Fredrik Miller – Orbit. USA: Bandcamp, 2013. Used with permission. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Closing Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Headnodic Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)

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Lygris S7 Episode 17 – FWIW Online! - Roo and Tugs hosted this episode as a surprise livestream on YouTube live, clearing out the mailbag and interacting with the audience along the way! We discuss everything from pie to religion and everything in between.

Yup! Bend those knees.
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William Ross, also known as Billmund, is an award-winning artist originally from Sydney (Australia), living in Bristol (UK) since 2011. With animator Gobblynne, his wife, they run a little creative production company called Superdoodle. Having worked for many companies including Nestle, Samsung, or Cadbury’s, Billmund’s most remarkable furry-related work is Creatures of the Night (CotN), a 2014-2016 campaign for Jägermeister featuring their mascot stag and other animal friends in modern relatable scenarios, a campaign spread on social media. Billmund will be interacting with the furry community live for the first time at this year’s Sydney’s Harbour City Fur Con, July 27th to 29th, where he’s going to be a Guest of Honor. We interview him to find out about him and his work!

 

 
Mickey: Hello Billmund! You’ve been now living in Bristol for a couple of years. Why did you move to the UK?

 
Billmund: I met a British backpacker called Katy in Sydney circa 2010, and after dating her for 3 months she ran out of money and visa and had to go home. So we called it a day and went our separate ways. But I couldn’t stop thinking that she was the one, so a month later I arrived in the UK and we’ve been together ever since. Now we’re married with a son and we operate a production company together.

 
M: Wao! What a story! So doing crazy stuff is compatible with a family life.

B: Crazy stuff?

M: Meeting backpackers & moving to the other side of the world for the love of your life.

B: Haha yeah I guess that would seem crazy to most people, I was just adamant that I had to do it, so it seemed pretty normal to me at the time.

 
M: So a little more than a year ago, I found your art and website on the internet. And I thought, this looks like something furries would really love! You have one of those AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the website, where I wrote ‘Are you a furry?’ And you answered! Later, you’re accepted as a Guest of Honor at Sydney. How did you get to know the fandom?

 
B: It was through Tumblr I think, if you look through my archive all the posts before June 2014 are pretty much non-furry content. Then I started posting my social content for Jägermeister and I started getting a lot more followers, and a lot more notes on posts that were furry related. Then my inbox started to fill up with furry related questions and I think when I was trying to answer your question was actually the first time I ever googled what a furry was!

 
M: What I like though, is that you were already a moderately successful artist before the whole furry thing, so it’s like, it’s a plus, you’re not limited to the niche market. Though I’m sure you feel the pressure now to draw more animal related stuff!

 
B: Oh yeah definitely. I have about 50 furry commissions I have to slog through, and then when I have free time (which is rare) I need to create content just to keep my followers around, and also get products ready for the upcoming fur con, and then a big job for our production company lands on my desk and I’ve got to prioritise that. There’s a lot of drawing to do and not enough hours in the day!

 
M: How did the process of drawing Creatures of the Night go. Would they tell you what to draw, or would you suggest to them, would you brainstorm together… How did it work?

 
B: It was super simple really. The client sent me a very short character profile for everyone, e.g. “The Stag: There’s only one thing on the Stag’s mind, and that’s the pursuit of a potential mate on any night out” or “The Wingman: He’s the dependable one, always there, always in support. Often to his detriment.” And based on these one liners I imagined the personality archetypes of each character and how each character would present themselves, how their level of extroversion or introversion would influence their fashion sense, and how they might pose for a group selfie. The original posts were all set at night in the woods so they were very dark and draped in shadows, so I looked at a lot of Mike Mignola’s work.

 

 
M: How would a furry go on to commission you? Is there some place where they can see your commission status?

 
B: I’ve only just entered this fandom so I haven’t come up with anything cool like that. I think next round when I open commissions again I’ll just do the same thing, just announce it on Tumblr and Twitter for 24 hours and then close it. But right now my status is Closed.

 
M: Have you done something comic-related or do you have plans of the sort? Some anthro work you’re gonna have in store you’d like to talk about?

 
B: I’ve got ideas but nothing concrete, like an ongoing CotN comic. I’ve got the first 5 pages in my head and some rough character arcs but I shouldn’t say watch out for the new comic until I’ve got it mapped out. I can say for definite that I am going to be at Harbour City Fur Con, I’ll be on an artist panel, and I’ll be in an exhibition and I’ll have art books to sell, and I’ll be hanging out if you just want to come along and say hello!

 
M: I’m gonna show this marvellous t-shirt design you did. How did the idea come about?

 
B: Haha, thanks! That was for a Threadless competition call the Big Prize or something. It was for $10K so I wanted to win really badly. I’d submitted a bunch of stuff to Threadless [clothing website] before with no luck and it was pretty disheartening, I’d actually sworn to never enter another competition ever again, but when I saw the $10,000 prize come around I broke the promise I’d made to myself. My strategy for a winning design was to pander as hard as possible to the folks at Threadless. Their best selling t-shirts all feature either cats or space or both so I knew I wanted to create some cats in space. There’s a load of pop culture garbage in my mind so when I thought of cats in space the iconic Voltron graphic floated straight to the top of my brain. I thought about what it might look like if Voltron was made of real cats rather than robot cats and so I started searching for photos of cats in jars on Google image search. I used these as photo refs to build my Voltron, but knew I had to come up with a tag for the image as I knew it would look great with some type treatment in the style of the Voltron logo. This was the height or the tail end of the cat meme stranglehold on the Internet, so much so that I thought this is basically the Internet right now, just a bunch of cats. And I just pushed the 80s vibe to the limit with the mullet and epic sword energy and old Mac, and it worked. I won the prize!

 
M: Aaaah! Strategy! Smart!

 
M: I have one last question, how did the guys at Harbour City Fur Con approach you?

 
B: One of the founders, Dave Cao, got in touch by email I think, and he was on a Euro trip, and happened to be in Bristol and so we met up for coffee at the Crazy Fox [Bristol coffee shop]. He explained how he’d recently created a furry convention in Sydney, their first con taking place just last year. And how he’d like to have me as a guest of honour and how much potential there was for my work in the furry space. I was so curious and flattered at the offer, not to mention being given the opportunity to have my flight paid for and see my family and friends for a few weeks sealed the deal for me. I’m really excited for it, I’ve got 3 weeks in Sydney before the con, and I’ll be making art the whole time for the exhibition so I’ll be knackered but it’ll be cool to have that build up and anticipation for the con. I’ve got high hopes for this being a great event.

 
M: I’m sure it’ll be! Thanks for the interview!

 
B: Cheers mate!

 
Check out Billmund’s Twitter @Billmund, and Sydney’s convention @HCFurCon.

The entry Interview with Billmund,</br> Artist for Jägermeister appears first in FurryFandom.Es.

Possibly the strangest “all ages” comic book you’ll find this year. Maybe we should let the publisher, American Mythology, explain The Filbert Factor: “It’s the kids’ comic that you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy, the comic that was too outrageous for Free Comic Book Day! We don’t like to brag, but this is one of the most ridiculous things you’ll see all year, with a cast that’s absolutely nuts. Filbert and his reluctant pals Hazel and Cashew find themselves the toast of the town after miraculously winning their middle school science fair competition, but the town itself is about to become toast when the swirling, yowling Meowstorm roars into the city of Turtleview. And wouldn’t you know it, only Filbert and his friends stand between salvation and certain cat scratches and allergic attacks.” It’s also written by Mike Wolfer, with art by Adrian Ropp and  Horacio Domingues. And it’s available now. [We’ll see you after Comic Con!]

image c. 2018 American Mythology

New furry film from China being released Czech Republic. No English trailer and I do pick up a hint of Secret Life of Pets here with a bit less budget and mostly cats. Translated description as follows: "Nine lives, nine times the adventure! They are lazy and they all have a claw, but cats have a big heart, they have their legends and days when they experience incredible things. One such remarkable and adventure will be the new animated comedy The Story of the Cat. Cat and his son have everything. They live on the high with a comfortable home, from the height of a skyscraper, and nothing is missing. It is said that cats have nine lives, and these males use only the first, satisfied and without problems. But you know the kids, they want to know the world, something to experience and the little boy would like to look very much in the famous paradise of cats. He sets up his own flying machine and sets off on an adventure about which to tell and film once. Put on your glasses and it's gone! Dad has to overcome himself, all his fear and unpleasant memories of the past, and embark on a rescue mission. Not only in the jungle of the city, the trails lead to a real wilderness full of traps and wildlife. Although he has a helper, the parrot parrot Ara, he is still waiting for a journey where nine cats will be useful. All are waiting for a bunch of experiences, fun and unexpected encounters that they would never dream of without the little cat."
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Dangerous Thoughts, by James L. Steele.
Grove City, OH, KTM Publishing, June 2018, trade paperback, $15.00 (369 [+1] pages).

Dangerous Thoughts is Archeons, Book 1. The setting is so unusual that it needs to be quoted at length:

“A bubble in spacetime expanded from a single point at eye level. It grew wider and wider until it seemed to rest on the circle of stones off the pathway. The bubble wavered and puckered as it held open against the pressure of the surrounding spacetime trying to collapse it.

The opening caught the attention of several inhabitants of this world, and they approached it. On the other side they saw a planet none of them recognized immediately, of fiery volcanoes and two daytime stars in the sky, one red, the other white. Standing on this alien world were the two sentient beings who had opened this hole. The natives of this world instantly recognized them as Deka and Kylac, two Archeons from the planet Rel.

[…]

The Relians visible through the wavering sphere approached it. They grew larger, filled up the opening until finally they emerged from its surface. The first to step through was a theropod covered in blue scales so dark they were nearly black. A red stripe ran up the top of his snout and down his back to the tip of his tail. Immediately after his tail exited the portal, a bipedal canine with digitigrade legs and a slightly hunched posture followed. His belly was white, his forearms were black, and the tip of his tail was white as well. The rest of his body was covered in red fur. They stood side by side and observed the people as the unstable sphere closed behind them.” (pgs. 3-4)

The two Archeons, shown on the cover by ThemeFinland, are Deka, the theropod, and Kylac, the mammal. They have just recovered from an explosion that killed their fellow Relians and destroyed the portals, “leaving hundreds of planets without links to other worlds.” (blurb):

“‘The portals went out!’

‘What happened?!’

‘Ricio told us she can’t make a way offworld anymore!’

‘She was unconscious for days!’

‘We could not reach anyone!’

Deka and Kylac had been among many species who had evolved in herds, and they never tired of their way of welcoming newcomers among them.

The crowd became larger. Movars both furred and furless poured out of the portal on the other side. Word had spread quickly of their arrival, and people from all over the planet came to greet them. Deka and Kylac knew they did not make this much of a fuss over every visitor, but the disaster had touched them as well, and they wanted to know what was happening.

Deka looked around. They had landed on a branch of a stone path designated for unannounced visitors. The branch connected with a larger path that reached for a hundred paces in both directions. Other paths split from this walkway and ended in circles of stone, dozens of them as far as he could see in both directions. Each would normally have held a portal to another world, or to another place on this world. Now he only saw six portals open, and they wavered and rippled, struggling to hold their spherical shape. Movars rushed out of these portals and joined the group around Deka and Kylac. Everyone wanted to touch them, talk to them, hear from them.” (p. 5)

Deka and Kylac had been offworld when Rel was destroyed and the portals collapsed. They were unconscious for days. The first five worlds that they travel to offer no clue to what happened. Movar, the sixth, presents the first clue in the form of dead Rel bodies:

“Kylac, Deka and Ricio stood facing a line of Relian bodies, some reptile, others canine. Swaths of scales and fur were missing. Huge streaks of flesh and bone gone, exposing organs underneath. Enormous holes had been torn through the bodies. Legs missing. Arms half severed. Faces gouged to the bone. Sometimes part of the bone itself was missing, as if it had melted away, leaving the remainder of the skull smooth and polished.” (p. 12)

What happened? That’s what Dangerous Thoughts is about:

“Deka woke up in the middle of the night. It was cold up here without the star to warm his scales, so he reached out and pulled his fox closer. It woke up the fox, and he tapped noses with his raptor. They met each other’s eyes. They had been together long enough to know they were thinking the same thing.

They had only been to five planets. They could not be the last of Rel, and they refused to accept the possibility. They would rest with a herd for a bit, and then they would make a way to a new world. Deka began the calculations.” (p. 13)

Deka and Kylac travel from planet to planet to find out. The inhabited worlds of the entire universe present a myriad of exotic species and spectacles. Warning: the universe is not human-centric. Do not expect human-type civilizations everywhere. Deka and Kylac are intelligent, but as ThemeFinland’s cover shows, the Relians do not have clothes. Neither do most species. Nor are they mammals:

“Birdlike creatures filled the sky, backlit by a tiny, green-hot star. They leaped from the trees, soared down, and landed on the tree stump, surrounding the Relians. The had bright plumage ranging in the blues and yellows and whites and greens. Especially green. Green on this planet was so vibrant it was painful to look at directly.

These birds stood upright about as tall as the theropod and the canine, wings unfolded and waving around, forming broad gestures accentuating their chirps and warbles. The raptor and the fox took a few moments to shed the Movar languages and recall this one. Deka had the easiest time speaking it, as his vocal chords were better suited to imitating their high-pitched chirps. Gradually the words became clear.

‘The portals disappeared!’

‘Is everyone all right?!’

‘What happened? Where is everyone?’

[…]

The birds continued to chirp and squawk and gesticulate. It was difficult to get a word in with these people. Kylac explained what they knew, which was very little. As the fox did, Deka turned around and peered over the edge of the platform. Just under the surface of the ocean, another group had gathered: the aquatic species of the Ixcian culture.” (pgs. 17-18)

This is only to page 18. There is a whole novel to describe the marvels of the universe. To give away a couple of minor spoilers, the disaster is not natural. Deka and Kylac visit Earth. This is only Book 1 of The Archeons.

– Fred Patten

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Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

And yet more from Animation World Network. (Sheesh, there’s a lot coming down the pipe!) Guru Studios (home of the popular PAW Patrol) have a new animated series in production called Pikwik, aimed at the preschool set. “In the town of Pikwik, every day is a new surprise as thoughtful Suki the Hedgehog leads her team, Trevor the Racoon, Hazel the cat, and Tibor the hippo to help deliver surprise-filled parcels to the colorful residents. The 11-minute stories are packed with silly hijinks, big adventure, and heartfelt charm that will entertain preschoolers while underscoring the value of team work, responsibility, and critical thinking.” For once, there are actually plans to release this new series in the US — on Disney Junior, in fact, starting in 2019.

image c. 2018 Guru Studios

So many furs! Videos like this make me wish I wasn't so lazy when it comes to traveling across the country for events.
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Thanks Tempe and Dralen for this guest post, a good followup to my “heart of the furry economy“. – Patch

Oxford English Dictionary

The furry fandom is big and complex. We each have our own groups of friends, and our little sub-fandoms centered around specific shows and interests. It’s easy to not see the fursuit for the fluff.

Once it a while, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at it as a whole.

Furry is incredibly socialist.

This seems like a weird statement on its face. How can a community of people who like cartoon animal media be socialist? Well, we make, buy, and sell things.

“But wait!” you might say. “That’s using money! Furry must be capitalism!”

Socialism doesn’t mean abolishing money, like they do on Star Trek. It just means the economy has to benefit regular people, instead of companies and a handful of the ultra-rich. In fact, since the Furry fandom literally invents itself without some overarching canon coming from any one movie, TV, animation, or comics studio, no one person can ever control who gets paid for their unique creations. This power resides in the creators themselves and the furries who support them. Furry is open source.

It’s also important to look at what furry isn’t: As much as furries love mass media aimed at us (either accidentally or intentionally), Furry is not run by any central authority. There is no corporation or boss dictating what can and cannot be in furry. There is also no central source for merchandise and licensing for “Furry,” and this allows everyone to create openly and freely. This decentralizing nature makes Furry impenetrable to corporate interests, by and large. Wal*Mart may sell cheap generic fursuit heads (which may be an inexpensive entry into the suiting lifestyle), but it’s not your character.

Furry also doesn’t own its own venues, hotels, or restaurants, so some of the things that allow furries to meet and mingle are borrowed and rented, and somewhat outside of the control of the event runners. As such, there are some aspects of furry culture that are subject to market forces beyond our control.

But once you learn that “creators controlling their own business” is the dictionary definition of socialism, you realize furries are positively soaking in socialism.

FURRY SOCIALISM

The furry community is exceptionally socialist. We’re just not used to thinking about it as an economy. Most of its commerce (be it art, fursuits, books, et cetera) is done by people who control their own means of production.

What does that mean? Basically: furry content isn’t made in a factory owned by some rich guy. Let’s say you’re drawing some furry art. You own your computer and graphics tablet. You post the art online without having to pay anybody for the privilege. You can even sell it directly to a customer without asking anybody for permission. (When has FurAffinity ever taken a cut of the money for a commission you bought there?) The product of your labor —the money— is pretty much yours alone.

This is the opposite of, say, making a car in a factory. Every tool you use is owned by some rich people, who get even richer by taking a big chunk of what the customers would otherwise be paying you. If you’ve ever worked a job at a restaurant you can’t afford to eat at every day, you’ve run into this same failure. If there are 10 employees and you serve 200 meals in a shift at a 75% profit, shouldn’t you each be able to afford to go to that restaurant —or one like it— about 15 times for each shift you work?

TL;DR:
If your workplace charges ~$20 per meal, your labor’s worth $37.50/hour.
If your workplace charges ~$10 per meal, your labor’s worth $18.75/hour.

This model applies to just about any business: grocery stores, fuel stations, electronics stores, factories—you name it. It’s a simplification, but not by much. (Tempo, one of the writers of this article, worked for almost a decade building account systems for businesses.) Most businesses run on 6th-grader math.

Where does all the money go? A lot of it goes towards paying another company for advertising to get more business to make the higher-ups more money, while the workers have to work harder and longer hours for the same pittance. (A great advertising campaign doesn’t result in wages going up.) Do the math for your own job some time. You just need to plug in different values. Think about how different your life would be if you were paid a fair wage. This is why people get so mad that economic growth and tax cuts get surrendered to the wealthy. If rich people stop getting paid for doing nothing, we can all afford to live the good life.

No matter what you’re doing in the furry fandom, you’re not handing off most of your paycheck to billionaires.

• Art Commissions: It takes a lot of drawings to wear out a graphics tablet. Most of what you’re paying for is the time it takes to practice for a decade or more, read 1000 tutorials, get an art degree, and finally draw the picture of your fursona booping Nick Wilde’s snoot.

Meanwhile, commissioners support artists and share their commissioned pieces for social capital.  It both boosts the artist’s visibility and supports their creative endeavor financially, like the relationship between patrons and artisans in the past, when art was more highly valued socially and culturally.

• Fursuits: Fake fur and plastic foam cost very little compared to the time it takes to make one—and train to make a good one. Not to mention all the extra time and sanity it costs the maker if you’re getting it customized.

• Novels: Even books work this way. About half of the cover price goes to printing, but the rest is split between the publisher (a handful of furries who edit, assemble, and sell the book) and the writer and illustrator who you’re mostly paying like a commissioner. You’re just splitting the commission with everybody else who bought the book!

FURRY CONS

At a larger level, conventions themselves are pretty darn socialist.

• They are controlled by the community, not some outside company. Want to help run the con? Just sign up, work hard, and stick to it year after year. You’ll end up running a panel track or the artist alley or some other big aspect of it. A lot of cons make a big deal about joining as a volunteer and then moving up to staff, but guess what: The staff are all volunteers, too!

• Nobody is getting rich off them. Even the “CEO” of a con is working for free. Your reg fee goes to cover renting the space, printing badges, and other shared expenses. The sponsors and patrons at a con help subsidize and lower the cost for regular attendees.

• Content they produce is available to all furries, even if they didn’t attend. When your favorite author launches a new book, is it only possible to buy it at the convention? No way! It’s usually available online within days of the con ending, if it wasn’t already on pre-order. But convention sales recoup a lot of printing costs, which makes it worthwhile to print the book in the first place. What’s more, a huge amount of projects get started at conventions, simply because you’re putting so many creative furries in the same place and letting them brainstorm. We all benefit. Even if we never attend a single convention.

• More money doesn’t buy you a radically better experience. Even the shiniest super-sponsor only gets additional swag/access—both of which are available to regular attendees. Some cons offer a special “gala” event in thanks to the patrons and sponsors that gives an air of exclusivity and elevates the overall experience without truly stratifying the total experience of all of the different levels of attendees.

FURRY WEBSITES

The same argument could perhaps be made for furry art sites.

• Community-run, non-profit. All the mods and coders are volunteers. When you comment on FA or post photos from a convention on social media or even just add tags on e621, you aren’t doing that for profit. You’re doing that because we’ve all agreed, without ever saying it aloud, that we benefit from people pitching in.

• For the benefit of everyone. For the low price of zero dollars, you can make an account on a furry site and check out tons of cool art and stories. The same applies at the friendly furry newspaper you’re reading right now: articles about the fandom, written by people in the fandom, hosted online for you for free. No pay walls, no levels of membership.

• Money can’t buy you a meaningfully different experience. Some furry sites sell memberships, but this is basically just a PBS tote bag—a thank you for donating money. Having a little star by your username doesn’t change your experience much.

• Even for-profit sites are artist-run. Sexyfur, Tailheat, and anyone on Patreon require payment—but even these often make some version of the content available. Even in these corner cases, you’re still supporting independent artists directly and not giant corporations. Artists that make some or all of their money through Patreon or some other sort of paywall are still controlling their own production, and charging what the market will bear in a collaborative way with their patrons and customers.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

So the furry fandom is socialist. What good does that do you, as the average furry? Well, it means that the economic system of paying billionaires to do nothing all day isn’t the only game on Steam. We, as a society, have options. And it’s examples like furry that you can point to when you’re having conversations about how the economy should work.

The furry fandom as we know it couldn’t exist without socialism. Just because you’re buying a fox costume doesn’t mean you’re not spending real money.

Socialism isn’t magic. It’s just math. It even works in our fandom, where the math is always a little fuzzy.

About the writers:

Dralen Dragonfox is a Toronto furry that has been in the fandom since 1993, and currently is on staff for Camp Feral!, volunteers for Furnal Equinox, and co-founded the monthly party Howl.

Tempe O’Kun is a novelist (Sixes Wild, Windfall) and writes for furry media analysis channel Culturally F’d. He lives in North Dakota and is a husky dog cowboy.

"Why do millennials hate the rich?"
"Why do millennials pirate everything?"
"Why do millennials drift towards socialism?"
"Why are millennial furries?"

One answer: Disney's Robin Hood

— Zev, Devourer of Chickens (@Fox_Fusion) July 11, 2018

Editor’s note from Patch:

I suggested adding “what furry isn’t”.  If we talk about things not being centrally-planned and stratified, even different wealth or popularity doesn’t stop an average fan from participating DIY-style.

If we say it’s not industrial-capitalist, that means there’s no furry-labor-class with furry-bosses ruled with automation. Even computers and imported fake furs make bespoke, handcrafted goods and experiences. Mass media/pop culture directs other fandoms, but furry has exceptional independence (I call it a dance with the mainstream.) And it was here in the 1980’s, fully-furred with its own cons and hand-made media, before the internet helped it grow.

If it was “libertarian” capitalist you might have to pay a private owner for sharing art. There’s respect for original fursonas, but that’s a social contract when it’s nearly impossible to truly enforce copyright and licensing of collective creations like a fursuit by a designer, maker, performer and photographers. (Stay tuned for my interview with Quietfire Tiger, where that point came from a Hollywood costume department for his TV appearance on Lucifer.)

It’s a village-commons concept. It has cottage industry where “pro fans” make a living fan-to-fan (see the heart of the furry economy.) But the village has no king.

Of course, it’s mostly culture and leisure. Furries don’t own hotels or properties (except some furry houses) so meatspace meets are temporary. But that can also happen for free in a park or a walk around town. While not everyone has the privilege to fly around to cons, uncritical nerdy fandom runs on passion. You can call it a bubble of escapism, and it may skew male and young and highly educated – but it still makes a worthy ideal and working model. (Silicon Valley skews the same way, but it’s seen as a test-bed.)

It’s also organic and nobody decided who could join. If you’re conservative, libertarian, or other, contributing good content outlasts natural disagreement among sub-fandom groups. It takes special effort to earn unwelcome.

I'm friends with people of all affiliations and yet none of them share racist memes, debate the reality of the holocaust, bash LGBT rights or spend time praising fascism.

Differing views don't require hateful behavior, which is why most people choose not to associate with it.

— Chip Foxx (@chipfoxx) July 13, 2018

The village concept and its organic success contradicts some shrill, trollish “OMG communism!” screeching from a fringe. When the community discusses being healthy about itself, rejecting nazi-furs isn’t “dictating” or “totalitarian” at all. It’s simply a very basic standard of free association by those who don’t want to hang out with hateful losers. Speaking of…

Oh look, alt-right fan art!  Enjoy the self-owning irony of using Orwell, as if he wouldn’t say “Nazi Furs Fuck Off”:

“The only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a socialist party.”

– George Orwell, “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party.”

George Orwell was socialist and his book Animal Farm makes a fine match of furry and politics. He wrote Homage to Catalonia about joining the Lincoln Battalion (the first racially integrated American military force) to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War. (Read: Far-right commentator gets ‘schooled’ by historian over George Orwell and Antifa.)

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We know, we know… Another item of interest at Animation World Network: It seems that Animal Planet will soon premier a new series with the rather straightforward title of Celebrity Animal Encounters. The premise is simple: Various celebrities sit down and talk about various encounters with various non-human animals, domesticated and otherwise… and their stories are then illustrated in a variety of mad animation styles. “Celebrity Animal Encounters began as a short-form digital series on Facebook Watch that drew in nearly four million views over the course of its four-episode run. It is being produced by Asylum Entertainment with the animation provided by Octopie Studios.” The new series starts up later this month, but you can check out the preview video now.

image c. 2018 Asylum Entertainment

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