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On Sunday evening at Further Confusion, I chatted with Mark Merlino and Rod O’Riley of the Prancing Skiltaire furry house, founders of ConFurence, the first furry con. We talked about how a certain fandom controversy today is dragging on one that started all the way back with the divide between fans and “lifestylers”. That is, people who only liked furry stuff – vs. people who dared call themselves Furries, with a community beyond simply being a consumer for anthropomorphic animal media. It looks out for its members like any other.

This community recognizes contributors with annual awards. The awards are funded by Rod and Mark, and they need help. It’s a modest 3-digit cost… but still the help has to happen. We discussed the monthly model of Patreon vs. a one-time cost of GoFundMe or IndieGogo. Expect more info on that soon. Furry readers: is this something you would contribute to? Please speak up in the comments! – Patch  

Fred Patten tells more about those awards:

Nominations for the 2017 Ursa Major Awards opened on January 11, the first day of Further Confusion 2018. The awards celebrate the best anthropomorphic literature and art first published during the previous calendar year.

Visit their site to participate: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/

The awards are selected through a two-stage process of nomination and voting. Members of the public send in up to five nominations in each of the twelve categories. The top nominations in each category are then presented for a public vote.

Award categories:

• Motion Picture
• Dramatic Short Work or Series
• Novel
• Short Fiction
• Other Literary Work
• Non-Fiction Work
• Graphic Story
• Comic Strip
• Magazine
• Published Illustration
• Game
• Website

Many nominations are likely to come from the ALAA’s Recommended Anthropomorphics List, which has been built up through prior suggestions; however, inclusion on the list is not necessary nor sufficient for a work to be nominated.

Nominations close on February 15, and will be tallied during the end of February. The final ballot will be announced on March 1 and voting will take place until the end of March. All those who register for nominations may use the same registration key to vote in the final ballot. Those people who did not send in nominations may still vote on the final ballot. The ballots will be counted, the trophies made, and the results will be announced at the award presentations in Surfer’s Paradise, Queensland, at FurDU 2018, scheduled for May 4-6.

Please note that the nominations period has been shortened to only the first half of February, instead of the entire month of February as is usual. This is so the final ballot may be concluded at the end of March.

The awards are sponsored by the independent Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association.

Fred added that the Fursuit category is not active at this time because substantiating information is needed, and only one person made the effort to provide it since the time of the category started, so it will not be on the Recommended List for 2018. 

Our gamer friend WishStone Dragon joins us for a usual roundup of news, followed by some live furry game reviews and playthrough.

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Paradox’s Phantom New Years
• Edible Tide Pod Recipe
• Merriam Webster tweets about doggos
• IKEA Wants You To Pee On Their Advert, And It’s Actually A Pretty Neat Idea
• Fuck Youth
• Wired piece on “History of the word Doggo”
• Today I Found Out on YouTube: “Where did Werewolves come from?”
• Weird eBay seller with fursuits
• SwiftOnSecurity tweet about furries running Nuclear Communications
• Further Confusion tweets about HIV testing
• Vive Pro raises the bar for VR
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

News:

• 7 New Spider Species
• Damore Suit Google Caters to Furries
• Sexy Kangaroo Needs to Model
• Male Sexbots On High Demand 2018
• Owner of urn donated to Goodwill being sought by Washington State police
• Butcher trapped in freezer uses sausage to bash his way out
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

Furry Game Reviews:

We review three upcoming furry games. As of recording all three are based in Unity, have Patreon pages and are in “alpha” stages of development. Only one supported VR when we did our playthrough. Although each of these games may change drastically as their development continues, we share some comments, laughs and intrigue at the various directions they seem to be headed in.

Yiffalicious:

Yiffalicious Website

Yiffalicious Patreon

The Cathouse Tale:

The Cathouse Tale Patreon

Shades of Elysium:

Shades of Elysium Patreon

FC-290 Press 1 For Clothing - Our gamer friend WishStone Dragon joins us for a usual roundup of news, followed by some live furry game reviews and playthrough.

Our gamer friend WishStone Dragon joins us for a usual roundup of news, followed by some live furry game reviews and playthrough.

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Paradox’s Phantom New Years
• Edible Tide Pod Recipe
• Merriam Webster tweets about doggos
• IKEA Wants You To Pee On Their Advert, And It’s Actually A Pretty Neat Idea
• Fuck Youth
• Wired piece on “History of the word Doggo”
• Today I Found Out on YouTube: “Where did Werewolves come from?”
• Weird eBay seller with fursuits
• SwiftOnSecurity tweet about furries running Nuclear Communications
• Further Confusion tweets about HIV testing
• Vive Pro raises the bar for VR
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

News:

• 7 New Spider Species
• Damore Suit Google Caters to Furries
• Sexy Kangaroo Needs to Model
• Male Sexbots On High Demand 2018
• Owner of urn donated to Goodwill being sought by Washington State police
• Butcher trapped in freezer uses sausage to bash his way out
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

Furry Game Reviews:

We review three upcoming furry games. As of recording all three are based in Unity, have Patreon pages and are in “alpha” stages of development. Only one supported VR when we did our playthrough. Although each of these games may change drastically as their development continues, we share some comments, laughs and intrigue at the various directions they seem to be headed in.

Yiffalicious:

Yiffalicious Website

Yiffalicious Patreon

The Cathouse Tale:

The Cathouse Tale Patreon

Shades of Elysium:

Shades of Elysium Patreon

FC-290 Press 1 For Clothing - Our gamer friend WishStone Dragon joins us for a usual roundup of news, followed by some live furry game reviews and playthrough.

Our gamer friend WishStone Dragon joins us for a usual roundup of news, followed by some live furry game reviews and playthrough.

Download MP3

Link Roundup:

• Paradox’s Phantom New Years
• Edible Tide Pod Recipe
• Merriam Webster tweets about doggos
• IKEA Wants You To Pee On Their Advert, And It’s Actually A Pretty Neat Idea
• Fuck Youth
• Wired piece on “History of the word Doggo”
• Today I Found Out on YouTube: “Where did Werewolves come from?”
• Weird eBay seller with fursuits
• SwiftOnSecurity tweet about furries running Nuclear Communications
• Further Confusion tweets about HIV testing
• Vive Pro raises the bar for VR
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

News:

• 7 New Spider Species
• Damore Suit Google Caters to Furries
• Sexy Kangaroo Needs to Model
• Male Sexbots On High Demand 2018
• Owner of urn donated to Goodwill being sought by Washington State police
• Butcher trapped in freezer uses sausage to bash his way out
• Man Rams Armored Vehicle Into Shop Just For 1 Bottle Of Wine

Furry Game Reviews:

We review three upcoming furry games. As of recording all three are based in Unity, have Patreon pages and are in “alpha” stages of development. Only one supported VR when we did our playthrough. Although each of these games may change drastically as their development continues, we share some comments, laughs and intrigue at the various directions they seem to be headed in.

Yiffalicious:

Yiffalicious Website

Yiffalicious Patreon

The Cathouse Tale:

The Cathouse Tale Patreon

Shades of Elysium:

Shades of Elysium Patreon

[Live] Press 1 For Clothing

So this will be a thing soon.
View Video

Welcome once again to the FWG Awareness Week! To help us in our goal of highlighting minority culture and writers in furry literature, we’ve reached out to editors, authors, and publishers in the fandom to bring you a short reading list of works both from and about our region in focus: Southeast and East Asia. While this is by no means an exhaustive list of titles, we hope it serves as a good jumping-off point and gives a rough starting view of the cultures and people from this area.

From the region:

Allison Thai (who we interviewed earlier this week) is a Vietnamese-American husky who has been published in several furry anthologies, including Symbol of a Nation, ROAR 8, and Arcana – Tarot. Readers may be interested in her story, “A Time For Giving“, from Arcana, about an injured, stranded Russian wolf who is given hospitality by a family of Mongolian horses, despite her deeds as a treacherous NKVD agent. Her entry for ROAR 8, “Hope for the Harbingers“, sees God lift up damned souls from Hell to appoint them as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, while Death finds a glimpse of redemption in doing his duty.

Al Song, a Laotian-American kangaroo with a degree in German literature from University of Washington, writes in “Serenity in Blue” (from FANG 8) about a fresh college graduate unhappy with his employment as a security officer, and his attempt to seek out a better future for himself. In “Tempus Imperfectum“, to be published in Tales from the Guild – World Tour 2, a young Italian otter newly immigrated to Germany finds friendship and romance through his high-school orchestra.

Singaporean artist and writer MikasiWolf writes in “Adversary’s Fall“, from Gods With Fur, about the mythical Monkey King, who, with the help of a drunk merlion and an old comrade, seeks vengeance against the most powerful demon of all. His story, “Fathers and Sons“, found in Dogs of War, talks about a young recruit who, despite his disastrous first day in military service, eventually learns the experience gained by generations of servicemen.

About the region:

Faolan provides “Instinct“, the closing entry to the Species: WOLVES anthology – an account of a lupine K-Pop idol pack of the same name, as they attempt to maintain group cohesion despite their individual egos and feelings for one another.

Takaa Silvermane‘s story collection, Closer Than Brothers, examines gay relationships throughout history. “Sparring Session” follows fox Gichoi and cat Daejung in in 667 CE South Korea. Following Korean funeral rites of the time, the two soldiers take a respite from battle and find intimate comfort in each other despite the knowledge it is forbidden love. In “Kamogawa“, three-tailed fox Akio abandons his guard post in Sekigahara, Japan (1600 CE) to find his childhood playmate, white cat Hideki, in a nearby stream. Not your typical “Romeo and Juliet” story, the two are now on opposite sides of the war. What will they do to preserve themselves – or sacrifice for love of the other?

In Kyell Gold‘s “Unfinished Business“, from Heat #13, as private investigator Jae Kim visits supernatural Wolftown Detroit, he runs into his former boyfriend and some issues from his Korean family.

Edited by Fred Patten, the Symbol of a Nation anthology consists of eleven short stories and novelettes featuring the anthropomorphized animal symbols of nations, and exploring their significance and the ideas they represent in their cultures.

Though himself not a furry author, the origami animals in Ken Liu‘s short story “The Paper Menagerie” (read) come to life as magically as our own furry characters do. This poignant story, about a young Connecticut boy, his Chinese mother, and the cultural tension of immigration, is the first work of fiction to win the Nebula, the Hugo, and the World Fantasy Awards.

Special thanks go out to Ocean Tigrox, Thurston Howl, Makyo, and Dark End for their suggestions and assistance in putting this list together.

Discuss this article on the Guild forums, or check out the profiles of our FWG members.

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

Arcana: A Tarot Anthology, Madison Scott-Clary, ed. Illustrated by Joseph Chou.
Lansing, MI, Thurston Howl Publications, November 2017, trade paperback, $17.99 (xi + 423 pages).

The tarot cards, according to the Preface by editor Scott-Clary, were introduced to Europe in the 15th century. They have been used for fortune-telling since the 16thth century, if not earlier. There are four suits of 14 cards each, plus 22 “major arcana” cards. The arcana have individual names: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Hierophant, and so on. Arcana: A Tarot Anthology presents 22 stories, one for each arcana card, featuring anthro animals. Each is illustrated by a full-page portrait in the style of an anthro arcana card by Joseph Chou.

The first story, “The First Step” (The Fool) by editor Madison “Makyo” Scott-Clary, is less a story than a tutorial on how tarot fortune-telling works. Avery, a shy young mountain lion, is sent by his mother to a nameless older badger fortune-teller by his mother. Avery, the narrator, is just about to leave home for college, and his mother insists that he find out from the tarot cards what the future will bring. The motherly badger is as much a lay psychologist as a fortune-teller. “The First Step” is unusual in being narrated in the present tense:

“She leans in close to me, stage-whispering, ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. None of the cards in the swords suit – in any suits – show blood. Death, yes. Change, definitely. But no blood.   It’s hardly hacking and slashing.’

‘But they’re still –‘

She holds up a paw. ‘They’re still swords, but they’re tools. Swords show work. Strife, sometimes, sure; striving toward a goal. But what they is show work. These swords aren’t working right now, they’re just standing there. So where is the striving?’

‘Behind them?’ I ask. “They figures are all facing away from something.’

‘Or toward something.’

‘So,’ I say hesitantly. ‘I’m going to go on a journey?’” (p. 11)

“Cat’s Paw” (The Magician) by Mut is narrated by a nameless desperate were-dog who accosts a lion-man wizard and his date in a bar to get his curse removed. But nobody is what they seem. Very sardonically amusing:

“So here’s the secret to spotting a wizard: look for the one with a body that’s just too perfect. There’s a stud who’s six three, muscles fighting to escape his shirt, not a hair out of place? Wizard. Or a porn star, maybe, but probably a wizard.

[…]

I’d been trawling through bars for a wizard all evening, ad it was getting close to the deadline. I’d found a couple of almosts and one obvious poseur, but nobody with real magic. This guy, though, he was unmistakeable. He hadn’t even bothered to keep it human – too green to know better, or too powerful to care. He was a lion, with a mane and golden fur and whiskers and everything. There was even a tail flicking away under the barstool.” (pgs. 21-22)

“Catalyst” (The High Priestess) by Kristina “th ‘buni” Tracer is good, but it suffers from being too similar to “The First Step”. The narrator, unnamed until the last page, gets stinking drunk and into a fight at the Unicorn Chaser nightclub. His date, an impala named Ndidi, walks out on him. He is sobered up the next day at the nearby home of an also-unnamed porcupine “spiritual consultant”. She uses the tarot, but her “fortunetelling” is more lay psychiatry than anything else. Her counseling solves the narrator’s emotional problems that led to his drunkenness. A feel-good incident.

“Domestic Violence” (The Empress) by Frances Pauli features a modern domestic home of dinosaurs; George & Anni Raptor, and their daughters Ellie & Emily. Were raptors really this short-tempered?

“Anni peered through the glass oven door and tapped one oversized sickle-claw against her linoleum tiles. Her casserole bubbled happily away on the rack inside. One half pound of gooey melted cheese almost near perfection, and George was late getting home again.

It would be cold, ruined, by the time he finally dragged his tail through the front door.

She squinted at the bubbles and raked her claw against the tiles, digging an angry rut in the floor that George was bound to notice. That, he’d see. Her new nail polish or the dress she’d picked out for their anniversary, however, he’d likely never even acknowledge.” (p. 51)

“George warbled deep in his throat and walked into his house to see a ring of disapproving expressions. They sat around the dining table, in the alcove just off the kitchen, and it looked like they’d fully stuffed themselves without him.

You’re late again,’ Anni snapped. Her toe tapped an irritating staccato against the flooring and he could already see a spot where she’d damaged it again. More remodels he could barely afford.” (p. 53)

Two angry, frustrated raptors.   A perfect recipe for domestic violence.

“Domestic Violence” is the first story here that has no obvious connection to the tarot arcana. Anni is certainly the Empress of the Raptor household, though. Arcana or not, this is one of the most wickedly humorous stories in this anthology. Pauli never lets you forget that these are ferocious, hissing raptors in a business suit and a dress.

“Joseph and the Technicolor Fur Coat” (The Emperor) by Stephen Coughlan is a sweet tale of confronting modernity:

“It used to be that he [Joseph T. Macintosh, a human] rented a bull from one of his neighbors for a month or two, got most, if not all, of his herd pregnant and then sent the bull back to its home on a trailer.   Nowadays, Joseph had to contact the breeder industry and then within hours of ordering a stud, a half-human/half-cow creation, a recent creation of science, would pull up in a fancy automobile, lurch his way to the field, and commence, ahem, ‘meeting’ every cow in the vicinity.” (p. 63)

Joseph, sixty years old, is the Emperor of his farm, but he’s resigned himself that he’s behind the times. He’s satisfied that his three “wayward children” have created modern lives of their own. Peter will come home to take over the farm. Susan is a university graduate with a good job lined up, and a reliable fiancé. David … well, Joseph has a hard time accepting David’s lifestyle, but at least David is a successful hair stylist. Joseph is even ready to grit his teeth and accept David’s homosexual marriage to another man. Then he learns that Felix is a hybrid:

“‘Yeah I’m sure.’ Felix finally purred. His voice was deep and guttural. He was a cross between human, black leopard, and Himalayan housecat. His dark fur shone n the morning light, and painted highlights, which had been lovingly applied by his fiancé and covered his body from head to foot, sparkled in a brilliant Technicolor display.” (p. 73)

Can Joseph accept Felix as David’s “husband” or is this Too Much?

“The Lunatic” (The Hierophant) by C. M. Averin may be the most subtle story in this anthology. “‘I need it,’ she whispered. ‘Kill him.’” (p. 85) Rafael, a wolf in a bar, hears her voice and follows a coyote out into the snowy forest to the river to kill him. Who is Rafael, the coyote, listening to? Who is “her”? Consider the title and the meaning of “hierophant”.

In “Love Not Misplaced” (The Lovers) by Hypetaph, Annette (cheetah) confesses her doubts about her husband Keiran’s love for her and the stability of their marriage, in the cathedral’s confessional. Father Joseph (fossa) reassures her. The story has a stinger at the end.

In “Avoiding the Subject” (The Chariot) by TJ Minde, the chariot is the car that Robert (rabbit) and Danny (pika) drive to Robert’s Midwestern childhood home for a family reunion dinner. As they drive back to the city afterwards, Robert asks Danny why he never talks about his family.   Danny tells him. A nice slice-of-life story.

“Chasing the Dragon” (Strength) by Baxil is narrated by Regan, a dragon suffering hoard-withdrawal in Pangaea, where he’s lived for 18 days on a visa granting asylum. Regan’s native Draconia is on the verge of declaring war on Pangaea, and Regan, a pacifist, has emigrated. Pangaea is a herbivore nation, but determined not to back down in the face of Draconian aggression. Regan can take the prejudice of most Pangaeans against dragons, but he’s afraid of succumbing to addiction to his hoard of coins, which he had to leave behind in Draconia. Will Regan have the emotional Strength to survive in Pangaea without it?

The Hermit in “While It Lasts” (The Hermit) by John Kulp is Curtis Vintner, a southern possum (presumably an American opossum, not an Aussie possum) living alone in a cabin with his shotgun. The narrator is his nephew Trevor, a gay teenage punk full of piercings who has been sent to his uncle for a week for punishment for having been caught with weed. Trev hates his uncle’s redneck lifestyle, but he hates government bureaucracy more. When the government tries to seize Uncle Curtis’ land for non-payment of taxes, Trev plans to fight the government’s lawyers in court. But first he has to convince Uncle Curtis not to fight them from ambush with his bear traps and shotgun. A nice funny-animal tale of two different generations and lifestyles bonding.

“The Dragon of Volcano Island” (Wheel of Fortune) by Madison Keller is a short-story prequel to her Dragonsbane Saga series. Riastel, a dragon youth, is turned out of his mother’s cave to find his own home. His search leads to a perfect cavern on a volcanic island, already occupied by a larger dragon who has amassed a hoard of gleaming gold. He just has to figure out how to get rid of the older, deadlier dragon. Riastel’s story leads to Keller’s The Dragon Tax, where he meets Sybil Dragonsbane.

In “Red” (Justice) by Searska GreyRaven, four lycan (wolf) teens dare each other to call Bloody Mary, a supernatural lamb whose fleece is soaked with blood, who (according to urban legend) comes through a household mirror if summoned at midnight on Halloween. So they call her through the bathroom mirror at Jason’s house. Is this supposed to be a Halloween horror story? The writing is okay, but the mood is just of four teens goofing off on Halloween night. Totally un-scary. What’s more, this is the most “funny animal” story in the anthology. The “lycans” and lambs never feel like anthro animals instead of modern urban humans.

The Hanged Man means reversal. In “Unbound” by Chris “Sparf” Williams, is Finn (wolf) gay or transgender? Finn feels fucked up several ways. His father hates “queers”. His mother doesn’t care what gender he is; she just wants him to become a successful corporate office climber instead of the independent artist he wants to be. Finn’s older brother Blair is supportive, but he’s ultra-straight and Finn can tell he doesn’t really understand what Finn wants. What does Finn want? He doesn’t know himself. In “Unbound”, Finn struggles to discover what he really is.

“Unbound” is a really strong story, but it kept flagging my hangup about funny-animals vs. real anthropomorphs. Mentions of anthro wolves, foxes, otters, and other species shopping at IKEA, drinking beers or martinis, eating meat loaf, “a pine marten chewing on his morning pastry” (p. 231) at a coffee shop, kept me seeing them as just animal-headed humans despite Williams’ frequent mentions of fur and tails. (Would a wolf order a Caesar salad at a restaurant?) “Unbound” is great if little details like this don’t bother you.

“St. John’s Bridge” (Death) by Rose LaCroix also has a transgender theme. The first-person focus is developed through back-and-forth incidents in Allen’s/Erica’s life between 2014 and 2010. Death is involved, but how? Again, this is a better story if you aren’t bothered by hangups about foxes, deer, hyenas, and ocelots living together in real cities like Las Vegas, driving cars of real makes like Mustangs, and so on.

“A Temper for Order” (Temperance), a second story by Frances Pauli, is set in a seaside community of birds. Piper, a sandpiper, is a herbalist. Trudy, a neighboring shopkeeper, is a weaver bird. Dash, a stork, collects and sells pretty seashells. Trudy, a matchmaker, is trying to set up a romance between Piper and Dash, but Piper is a neatness freak and Dash appears to be a sloppy drunk. “A Temper for Order” dramatizes that Temperance means moderation in all things, not just drinking.

“Faux” (The Devil) by Atrum is highly unusual in never saying specifically what the protagonist is. The reader has to piece together clues in the story: “The practice opened at seven, closed at six, five days a week; he spent months becoming primarily diurnal, there weren’t enough nocturnal species in that area to cater to.” (p. 296) Ian, a doctor (Chou’s arcana portrait shows him as a raccoon), has built a successful practice, but he’s obsessed with displaying that success. He works longer hours to make more money to buy flashy signs of wealth for his home and office. Iker (husky), his receptionist, argues that he should get more rest, hire more help; Iker is less worried about Ian’s health as that he’s starting to make mistakes from overwork. But Ian can’t cut back because that might look like he was less successful. The Devil is a symbol of obsession with material things.

“The Storm” (The Tower) by J. S. Hawthorne is so vividly written that you don’t need Chou’s illustration to see the action:

“The rat called Paladin – the only name left to him – stood at the end of the craggy pass, staring up at the tower. It was a huge monolith, and its black-marble façade was alive with blue-green light from the electric sensors embedded in its surface. Sparks and electrical arcs lit the night from the Tesla generator on top, and threw him into sharp relief against the obsidian around him.” (p. 315)

Paladin is part of a team of revolutionaries attacking a major bastion of the oppressive government, a tower disguised as a Weather Monitoring Station. He fights his way to the top despite fierce resistance wielding both swords and electric weapons. A tense, exciting story.

In “No Peas in My Garden” (The Star) by Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen, narrated by a nameless priest, it is the Church that is bioengineering Nhab experiments like Lucia the lioness assistant curate, and the public that protests against them. After all, the Church teaches that we are all – all – God’s children, and it was a priest who first discovered the laws of genetics with pea plants. The priest is about to soothe the crowd, but Lucia asks to speak for herself. This is a different viewpoint from one often heard in furry fandom, but quietly, powerfully expressed.

In “Who Fights With Monsters” (The Moon), Kyell Gold packs a novel’s worth of plot into a sixteen-page short story. Czoltan, a teenager, has been a werewolf for eight months. The U.N. has ruled that the werewolves in the Balkans should have their own country, but the armies of the former Yugoslav nations try to “ethnic cleanse” the area of werewolves before that can happen. There is silver dust as a weapon to kill werewolves, and the “fact” that if a werewolf stays in wolf form for too long, it becomes normal wolf permanently. Czoltan wants to fight for the werewolf nation, but should he do it as a human, a half-wolf, or a full wolf?

In “Remembering Sisyphus” (The Sun) by George Squares, Salim (Tiger), Chrissy (Border Collie), and Victor (Yellow Labrador) are attending an endless party throughout the resort city of Cape Carolyn. They pick up the nameless narrator (Spathy, a Squirrel), alone, and he and Salim go off together.

“I took him to the pier which held the biggest Ferris wheel in the city. Its lights dazzled in day glow vivacity that sparkled and shined as a spinning medallion. The twilit horizon line of the ocean made the wheel appear god-like, Aztec, holding attentions immeasurable as they passed us, shrieking with delight and rapture. A dapper weasel in a boater hat handed us change and two ticket stubs as we entered our cart.” (p. 375)

Will Salim ever realize that they are trapped in a sunny, endless party that really does go on forever?

“A Time for Giving” (Judgment) by Allison Thai focuses on Sonya, a Soviet wolf who awakens from a freezing wintry train wreck in the tent of Batu and his family of Mongolian horses. As Sonya heals and the weather improves, she has time to compare the worlds of the ruthless NKVD with that of the peaceful nomadic peasants.

Diamma, in “The Unification of Worlds” (The World) by Mary E. Lowd, is one of a party of hybrid spacemen; a lion-lizard. Others are Aggem, a deer-bird, and Mundo, a turtle-elephant. They are sent to the perpetually pink-snowy world of Snomoth, inhabited by a tiny, mouselike civilization.

“‘Wait,’ the mouse squeaked. ‘Take me with you. The universe is ending: take me with you!’” (p. 404)

What can Eip, the yellow Snomoth mouse, teach the galactic civilization?

Arcana: A Tarot Anthology (cover by Joseph Chou) contains 22 stories. Only “The First Step” and “Catalyst” are visibly tarot-arcana oriented; the others are related to the theme in more subtle ways. Some stories are naturally better than others, but almost all are worth reading; some are unforgettable. The anthology may be better than I make it seem by emphasizing my own prejudice against “funny-animal/animal-headed human” stories; if you don’t mind these, Arcana is really good. The 22 arcana-card illustrations by Joseph Chou, each featuring the protagonist of its story, are almost worth the price of the anthology alone. Do not just glance at them; study them. Arcana will bring you reading pleasure for days.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Thurston Howl

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Furry Nation is the book on furry fandom written by greymuzzle Joe Strike, published on October 2017. Several years in the making, it is an enthusiastic, comprehensive and detailed account of customs, trends, and activities, within the fandom. As thorough as it is stylistic, it feels a joy to read from start to finish. There is an underlying approach to the narrative that’s well underlined in the preface. Joe’s first draft on a book on anthropomorphic culture, as shown to a publisher, was acceptable, but their response was, “what about you & other furries?” And so, Joe in his final published work describes the fandom through the personal experiences of other furry fans, and his own, which is an excellent choice that pays off.

 

It is often said that a different understanding of the fandom exists for every fan. The overall theme is the same, easily defined with the terms ‘animal anthropomorphics’, but these words often mean nothing to the newcomer who has no context. Within that theme, furry fandom is drive, is being creative, is meeting people, discovering oneself and discovering others, having new experiences, having fun! In the book, an accurate explanation seems effortless when told through the eyes of so many different people that have interesting and valid insights of their own, invariably linked to their personal life affairs, finely connected together. You get the input of aficionados, artists, fursuit makers, cartoonists, convention admins, performers, journalists…

The book manages to fit almost everything related to general furry culture I’d expect a furry fan to know, and more. Had I been given 10 years and unlimited resources to write a similar book, I wouldn’t have done it any better. It’s all-encompassing, and well researched, but not overwhelming. There’s a natural flow in the inquiries that step by step bring curious knowledge to the table. The writing is skillful, tasteful, bordering spicy a limited number of times; Joe occasionally allows himself to be slightly elegantly erotic to make for a more alluring read. His personality shines through his words, he’s a playful talented author that’s invested in the real story he’s telling. Through the development of the fandom as told by him there’s a perception of growth and maturity acquired, as chapters go by he successfully reflects the sense of constant wonder and fulfilled belonging that we longtimers have come to embrace in the fandom.

 

Some objected to the book being US-centric, but really there is no drawback to it. The fandom was born in the US, and the location of the narration is merely incidental. The experiences told by furry fans are universally relatable, and that’s what’s important. Furry fever is a human thing, a human-animal thing, wherever the location. The tome gets its points across; adding even more information could have made it unattractively thick. This is it, this is the book. You can recommend it to anyone either non-furry or furry, and as long as they like reading, both types of people will learn and enjoy reading Furry Nation.

There’s an English saying that goes ‘Home is where the heart is.’ Joe hasn’t just beautifully described home to anyone willing to listen. He’s also made it clear why anyone would call it their home. All that’s left, is to buy the book yourself, and read it!

You can purchase Furry Nation at several bookstores listed on its website (link⇒)

The entry ‘Furry Nation’,</br> Review of Joe Strike’s</br> Masterful Book appears first in FurryFandom.Es.

From Previews: “Collected for the first time, The Howling: Revenge of the Werewolf Queen Vol. 1 picks up where the cult-classic 1981 film left off: Three weeks have passed since Chris Halloran revealed on national TV that werewolves walk among us. No one believed him. Now Marsha Quist has returned for revenge–and now there is no colony to hold back her blood lust. This collection includes The Howling: Revenge of the Werewolf Queen issues 1-4, and a cover gallery— featuring Bill Sienkiewicz’s supreme cover!” Written by Micky Neilson and with art by Jason Johnson and Milen Parvanov, it’s available now as a full-color trade paperback from Space Goat Publishing. [And with that, we’ll see you all after we get back from Further Confusion!]

image c. 2018 Space Goat

New short by Felix Colgrave ... that is all.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Myre: Chronicles of Yria, volume 1, by Claudya Schmidt and Matt W. Davis
Berlin, AlectorFencer, January 2017, hardcover €35,00 (unpaged [172 pages]), softcover €29,00. Shipping to North America: add €8,00 for the hardcover; €5,00 for the softcover.

Claudya Schmidt and Matt W. Davis are better-known in furry fandom as the artist AlectorFencer and the stand-up comedian 2, the Ranting Gryphon. They, primarily AlectorFencer with 2’s help in plotting and writing, have been working on Myre for seven years. Now, thanks to long work and the financial aid of many Crowdsourcing supporters, the first volume of a planned trilogy is out. It’s only available from AlectorFencer at her home in Berlin, but they have published the English edition first. A German edition will be available in 2018 at the same prices.

Myre is a monumental undertaking. The hardcover edition is 13” x 9”; the softcover is almost as large at 12” x 8”. It is in full glossy color, 160 pages of story and 12 pages of concept art. Both editions come wrapped in cellophane. The hardcover has a sewn-in ribbon bookmark. The total price (book + shipping) is about $US55.00 for the hardcover or $US40.00 for the softcover.

Myre is a cigarette-smoking, hardbitten maned-wolf wanderer who comes out of Yria’s desert. She rides her dragon-mount Varug. Obviously, “dragon” here means something other than traditional flying, fire-breathing reptiles, although just what Varug is will be developed in the story. She is more than a Yrian horse, though. She and Myre are close friends. Yria is a huge world. This part of Myre’s adventure takes place in Yria’s desert wastelands; there is much more elsewhere.

(Well, AlectorFencer says in the FAQ on yriachronicles.com that Yria is a fantasy world. Many characters look like anthropomorphic Earth animals, and many are completely original. So calling any of them a maned-wolf, a badger, a lion, or any other Earth animal is too simplistic. For practical purposes, though, Myre is a red-haired anthro maned-wolf.)

Chronicles of Yria begins with a creation myth. “Long ago, when all was verdant and alive, there lived a race of people who were as old and as wise as the lands in which they lived. They were the children of the Ylducian, the dragons of old, and they lived in peace when Yria was vast and green.” Here are the winged, fire-spewing dragons that we are familiar with. The myth goes on to tell how Yria fell from glory, the dragons disappeared, their treasure was lost, and today the world is dry and desolate.

“Who will carry on seeking for what we almost forgot? Who will begin the journey that will restore the life of Yria? It was her.”

Myre doesn’t know where she came from, except the desert. “I lived in the desert with my uncle. He raised me. One night, the bastard just walked out… left me. I woke up and the only thing left was footprints into the desert. That’s the last I saw him. So, I left too. Didn’t have anyone to stay for.”

The world through which Myre wanders carries “a wretched hive of scum and villainy” to a new low. She is alone except for Varug. The only two supporting characters who might be important – they aren’t yet, but they may return – are Boozer, a wise old (when he isn’t drunk) badger, and Lutz, a young street urchin. Myre wanders from place to place, each worse than the one before, until she meets the legendary monsters of whom everybody is afraid: the Dwellers. Volume II will be The Lore of the Dwellers.

But the plot is just an excuse for AlectorFencer’s fantastic art. Myre: Chronicles of Yria is not available from Amazon or any standard bookstore. She drew and published it herself, and is selling it herself. See the yriachronicles.com weblink. In addition to the books, there are collectable cards, art prints, and gift-wrapping paper. There will be more in the future, including Haunter of Dreams, a comic book about “the tales and lores of Yria”.

AlecterFencer is a very popular German furry artist. She has done furry art commissions for years. Her art can be seen on DeviantArt and FurAffinity, including a photograph on DeviantArt of herself holding a printer’s proof of a sheet (4 pages) from Myre.

– Fred Patten

• Myre’s Goodread Page
• Buy on Yria Chronicles

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.

Sometimes you just gotta admit when other people say it better. This is direct from Comics Alliance: “Over the past few years Zac Gorman has made a name for himself paying tribute to his favorite video games with his comic Magical Game Time. This October the cartoonist will be spreading that same magic into his first graphic novel, Costume Quest: Invasion of the Candy Snatchers, a companion narrative to Double Fine’s 2010 Costume Quest RPG. While Costume Quest followed a human kid and their friends as they battled candy-stealing monsters called Grubbins to recover their kidnapped sibling from another dimension, Invasion of the Candy Snatchers will flip the script and see what the non-evil Grubbin Klem got up to that Halloween.” What he got up to, it seems, is joining up with some of his fellow young Grubbins to sneak into the human world and try and steal candy — for their own sugar-starved world. Costume Quest: Invasion of the Candy Snatchers is out now in trade paperback from Oni Press.

image c. 2018 Oni Press

So a bit of Fear and Loathing mixed with Neil Gaimen? No clue when this comes out but when it does and it's available I'll post it here.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Project Anthro, by Dallin Newell
Raleigh, NC, Lulu Press, October 2017, hardcover $28.80 (264 pages), trade paperback $12.00, Kindle $9.00.

I am confused. This book says both that it is printed by Lulu Press and by CreateSpace in North Charleston, SC. It also says “First printing, 2017”, but the Barnes & Noble website shows it with a different cover (but the same blurb), published by Page Publishing, Inc. and dated December 2016. Newell has a Facebook page devoted to Project Anthro, where it is described as “A Book Series”. Newall says, “Project Anthro 2 is written and ready to go out to publishing,” and that it is a planned quartet.

Whatever. The premise as described in the blurb seems furrier and more exciting than the novel itself. “During the Cold War, a project that was introduced during WWI has been revived, which involves weaponizing and creating anthropomorphic animals to become operatives, known as anthros. Chance Logan is a red fox, standing at five eleven, born in Australia [Newell says on Facebook and in the novel that Logan was born in London and raised in Canberra], and worked for ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Service). […]”

Chance learns that a high-placed American CIA executive, John Lance, has gone rogue and is planning to use America’s secret agentry “to completely obliterate the two world superpowers, the USSR and the USA.” Lance is also a human supremacist who believes that all anthros are bioengineered to “do nothing but kill.” Logan recruits “a whole team of anthros” to stop Lance and prove that anthros are more than killers dominated by their animal instincts.

That’s a great premise. Unfortunately, Newell develops it as a substandard Mission Impossible action thriller with funny animals. It’s wacky enough without wondering why funny animals? Chance Logan is introduced in the midst of a firefight with the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. He’s one of only two anthros (the other is a cougar) in a U.S. Army unit caught behind enemy lines. They don’t do anything that human soldiers (like John Rambo) couldn’t do, plus Chance gets his bushy fox tail caught and he has to be freed. Under what conditions is a bushy fox tail an asset in jungle warfare? This also makes the reader wonder if Chance is wearing a complete Army uniform with a tail hole, or (as the cover implies) only a helmet and Army jacket, and nothing below the waist?

Whoa! Here’s the answer. “‘By the way,’ he [a human lieutenant] said, ‘you guys may want to try on some pants when we get back to the States. Just try it.’

‘Nah,’ Kay [the cougar] said as he swiped the air with his paw. ‘We’ve got fur to cover our junk, right Chance?’

‘Yeah, right,’ I agreed with a forced chuckle.

All of us anthros never wore pants; it was a lot more comfortable to go without them. Even Katie [Chance’s girl friend, an Army nurse; also a red fox] wouldn’t wear them.” (p. 15)

But cougars don’t have much fur over their junk. Even an anthro fox standing up might want to wear pants when closely mixing with humans in social situations. It’s especially unlikely that anthros would go nude below the waist and not wear shoes or boots in jungle combat conditions.

“The cool water felt so good as it ran down my body. After sweating for many long hours in the hot and humid weather of Vietnam, nothing felt better than a cold shower. I scrubbed myself with a strong-smelling men’s shampoo that made my nose tingle whenever I smelled it.” (p. 19)

This is a furry red fox taking a cold shower. I may be obsessing too much about this, but to me Newell’s constant switching from calling attention to his anthros having fur and tails and not wearing anything below the waist, then being described as having smooth skin and apparently nobody noticing that they’re pantsless animals, keeps destroying the believability of the situation.

Oh, Chance has a flashing device that he shines in civilians’ eyes to make them not remember him as a fox. I think Newell has watched too much Men in Black, but that might enable anthro foxes with bushy tails and not wearing any pants to go about unnoticed in big, crowded, human metropolises. Maybe?

Whatever. Chance, Katie, Kay, and several regular soldiers are air-rotated back to the USA.

“‘Chance,’ Katie said, breaking the silence between us. ‘I really want to know; do you love me?’

I smiled, put my arm around her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.” (p. 23)

Are fox muzzles capable of kissing? Licking, maybe. But to bioengineer the foxes to talk normally, the muzzles would have to be eliminated entirely … I get a headache trying to reconcile all the differences.

Whatever. During their plane’s stopover in London, Chance and Katie are warned by a friendly MI6 agent that someone is trying to maneuver the USA and the USSR into declaring nuclear war on each other, and America’s CIA is ready to make Chance its scapegoat. Chance decides to stay in London instead of returning to America (I thought he was Australian), but “they” come after him:

“‘You can’t come in!’ I said, blocking his way. That was when he pulled a pistol on me.

I quickly and vigorously slammed the door on his hand and he dropped it, then I kicked him against the wall. He hit his head on the wall and was knocked unconscious.

I began to walk out when someone with a pistol came out of the room across from me. I grabbed his arm with my left paw as he fired a wild shot, punched him in the gut with my left, and kneed him in the head as he bent own from the impact on his stomach.

Another guy came from behind me. He hit me in the back of the head and kicked […]” (p. 27)

It goes on and on. “[…] He screamed in pain as he fell […] another man came out […] Another came out […] yet another guy was waiting […] Another guy came from behind me […] I began to run down the hall, and a guy with a pistol came out of the next room […]” Even James Bond usually only faced one adversary at a time.

How about this:

“I looked at the [bullet] wound, carefully examining it. ‘It missed the heart,’ I said, ‘you’ll be fine.’” (p. 29)

Presumably getting shot anywhere except through the heart is only a mild flesh wound.

People keep coming out of rooms or down halls or staircases after Chance with pistols and knives for another three pages. All are human secret agents except a one-eyed anthro tiger with a big red star on each shoulder. Guess which country he’s from.

And I’m only up to page 34. Project Anthro (cover uncredited) reads like a James Bond movie scripted by the Three Stooges. Is it worth reading? Hey, the Three Stooges are popular.

If you don’t read Project Anthro, you’ll miss the scene where Chance and his team of anthros hide out in Disneyland disguised as Robin Hood and other animal characters, with their Berettas, Walther PPKs, Kalashnikov AK-47s, Uzis, katana and shuriken out of sight. Chance/Robin, of course, can carry his bow & arrows openly.

“‘Oh, my God,’ the girl said, ‘your costume is so cute!’” (p. 213)

Project Anthro comes to a definite, satisfying conclusion, but Newell says that there are three more volumes coming.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Page Publishing
• Buy on Barnes and Noble

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.

Our Patreon! www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow Telegram Chat: t.me/draggetshow 184 - Furry Royal Rumble - Our Patreon! www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow Tele…

It's CES 2018 and I thought I would share at least 2 furryish products out there. First we have A new Aibo dog with cute oled eyes and also would you also believe Aflac has a robot duck for sick children? https://youtu.be/U62POyi0tOk
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Guest post by KJ Kabza

Back when my schedule allowed, I enjoyed participating in the FWG chats every week. (Which you’ve tried and enjoyed too. Right?) Occasionally, a furry writer would mention that they hoped to someday sell one of their borderline-furry stories to a Regular Science Fiction or Fantasy Market.

Funny thing, that. Because I’ve been writing stories in the wider science fiction and fantasy field for 15 years, and I hope to someday sell one of my borderline-furry stories to a Definitely Furry Market.

Writing for furs versus the larger speculative fiction community can be very different experiences—so different that one switch-hitting author once told me, “You’d think that my furry fans would buy my non-furry work and vice versa, but that’s not the case at all.” When you have stories to tell that could fall in either camp, what’s the best way forward?

I’m sure your opinion gets colored by where you start. I find myself working in general SF and fantasy circles, but then again, I began selling my work well over a decade ago, when I barely even knew what furry was. Besides, when I started, some of my early work sold for one cent a word, which is comparable to what is considered professional rates for writers in the fur community today, 15 years later. And nowadays, when I can sell some pieces for what SFWA defines as professional rates (at least six cents a word), it seems hard to justify sending a borderline-furry story to a furry market that will give me a fraction of that pay.

On the downside, however, it took me many years to build my current network of other writers and editors. In contrast, I suspect that someone who starts off selling fiction in the smaller fur community will likely find it much easier to connect with fellow creators and fans and feel supported at every stage of their career. Sofawolf, one of the most prestigious publishers in the fur community, has a booth at Anthrocon, one of the most prestigious cons in the fandom, that’s staffed by friendly people who are happy to explain their submission process to you. I can’t imagine having the same conversations at a Penguin Random House booth at San Diego Comicon.

The best way forward is also colored by the degree of furriness in what you write. I doubt that Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine would be interested in an erotic love story about a kangaroo male model and a misunderstood muscle tiger, but those borderline-furry stories are definitely another matter. In 2013, I sold my story “The Color of Sand,” which features a single mother and a forgotten human civilization—but also talking sandcats and outright furry TF—to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Never say never.

If your motive is to write strictly for fun and not for profit at all, the considerations get even blurrier. I’ve written and posted fan fiction under other names, both on Fur Affinity (as a fur) and on Fanfiction.net (as a hopeless human weeb). Both experiences have been very positive, with far more feedback given to me than I’ve ever gotten from a general SF or fantasy piece published in any professional venue.

This month, my first print collection of short fiction, The Ramshead Algorithm and Other Stories, releases on January 16. It comes from the world of Regular Science Fiction and Fantasy, but you’ll find several of those borderline-furry stories within. A young man in a damaged family learns of his non-human heritage. A securities lawyer has a double identity as a cat-like being that can fly. And a race of talking sandcats reveals themselves to be powerful magicians to a mother in need.

I suspect that Ramshead will be interpreted and accepted as a not-furry book among the not-furry crowd, the same way some of its component stories have been accepted. However, my next project, a novel I’m going to finish drafting after Ramshead launches, can’t be interpreted that way. That project is unambiguously furry, to the point where I’ve had to explain it to general SF fans as, “Redwall, but with pre-literate, non-Western cultures.” I’ve told so many other stories in the borderline-furry category, I want to see what it’s like to take the plunge.

I’m not sure about Penguin Random House, but maybe Sofawolf would like it.

KJ Kabza has sold over 70 stories to venues such as F&SF, Nature, Strange Horizons, and more. His debut print collection, The Ramshead Algorithm and Other Stories, is available for pre-order now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound.

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

Jack Wolfgang. T.1, l’Entrée du Loup, by Stephen Desberg (story) and Henri Reculé.
Brussels, Les Éditions du Lombard, June 2017, hardcover €13,99 (62 [+ 2] pages), Kindle €9,99.

Thanks, as always with French bandes dessinées, to Lex Nakashima for loaning this to me to review.

The Jack Wolfgang series looks like it’s designed for the Blacksad market. The main differences are that John Blacksad is a private investigator, and his cases are crime noir with excellently drawn anthropomorphic animals. Jack Wolfgang is a C.I.A. secret agent, and his adventures are, well, too light and too exaggerated for the James Bond market. Say they’re Kingsman clones, with a mixture of funny animal and human secret agents saving the world from megalomaniac funny animal and human villains.

The introduction states that the four Brementown Musicians in the late Middle Ages were the first animals to be recognized as having human intelligence. “They were the first animals to receive a charter from the local authorities guaranteeing their autonomy and freedom among humans.” (my translation)

 

Jump to the 21st century. Humans and animals are social equals. Well, not quite. The carnivores still have to eat meat, and this creates problems with the herbivores, who can eat only a vegetarian diet. The humans are omnivores, and some of them feel that this makes them superior to the animals.

But in the 20th century, true equality was established with the development of Qwat, a food based on tofu that both the carnivores and herbivores, and humans could eat. Finally, all animals and humans could live as equals.

Jack Wolfgang is a young C.I.A. agent with the cover identity of a famous food critic for the New York Times. Enter the Wolf begins when he is assigned to infiltrate a large, exclusive party at the estate of mega-rich Wilbur Carnavon. He’ll be told his real mission by his recruiter & trainer, Rocky Dakota (puma), once he’s past Carnavon’s armed bodyguards and inside. It’s to get Carnavon’s guest list of those invited – but a mysterious panther-woman is also after the list.

You can count on lots of laser booby traps, gunshots, explosions, and an eagle with poison-dipped talons. Rocky Dakota is killed, and whatever is going on is so top-secret that the C.I.A. fires all its animal agents and reassigns their cases to humans only. But Jack feels that he has to avenge Rocky, so he continues alone in secrecy. The adventure takes him from New York to Paris to Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, with car chases, muggings, gunshots, furbreath escapes, and a deadly cooking contest.

To give away a major spoiler, the “Mister X” has gained control of the world’s manufacture of Qwat by turning it into the popular and tasty Super Mega Tofu. He plots to spike it with a deadly addictive drug, so everyone has to eat it – on his terms — or die. The villains Jack faces on a daily basis are Podny, a Russian-French rooster turncoat, a giant one-eyed polar bear called just the Bear, and Sissy and Dave, two laughing-hyena assassins.

If you like Kingsman-type only-the-secret-agents-can-save-the-world adventures, with the main good- and bad guys being anthro animals, you’ll like Jack Wolfgang. The French is simple. Jack is wearing shoes on the cover, but is bare-pawed inside. The adventure comes to a definite conclusion, but the last page promises that “Jack Wolfgang reviendra dans “Le Nobel du Pigeon”. There are several trailers for Enter the Wolf on YouTube.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• Preview Jack Wolfgang
• Buy on Le Lombard

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.

Wow, what have we been missing? Turns out there’s an internet sensation named Johnny Wu (aka Sgt Bananas) who has made quite a name for himself with photography and stop-motion animation, featuring his impressive toy and action figure collection put together in some truly imaginative comic book style adventures. Now Mr. Wu has hooked up with comic book publisher Dynamite to bring us Ten Frames Per Second: An Articulated Adventure, a new full-color hardcover book highlighting some of Sgt Bananas’ best Instagram work. Outright Geekery has an article about it as well.

image c. 2018 Dynamite

I believe they will be pulling this short but I thought I would share it while I can. "In Tonko House’s first short-form series, written and directed by Erick Oh, we see how Pig remembers becoming the Dam Keeper. Seen through Pig’s youthful perspective, the visuals are abstract and surreal, but the source of his pain and his joy are clear. Produced in both Berkeley and Tokyo by a variety of international and domestic artists, the series showcases Tonko House’s global community through a story featuring universal themes, such as family, grief, responsibility, and growing up. The series is made up of over 31,000 frames, all individually hand drawn and painted."
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