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It’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas, is it? (Our local department store certainly doesn’t think so…) In that spirit (Ha Ha), IDW have once again compiled The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories, edited by Craig Yoe. What’s especially interesting about this collection is some of the artists represented: Among them are Walt Kelly (creator of Pogo), Richard Scarry (famous creator of funny animal books for kids), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and many others. It’s coming out in trade paperback this November, and there’s a review over at the Graphic Novel Reporter site.

image c. 2017 IDW

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What's this, you ask? Well, I wanted to give you guys something while you're waiting for the next Dragget Show...so, in between episodes, I will be doing XanCast! Basically, I will be interviewing our wonderful Patreon patrons. The top tier gets first dibs on down, but I want to get a lot of different listeners on here. With Zen Fox, we talk about his crazy costumes he creates (like the big Warhammer one), discvering furry, his many travels, the Navy, first time drinking, old jobs and more! Anyway, hope you enjoy! XanCast! - with Zen Fox - What's this, you ask? Well, I wanted to give you…

"City of horses or Horse made city? This fantastic city imagined by Ugo Gattoni the word Hippopolis. Open to all the winds of the spirit, it accommodates the most varied interpretations. It is three to seven, the hour of the dream. In the middle of monumental equines of palaces, walls and caryatids, a small bright horse left his balloon in full flight to make himself walker. It guides us through mazes and footbridges, along balustrades and colonnades, to promontories and belvederes. Are we pawns on a chessboard or the masters of our destinies?"
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Season 7 kicks off from our Seattle studio as Tugs is joined by Nuka (in lieu of an ill Roo) to discuss straight (heterosexual) furries in the fandom. How prevalent are they? Are there more non-straight furries? What sorts of social interaction changes exist because of this? What role does heteronormativity play in the fandom? We discuss this while reading your emails, all during this fascinating episode. Beyond Space News and an Olde Timey Commercial, we also have a couple bonus topics waiting at the end - the newest research on furries. So stick around and be ready for some deep thoughts!





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Show Notes

Special Thanks

Simone Parker
Red
Cerulean Wolvermarine
Max the Dalmatian

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!)
Some music was provided by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. We used the following pieces:

Cheery Monday


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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Next episode: Our next episode is the Halloween episode! Send your stories for us to read and foley by October 20, 2017! S7 Episode 1 – The Straight….and Narrow? - Season 7 kicks off from our Seattle studio as Tugs is joined by Nuka (in lieu of an ill Roo) to discuss straight (heterosexual) furries in the fandom. How prevalent are they? Are there more non-straight furries?

Part of furry is "If you got to choose your own body, gender, beauty standards, etc. this is exactly what the world would be like."
Politic.

— Liam Anne of Oz (@Anxiousounce) October 5, 2017

“We Want Politics Out” is politics.

It’s a popular complaint. This fan group is supposed to be for interest in anthropomorphic animal media and nothing more. That boils down to lowest-common-denominator consumerism. It’s like everyone is a bottom-feeding plecostamus in their own fish tank, and what they consume is just random scum growing on the bottom. Who cares where it comes from? Just be a dumb fish.

An unpopular fursona.

The problem is, reductionism doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a community attached to the way members consume things. And the complaint often comes with attacking care about how things work there. (Stop asking questions about the delicious scum!)

Everyone who’s here in good faith has some kind of care beyond themselves. It can range from management of websites or cons, to health and safety, or being a loose support network. You see it whenever a member gets help with money or a place to live, or even with complaints about FA’s management. When it’s time to talk about bigger stuff, complaining against politics is half-baked activism for the status quo. Here’s why.

Furriness.

Even as a pure hobby or interest, there’s something unique about furry.  It’s one of the only crowdsourced fandoms, even when it’s inspired by central media power of others. Members build it every day. A sort-of comparison might be the Ren Faire community. Both are creatively self sustaining on their own terms.

Some people claim furry is capitalist because of art business, as if everyone’s a Monopoly man with a tail. It’s supposed to be some counterpoint about how things work.  I run a business (when I’m not being a raffish sparkledog) and I think the point sucks. It’s shallow about terms like “industrial” versus “cottage industry”.  Making bespoke art doesn’t scale, and meets and cons run on volunteerism. Fandom is less about profit than direct relationships of “furriness”. There’s numbers for it – look at labor that goes into expensive fursuits. Makers can earn under minimum wage for doing what they love doing for others.

“For others” is why calling it just a plain interest is a partial truth. In other words, an omission. More accurately, it’s part genre fandom, part DIY sub/counterculture, and part kink community. The people in it meet in real life, not just online. It brings them together for relationships and homes. It’s made of people, not anthro animals. And any community of people has politics.

Concentrated gay, tastes like a rainbow.

Not just random people.

This group isn’t just an unremarkable little slice of the mainstream. Surveys show a strong bias towards an identity for many members. Nearly 2/3 of members are LGBT. It’s a super fabulously queer number.

Skip asking why and take it for granted that many members are non-LGBT (which nobody ever debates).  It’s still impossible to call it a neutral number. It’s undisputably an association. Queerness isn’t neutral in the mainstream, and even less in a subculture where it’s so concentrated that it colors whatever is said about the group, like calling it “accepting.”

Saying it exists isn’t saying what politics should be. How you vote is up to you – when beliefs are in question, it calls for discussing issues first (especially with an international group).  Of course, some issues are no-brainers.  Some things are simply right or wrong. Not everything is a football game.

For example, in this particular community, being anti-gay is pretty close to being anti-furry. There are very few standards for being welcomed, but that’s a good one. It’s reasonable to expect every member to treat a certain 2/3 of the group as human. There isn’t middle ground or a debate about it. No hate is a basic reasonable standard. Unless you ask hate groups.

That includes their collaborators who refuse to repudiate real fascists among them, while pretending to be as neutral as the scum that bottom-feeders exist on.

The basic standard looks like this.

Dear everyone screeching about "you can't day who is and isn't allowed to be furry":

Nazis. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Be. Furry.

— Victory Dance @AWU (@VictoryDanceOfc) October 4, 2017

"Furries can't say they're welcoming and be mean to nazis! Philosophical checkmate!" No, kid. That's not even chess. That's not even Go Fish

— Arilin Thorferra (@gc_arilin) June 3, 2017

They say, “You call everyone nazis and you’re hateful too!” Well if it quacks like a duck, call it a duck. (See Take Them At Face Value below). One can’t play both sides and pretend to be separate while being their support network. And calling the response “hate” is false equivalence about identifying a problem.

Some people hate crime, disease, or poverty. Others hate fascism. Nazi isn’t an identity – it’s about issues they support. Dead discredited dogma deserves zero benefit of the doubt. Rejecting it is just what normal people do.

It only barely counts as politics.

You can pick a fursona, but you can’t pick whether someone else is human. Having such a basic standard isn’t like putting on a hat for some candidate. It leaves voting issues as a whole other topic. So here’s a slightly more real example of “fandom politics”.

Furries are super-sensitive about media scapegoating, but there’s a love/hate relationship with the media. After all, it’s called a fandom. That’s why a personal motto for me is Be The Media. If you need a label for that, call it a DIY ethic. When I practice that with a site I built, it’s a statement. Furry and DIY go together. It’s part of building a whole community. Anyone can do it if they try.

For people that've taken such pains to call themselves a separate ALTERNATIVE group, AltFurry sure does whine when barred from Furry spaces.

— [No Subject] hi! (@WhiteClawE) October 4, 2017

Altfurry can’t DIY. That explains the shitty stolen memes.

There are also loose “politics” about being extremely inclusive and open to free expression. (Even physically, like Hugs are the handshake of furries” – Artists explore cultural meaning of touch.) 1960’s hippies had it as part of their politics too. It even makes furry a counterculture sometimes. DIY creativity and inclusion goes with the top quote:

“Part of furry is “If you got to choose your own body, gender, beauty standards, etc. this is exactly what the world would be like.””

OK, if it’s about power to be anything, how can there be standards? Because hate is antithetical to “furriness”, and moderating the group keeps it healthy to have that pawsitive power.

“Get Politics Out of Furry Fandom” undermines integrity.

A community has integral parts. Genre fandom, DIY sub/counterculture, and kink are glued together by acceptance to make a community.  Without them it might not be one, and definitely wouldn’t be the one you know.  The consumerist, lowest-common-denominator, Just Anthro Animal Media kind might be more of a corporate-run Mickey Mouse club. 

Integral parts doesn’t mean every part is inherent to everyone. There’s a weird duality in accepting everything from Disney to Dirty, but you don’t have to be personally involved with kink at all. It’s like how cars are integral to modern society, but not everyone drives and you don’t need a car. However, if there were no cars it would be a very different world. Get it?  

There’s a real community with parts that can’t be removed without changing everything. The Burned Furs (the previous generation’s altfurry) found out when they failed with puritanism against “perverts”. It’s part of furriness. So when there’s a complaint like “Get Politics Out of Furry Fandom”, it often means “get fandom out of furry.”

It can be a simple minded wish to boil things down to mere consumerism. Or it can be a more evil agenda to make you surrender to this toxic garbage:

A push to inject fascism into geek communities.

Nazis have learned geek communities are a super easy recruitmebt base. pic.twitter.com/wmZAkNlV0u

— Grant but Spooky (@GDRaycroft) October 7, 2017

Read about newly-exposed proof of white nationalists behind the alt-right. Altfurry is just one fizzled attempt among many to attack so called “SJW’s” to inject their own politics. They’ve tried with gaming, metal music, sci-fi, comics, and furry. The term is Entryism, and the same haters feed it all.

Perhaps their hate will always be around.  So will crime or cancer, but people don’t act helpless about it. Sane politics means just standing for a basic standard. That’s all it is – a line for all sides, not liberal or conservative; just the furry side. And don’t buy apathetic acceptance like this:

Two faced. Art: @Rattusdingus

But are they really nazis? Take Them At Face Value.

As a subculture, Furry shares something in common with DIY Punk. Old punks had advice about fascists worming in to their scene – Take them at face value.

That refers to acting edgy/provocative/trolly, until they flip around and excuse it. Like pretending it’s just joking or for looks.  Or denying being a member while collaborating.  Or refusing to own it, and moving goalposts to pretend like rare card-carrying “real nazis” are the only issue. There’s equivocation about how “we’re diverse”, “gays can’t be nazi” or “some of my friends are black”. They love pedantry about “it’s not illegal” and doing an endless-prove-it-loop. There’s nothing they won’t do for plausible deniability about wrongdoing and manipulating. If they can’t hide it, they deflect with Whataboutism. They love acting offended at reactions they provoke, to gaslight and project problems at you. Games Nazis Play are a form of two-faced, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too.

Whether they even understand it or not, it opens the door to the real thing, as ones waiting behind the door know very well. So is trolling like a nazi as bad as bringing real nazis in? …Does a bear shit in the woods?

When they do edgy nazi trolling, withhold benefit of the doubt and let them prove they’re not. When they flirt with fascism, don’t let them off the hook while they try to squirm away. They made their bed, so let them lie in it. It was foretold in this 2008 FurAffinity post about Furzis:

You want to call yourself a Nazi, I’ll treat you like a Nazi. And don’t gimme bullshit about how “we don’t call ourselves nazi’s” your wearing the uniform, your name is a play on “nazi” don’t give me weak excuses.

You don’t think the American Diabetes Association LIKES diabetes. The Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t like poverty. Jonas Salk hated Polio. I hate Nazis. If you have to be intolerant of something, Nazis are a great choice.

Intolerance of intolerance isn’t liberal or conservative, it’s humanist.  And fascism isn’t strictly right or left either, it’s a two faced chameleon. It incrementally worms into power through brinksmanship and playing many sides. It devours from within to destroy what lets it grow. It cons you by syncretizing elements of right and left. Their left side might be pandering to workers, nerds or people who feel powerless, and their right side is nationalism or supremacy. They say whatever sounds good to manipulate, but it’s consistent to nothing but power. That’s what makes gay nazis and non-white collaborators. It’s always two-faced.

Can confirm. Having been one and got out - white nationalists ALWAYS lie. They ALWAYS lie about what they believe.https://t.co/uLy5qutkFb

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) June 12, 2017

By the way, it's often tempting to point out to these absolute cretins the absurdity and hipocrisy of being a nazi furry, but don't bother. https://t.co/ZCZjU9FhuR

— Spooky Boogie (@CaseyExplosion) October 16, 2017

Some people expect to change minds with nice words. That’s fine when you aren’t talking to trolls. It helps trolls to be deliberately exhausting, it’s not the responsibility of targets to change haters, it doesn’t scale, and it legitimizes bad faith when there isn’t something at stake. For those who try, call it a matter of multiple approaches that depends on others firmly rejecting them.

But the furry fandom really is one of the most accepting places (that’s what they exploit.) Sincere change of heart is how to get acceptance back, and it’s not hard to get for those who choose to leave for real. Click through for three excellent threads:

I used to low-key subscribe to white nationalist views, back in my early 20s. Not going to make excuses for it, I should have known better.

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) April 20, 2017

What's important to getting people out of shitty ideologies like that is the knowledge that they CAN go back. They CAN rejoin society.

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) April 21, 2017

Hey furries, I've been doing a lot of serious, heavy-going takes for a while. Here's a change of pace:

THE FURRY FANDOM IS FUCKING AWESOME

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) May 19, 2017

When you hear a complaint about politics in fandom, point out that it is politics. It’s as likely to undermine as to reduce conflict. It’s merely a thought-terminating cliche when everyone does politics sometimes.  And you don’t have to listen to everyone because some things aren’t debatable.  Don’t waste time on bad faith and discredited falsehoods, or half-baked oppositionalism that stands for nothing but freedom to be selfish at best.  There aren’t “two sides” with parasitic, two-faced trolls who pretend to want an “alternative” without creating anything, who take advantage of the one great fandom. There already is a group for the acceptance they pretend should extend to haters; the basic entry requirement is just getting along with others. It’s something so basic you learn it in kindergarten. Or maybe as soon as people evolve beyond fish.

The best response is: Don’t look for middle ground where there is none.  Just have a spine and stand for something better.

pic.twitter.com/3MKl83ucB7

— Werewolf Chewtoy -;) (@XydexxUnicorn) April 16, 2017

Update. “check it out guys, I found a living example of why @DogpatchPress‘s article about “apolitical furry” is so accurate!”

“People who are fine with Nazis when it’s “just talk” aren’t going to do anything to oppose them when it becomes more than just talk.”

“How to find nazis: 1) Post “fuck nazis” 2) watch for the “don’t call people you disagree with nazis!” comments 3) You found the nazis.”

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.

Furclubbing: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.” The concept has been spreading since the late 2000’s. It’s a dance party independent from cons. It builds on their growth but takes things farther. It’s more ambitious than informal meets and events that happen once. Those can stay inner-focused, but this brings partnership with new kinds of venues, and new support for what they host. It crosses a line to public space, so a stranger can walk in and discover their new favorite thing. It encourages new blood and crossover to other scenes. It makes subculture thrive. It’s a movement!

See the list of parties at The Furclub survey.  Any party that gives a Q&A will get a featured article. Featured here is a new event in Detroit, Michigan.  Here’s what the organizer sent:

SCRITCH DETROIT (2017)

Follow: Twitter and Facebook

 

[RT APPRECIATED!]
Our first event is on 11/11 at the Olympus Theater in Detroit, MI!
18+ // $5 at the doorhttps://t.co/aEbzvE9lWb

— Scritch Detroit (@ScritchDetroit) September 29, 2017

The party launch: Scritch Detroit’s first event starts on 11/11, and plans to be hosted on the second Saturday of every month – as long as the turnout keeps us going. Please join us to make a big impression with our first event!

Who: Founded and organized by K-NAO (that’s me!), a DJ and amateur club promoter out of Southeast Michigan, in cooperation with management at the Menjo’s Complex. DJs will be rotated monthly, so the party won’t be stale, and to give new talent an opportunity to play — there’s a lot of talent in the midwest, and we want to showcase that!

What: This is an 18+ club event — $5 at the door, with a full bar, headless lounge, and secure parking. The DJs will be varied, and we’re expecting House, Top40, Electro, Breaks, and Trance at our first event. We’re hoping to get at least 100 people in the door for our first time!

When: We’re starting on 11/11/2017, and want Scritch Detroit to keep going on the second Saturday of every month. Please keep up-to-date with us by following on Twitter and on Facebook. (Subject to the Midwest convention scene, the event may not happen on months where it overlaps the same weekend as major furry or anime events.)

Where: Scritch Detroit happens at the Olympus Theater in Detroit, Michigan, part of the Menjo’s Complex in the Palmer Park neighborhood. The event draws from furries and fandom participants across the Midwest. We even hope to attract people in from Ohio, Indiana, and even Illinois and Ontario.

How: In 2015, I organized a series of events at the now-defunct Club Inferno dubbed “Furry Friday”, of which there were three — in 2016, I worked with Menjo’s on the Fur Ball, a one-off August event that saw good attendance. Now we have a dedicated space, and my events have received some attention, so I’m pushing for a real, high-attendance club event that will bring people together.

Vibe: Popular convention DJs and hour-set formats make this a $5, 5-hour convention dance party, but without the hassle of booking a hotel for three to five nights, paying an expensive attendance fee, or having to sneak your alcohol into the dancefloor past the Dorsai.  The party is 18+, and while it takes place at a gay club, it’s all-inclusive, much like the convention dances we seek to emulate. Costuming of all kinds (fursuiting, cosplaying, anything!) is not only allowed, but encouraged. As the event is open to the general public, anyone who pays the $5 cover is allowed to attend.  Bring your non-furry friends who like a party and want to see what the community is about!

Promotion: Right now, word of mouth is the most important way for us to succeed. Sharing our presence on social media helps immensely. Please share! The bigger we get, the more promotion we can afford in the future. A portion of the proceeds will be set aside to help the event grow. Of course, the best press of all is if you have a good time and tell others!

Reactions: I’m pleased to say the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive so far, but the real test will be the first event. We need everyone we can to make this promotion a big success!

Business: The promotion is supported almost entirely by attendees, with staff (like the bartender and security) provided by Menjo’s. Base compensation for the Menjo’s staff comes out of the cover charge, with the remainder split between the talent — this means the more people attend, the more the DJs and talent get paid; the more drinks are purchased, the happier the venue is; and the more tips are given, the happier the bartender is!

Video or pics: We’ll soon be posting more on social media.

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.

Over at DC Comics, the “let’s fool around with Hanna-Barbera” fun continues… with the premier of The Ruff & Reddy Show comic. “In the Golden Age of television, Ruff and Reddy were on top of the entertainment world…until the world turned, and they were forgotten. Now, Ruff is a washed-up television actor. Reddy is a clerk in an upscale grocery store. Can a hungry young agent convince the two one-time partners to make a comeback—and convince the world that it wants to see the famously infamous dog-and-cat comedy team back in the spotlight?” Written by none other than the famous Howard Chaykin, with art by Mac Rey. Look for it by the end of October.

image c. 2017 DC Comics

Dear Papabear, 

Does McDonald’s allow fursuiting without asking them if you could go in with your suit? I have a cheap Walmart head and paw slippers and gloves and tail from 2 different Halloween stores. I really want to go to McDonalds with it and I don't want to ask them cause I want it to be a huge suprise. 
 
Rainbowpaws

* * *

Hey Papabear, 

It's Sawina again. I recently went to a corner convienient store in my partial and forgot my head was on until I was already in the store. I quickly took off the head to avoid an incident, but when I returned 2 days later, which was today. I ran into the manager. I apologized for what I did, but she told me if she was working at that time she would have called the cops and even shot me. Was my small mistake really worth the death threat I recieved today?

Thanks in advance, Sawina.

* * *

Dear Rainbowpaws and Sawina,
 
Because your letters are related, Papabear decided to combine them into one column. It is an important subject to address here: the wearing of fursuit heads in public.
 
Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, concealing one’s identity in public places has come under greater suspicion by authorities who are concerned about people trying to attack American citizens. Actually, antimask ordinances likely date long before then for reasons such as problems with the KKK, bank robbers, etc. But before we get into that, let’s just talk about going into private businesses, such as a fast-food joint or convenience store.
 
As you might imagine, such places can be and have been robbed by masked criminals. Masks can be anything from stockings and ski masks to Halloween masks easily bought at party stores. You might see, then, that if you go inside such a place wearing, say, a wolf or lion head, this could make the person behind the cash register understandably very nervous as to what you are up to.
 
So, my immediate advice is don’t do this. If you are going to a store (or bank!) and want to express your furriness, limit yourself to things like paws, ears, and/or tails. Never conceal your face behind a mask in these situations.
 
That said, what are the legal implications here? This can be extremely complicated because laws vary from state to state, country to country. Also, there have been federal cases that have revolved around the wearing of identity-concealing masks.
 
France is an example of a country with a very strong, anti-mask law that was passed in 2010 and has been used to jail people for wearing balaclavas. Predictably, this has inspired protests by the Muslim community.
 
The U.S. Constitution does protect you when it comes to self-expression and protest, however. For example, during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the state tried to jail protestors for concealing their faces with scarves, but the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the wearing of masks during protests as a form of free speech. There have been other efforts to make masks illegal to wear at protests on public property or private property when the owner has not given permission for a protest.
 
Let’s look at the state level. There are eleven U.S. places with anti-mask laws, including California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Usually, when states have a law against masks it is stipulated that they are illegal when used during a crime and not for entertainment purposes such as during Halloween. There are other obvious exceptions, such as if you are wearing a respirator or surgical mask for health reasons.
 
In your cases, we’re dealing with Massachusetts and California law. Section 185 of the California Penal Code states: “It shall be unlawful for any person to wear any mask, false whiskers, or any personal disguise (whether complete or partial) for the purpose of: One--Evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification in the commission of any public offense. Two--Concealment, flight, or escape, when charged with, arrested for, or convicted of, any public offense. Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.”
 
Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 268, Section 34 states: “Whoever disguises himself with intent to obstruct the due execution of the law, or to intimidate, hinder or interrupt an officer or other person in the lawful performance of his duty, or in the exercise of his rights under the constitution or laws of the commonwealth, whether such intent is effected or not, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year and may if imprisoned also be bound to good behavior for one year after the expiration of such imprisonment.”
 
(For a list of other state laws, see http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html.)
 
In both your cases, you are not violating the law, but we shouldn’t assume that store employees are going to be fully aware of the law, so they could call the police on you or toss you out of the store (many stores, after all, do have signs where they say they can refuse service to anyone they wish.)
 
Bottom line, again, is I would not wear a fursuit head in these cases. While the law is on your side, save it for places where wearing a fursuit is expected (cons and meets) or at events where those running the event are fully aware you will be in suit.
 
Thanks for your terrific questions!
 
Hugs,
Papabear

The anthology Heat, edited by Dark End, is regarded by many as the premier literary magazine of the furry fandom. Although explicitly erotic, it isn't pornographic. The stories are all exceptionally literary, and each was a delight to read. Although all had flaws, I absolutely recommend this anthology for anyone interested in furry fiction, especially if interested in literary erotica.I've reviewed each story, comic and poem featured in the comic separately.I was assisted by my friend and poetry expert Free Jam who shared her insights and criticisms which shaped my reviews of the poetry in this anthology.Those Magnificent Women and their Flying Machines, by Dark End Those Magnificent Women and their Flying Machines is about Alexa, a vixen pilot with the air force, getting revenge on her stuck-up boss Gillian for refusing to acknowledge her proven skill by sending her into a real combat scenario. She comes to understand her boss better, but doesn't lose her drive to be seen as an equal. The opening of the story did an excellent job to immediately establish character, setting, and the main character's conflict in a concise and believable way. However, I felt that the dialogue suffered for it. The back-and-forth between Alexa and the wolf read almost like a caricature of how such a scene should go, rather than how it actually would go. Then again, with the whole story playing to a larger than life tone, it served to set the upbeat sort of underdog go-getter vibe for the rest of the story. For most of the story, in fact, I felt as if the dialogue was in direct subservience to the plot rather than working as a natural progression of conversation. I understand that it's necessary to guide the dialogue towards the plot targets, however, it often ended up feeling stiff and uniform amongst all the characters, despite being well-written and very clever in many cases. Structurally, the rapid-fire short scenes didn't work for me when set alongside longer, average-length scenes. Although the opening scene accomplished many goals in impressively few words, there were many other scenes that only served to establish setting or set up a single, specific plot point. These slowed down the story for me, when the upbeat go-getter tone demanded a faster pace. Further slowing down the pace of the story were many points of drawn-out exposition. It's cool hearing about Alexa's friend Orchid, an otter singer at the local club, and how her father was a mob boss, but there were many more interesting ways to present that background to me than in a block paragraph history lesson. The same is true of Alexa's background with that same club, which is told over two paragraphs of pure start-of-scene exposition. However, when we're shown action, we're shown it with interesting visuals, good pacing, and strong description. Drunk Gillian was a delight, and so was the haphazard, incognito sex-scene-turned-heist that followed from it. In fact, that long scene progression from the bar, to the back room, to otter punches was the highlight of the story. It flowed very well and drew me deep into the story. The conflict steadily built, wonderfully intertwined with moments of physical comedy which is incredibly difficult to pull off so effectively. The climactic confrontation between Alexa, Gillian, and Orchid was funny, fun, and believably written. I was absolutely a sucker for the emotionally warm finisher conversation in the second to last scene. It prodded all the right places to give me a big smile, and concluded the story in a manner befitting the characters and tone. However, I think that it did a good enough job finalizing the character arcs, that the very last scene fell flat for me, in a Harry Potter Book 7 Epilogue sense. Sure, we got to see a few loose ends wrapped up, such as the final scene between Alexa and the wolf from the start of the story, but much of it felt unnecessary with the character and plot points that drove the story having already resolved. With those minor hang-ups, I thought that this story was a marvel. Eliciting tension and emotion with drama is difficult, but doing so during an upbeat story filled with humor and optimism without any of that falling flat is even more difficult. I absolutely recommend this story.How to Ruin a Friendship, a comic written by Kyell Gold and illustrated by Donryu: How to Ruin a Friendship is a fun, quick comic about a man who invites his friend to donate sperm for his partner's pregnancy. However, he wants both him and his partner to be involved in the process of filling that turkey baster. The first page starts immediately with a great in media res that both lays out the plot conflict, as well as the conflicted emotions in Chip's character. The characters are vibrant, and in the short space we get to know them, they all showcase their individuality. Each page leaves off each with near-cliffhangers, little things that just make you continue to see what's about to happen. This is even true during the sex scene when the dialogue is entirely absent. With the combination of the title and the trepidation of the main character at the onset of the scene, the tension would have kept me interested during the sex scene even if the wonderful art hadn't drawn me forward. This comic was all-around well executed.Bad Connection, by Crimson Ruari: Bad Connection is about a wolf couple who grows divided over the issue of children. Chase, the main character, has always wanted pups, but his wife Kel isn't as keen on them. The constant reminders of kids in the lives lived around them drive such a wedge between the two that Chase begins to doubt his relationship. The strained relationship between Kel and Chase was clear from the opening, which was wonderfully evocative of both the differing stances that the couple had towards children, and the different ways they dealt with that difference existing in their relationship. It set the tone and clearly established tension for the story to build off of. The dialogue was very well written. The characters were clearly distinguishable, the conversations flowed well, and progressed naturally. Furthermore, they were interspersed well with action that really highlighted the quirks and personality traits of both Kel and Chase. Despite that, both in the first conversation and latter ones, emotions changed too fast for my believability. One moment everything is fine; the next, a character has stormed off to slam doors and throw a fit. These temperament changes needed more build to really work for me. I enjoyed the character arc, but the plot felt rather jumpy to me. The narrative transitioning from the conflict over pups, to Chase's friend Becca telling him how to back off, to Chase backing off, to a time skip with Kel suddenly coming home smelling like sex, all this over the course of four pages, left me with a degree of whiplash. I was having trouble latching on to a concrete issue that Chase's character had to work through. Instead, I was presented with a problem, then a fix, then a problem, then a fix, and then another problem. These sudden changes made it difficult to latch onto an issue long enough to empathize with. Furthermore, I didn't like much of the exposition that explained to me Chase's interpretation of the scenes. I love seeing emotional reactions because those evoke sympathy from me. However, I don't like being told how to think about a scene, which happened at many points throughout the story. Lastly, I didn't like how the character arc was resolved through no agency of Chase himself. Both he and Kel were told exactly how to change by Kel's close coworker Darrel, and that was a very unsatisfying climax to the story. Then, they had a conversation that cleared up a few of each of their misconceptions, then they had sex. I felt like they were forced into resolving the conflict, causing it to feel cheap rather than earned. Compounding that, after the climax of the story, the sex didn't seem to serve a purpose for Chase's character arc. To me, it just read, "We resolved our issues, now let's have sex." It could have been almost entirely left out. The only important moment was Kel's laissez faire attitude towards a condom in the ending, and that was a weirdly sudden change for her character that didn't resonate with me. Despite that, I did enjoy the note that the story left off on, with them agreeing to therapy and preparing to continue to work on their relationship issues. The ending of the story made me wish that the meat of Chase's character arc had hung on his personal methods of communication, rather than those being resolved by Becca and then her sage advice not even working anyway. It fell entirely on an outside source to resolve the plot -- gay coworker ex machina. That's not to say that the aforementioned sex wasn't written well, because it absolutely was. The sex scene worked great, and the dialogue scattered through it was charming and lovely. In fact, the entire story was written well enough to carry me through my qualms about plot structure and character arcs. In the end, it was a charming story that I do definitely think is worth reading. The dialogue is strong, the characters are strong, and the writing itself is fluid and evocative.Instincts, by Tempe O'Kun: Instincts is a sensual poem about an erotic encounter with a tiger woman. Although I enjoyed reading it, it didn't particularly stand out to me. The poem was comprised of action-based imagery that attempted to evoke the different senses of sex. I liked the line about the heart scampering away even while clutching close. However, the only other metaphor, electricity, is a tired metaphor for sex. Afterwards, the description lacked much flair. The language felt active and descriptive, but it wasn't particularly evocative to me, which was a problem for a poem about the sensations of sex with a hot tiger lady. It stopped showing me what it was like, and started telling me instead, which was far less exciting. Furthermore, the inconsistent line lengths sometimes worked for me and sometimes didn't. In the middle two stanzas, the tension built up to highlight every word. However, one of the two was twice as long as others, and felt out of place. I think it would have had more impact had they both been trimmed down to approximately even lengths. The last stanza seemed somewhat inconsistent with the rest. Until then, the poem used fairly formal language. The term “spooking” felt out of place. However, it was a fun, quick read, despite the issues present.West, by Slip Wolf West is an excellent story about moving on. The lead character, Alex, is traveling westward on his bike towards the home of his prior lover, Samuel. However, in leaving his home, he's broken parole and has to lay low to avoid the cops out to round him up. As he's laying low, Alex has a run-in with a Corgi nicknamed Shortbread who, after some initial tensions, invites Alex to ride alongside him and his pack of canine bikers. The story read well to me. The writing, plot, and characters were all solid. However, there were several points where the scenes dragged on a stretch too long, or where extraneous sections left me wondering when the next point of plot or character progression would come. Furthermore, the climax of the story had the main character revealing a point of his past that I didn't feel was adequately foreshadowed. Because of that, this engaging story had me tilting my head near the end, as if it had swapped out character arcs on me at the last second. Whereas beforehand the arc gripped me and pulled me on even through the parts that slightly dragged, with the climax -- and throughout the rest of the story -- the character progression suddenly felt muddied and discordant. I also did not like the twist at the very end. It didn't add anything to my understanding of the characters and story, yet felt contrived to the point where it shaved off a layer of the believability that had be so laboriously built through the excellent setting Despite those gripes, the writing is fluid and descriptive with few grammatical mistakes, the characters live and breathe, and most of all, the story is lush with the biker setting. The bars are vivid to the imagination, and while the characters break biker tropes, the basic feel of a hardened biker is there for them all. The setting does an excellent job drawing the reader into that gritty world. Despite my hang-ups about the character arcs and progression, I enjoyed this story a lot.Three Foxes Walk Into a Bar, by Thurston Howl: Three Foxes Walk Into a Bar is a lighthearted poem illustrating a dominatrix vixen picking up men from a bar. It contrasts the dark tones of BDSM with the fun, sing-song tone of the poem. This poem unfortunately doesn't work for me at all. The language feels awkward to me. The very first line, "Once was a vixen who walked into a bar," although fitting the lighthearted tone, just reads awkwardly. The language is stretched and twisted to fit the rhyme scheme and line length throughout the entire poem, which causes many instances of uncomfortable phrasing. Furthermore, the flow doesn't really work. For example, the first two lines in the second stanza have completely different compositions. This technique can work, but doesn't there. They just don’t feel like they are supposed to be together. Some of the rhyming is just forced. The first stanza is fine, but the second uses “hide” when that flat-out wasn’t what the character was doing and didn't really relate in any metaphoric sense either. Now, the use of limericks does add a sprinkle of humor and playfulness, but the writing itself doesn't hold this standard. There's a dearth of upbeat, joking, or funny moments in the writing to match it. So while the playful tone is a cool idea, it just doesn't really match the content. The last stanza made me very uncomfortable. The increased line length and unnecessary wordiness disrupted the quick-paced flow that limericks are supposed to have, and the rape joke at the end left a sour taste in my mouth.Flame Above the Waves, a comic written by Zeigler and drawn by Kyma: Flame Above the Waves is about a fox castaway who washes up on the shore of an old lighthouse. The main character, the lighthouse keeper Timothy Cobb, is a sea otter hermit who rescues the fox and rehabilitates him. This comic fell into a lot of 'castaway' tropes, with the two very different characters who at first don't really get along, but slowly grow close. The execution of this trope, however, is well done. It's a slow burn, although one that kept me engaged as I read it. I didn't enjoy the captain's log style narration. Wherever it was used, it just seemed to exist to skimp out on showing progress through action and dialogue. Although the castaway plot arc trope is executed well, I could have done without the tropic narration. The two characters are unique and vivid. Their interactions are what makes this story a delight to read. Furthermore, their steady growth is natural and steady, impressively so for a comic confined to such a low page-count. However, the twist at the end didn't work for me. A lack of foreshadowing meant it came out of the blue, for seemingly no purpose. Now, that would be fine if it were a short note before the comic cut out, but instead the comic spends two full pages on this out-of-nowhere pirate captain that completely disrupted the tone of the story. Despite the ending, I was very impressed with the buildup of the relationship between the two main characters. It's a great read, and has wonderful art to match.Shell Game, by Kandrel Shell Game is about a Husky named Markus living in a town entirely populated with clones of himself. These clones are entirely subservient to him, and he works to ensure that all of him works as a finely tuned machine, just like the towns of clones of other individuals, all having arrived to populate this planet on the same colonization ship. However, things start to go wrong, and Markus learns information about himself that he had never considered. The biggest issue I had with this story was the frontloaded exposition. The world that Kandrel constructed is really cool. I think it's awesome and inventive. Yet, as cool as it is, I grew exhausted reading through the minutiae of how the world worked, much of which was not necessary for the plot itself. The opening exposition seemed to drag on for me, and by the time the plot started, I may have skipped the story were I not reviewing it. Several cases of odd sentence construction compounded this. There was nothing explicitly ungrammatical except in the case of a clear typo. All of that served to continually disrupt my attention. And that would have been a shame. Because the plot erupted from a mysterious black van arriving in the main character's town like a storm. It gripped me and pulled me along. The plot was engaging and skillfully executed; the problem for me was the unnecessarily long time that it took to get started. However, around two-thirds of the way into the story, we experience an ironic role reversal that I would have loved had it been executed differently. As it was, the role reversal felt immediate and absolute, so much so that I didn't recognize the character afterwards. It was as if I were reading about a different main character for the last third, which was disorienting. It pulled me out of the story, with the character resisting this call for a while, then all of a sudden, with no in-between, fully succumbing to it and morphing into an entirely different character with no remnants of their initial personality. When the main character entered a new environment that he was introduced to in the latter part of the story, there was none of the calculating precision we had been set up to initially expect. There was only dumb wonder at surroundings that were only slightly unusual. For all those issues that kept me from fully engaging in the story, all the elements were right there for it to work really well. It was still an enjoyable read, and I would absolutely recommend it to science fiction fans, but it could have been much tighter.Full Dip, a comic by Ishaway: Full Dip is about a female cat named Kyra and Robin, her rabbit girlfriend. The couple grow too hot with their AC out at home, so they go to the ocean to cool off. This comic is sexy. It's well-drawn, but there's not much to it. There's no tension driving the story forward other than the superficial porn tension of getting caught nude out on the beach. However, even that slight bit of tension is immediately dissipated with reassurances in the dialogue. There's not really much of a plot to speak of, only a situation that exists solely to lead the main characters to sex. The inner monologue style narration felt fairly stiff to me, but the dialogue flowed decently well. Even so, there were many spots with strange word choices or awkward constructions. I recommend this comic if you want some well-drawn lesbian porn, but there isn't really any literary merit to it that would warrant interest otherwise.Top to Bottom, a poem by Mog Moogle: Top to Bottom is an interesting poem about the dynamic between domination and submission, taking the role of top or bottom. First of all, the short lines and concise language work excellently. They play into a fast-paced, breathtaking experience that really serves to highlight the imagery and sensuality of the language. However, the punctuation lacks consistency. Punctuation works when it's all or nothing, but punctuating just a few lines confuses the flow. When the first line has a period, the audience will expect punctuation and will have to readjust themselves when no more comes. Then, a semicolon and comma appear in the middle, adding more confusion. Furthermore, it was quite literally hard to read. The white on grey at the bottom blends too much into the background, which is sad, because it slows my reading down when my mind wants to keep pushing forward at the speed with which the text yanks me along. The highlight of the poem is the ability to read it top to bottom or bottom to top. That's cool, and really hard to accomplish. It shows just how this poet knows what he's doing. Overall, Top to Bottom is an excellent poem with vivid, descriptive language, excellent flow, and a theme that carries through the content, tone, and even structure of the poem.Blue Collar Blues, by Whyte Yote: Blue Collar Blues is a nostalgic piece about two men dealing with the stresses and traumas of their lives in different ways. Right off the bat, I was struck by the fluidity of the writing and the terrific dialogue between the two main characters, Jimbo the tiger and Hank the shiba inu. I was drawn in by their pride in their vehicles and the superbly executed ounce of conflict that kept tugging the dialogue forward. This wonderful dialogue continued through the next scene. However, I didn't feel the tension grow beyond that taste from the first scene. The characters were fleshed out very nicely with the exposition given through their conversation while drinking on the couch, but my interest waned. Luckily, the story picked pack up right where it left off as they grow steadily drunker and drunker, evolving into relationship woes and the conflicts they were dealing with from their wives. The climax of the scene, which evolved into the climax of the story, was uncomfortable in just the right ways to leave a lasting impression and a twisted gut, but not overboard. Without spoiling the story, I can say that a less deft hand writing that scene could have left me with a far worse impression of the story. Personally, I love having stories that wrap up emotional arcs. Even though it's formulaic, it's formulaic for the reason that certain structures give you strong emotional reactions to the resolution of a story. My biggest qualm with Blue Collar Blues, therefore, was the lack of a tidy ending. I loved the buildup and the conflict that arose between the two main characters. I was all ready for either a blow-up of these unresolved issues or a gentle deflating of the balloon as they find some greater realization about their own lives. However, the story just up and ended with all of the major plot threads hanging in the open and unresolved. Now, I understand that this isn't unheard of. I know that plot threads are left open-aired, even when there's no emotional reconciliation. But I can't help but have a less positive look at the story when I absolutely didn't enjoy the ending. That's a shame, because I loved almost all other parts of it. I would absolutely recommend this piece, it's a wonderful slice of life despite what I considered to be a lackluster ending.Tied, by Televassi: Tied is a poem relating a captured wolf of Norse mythology. It weaves a metaphor between his capture and the hold of a lover over him. The metaphorical language in this poem shines. For example, "Wayward creatures / Can come quietly to heel," is evocative and full of imagery. However, the evocative imagery loses its dreamy quality near the end where it becomes more grounded in concrete physical action. I don't like this, as it feels somewhat blunt. The semicolons in each stanza really don't add much. However, the stanzas at the end make great use of consonance. The repeated "S" in "Subtly / You Slipped over me / That silken snare” helps the lines flow together. The language is carefully crafted. It flows wonderfully as a result.To the Victor the Spoils, by Ocean Tigrox To the Victor the Spoils is about a greyhound named Coltraine who competes in his city-state's decennial grand race to earn the hand of a maiden from an allied city-state. He was born and raised with this race in mind, and competes against his childhood friend Burtley and a peasant Basalt. However, he's already confidently tied the knot with the maiden, Renee, and the politics surrounding the race aren't all that they seem. The story opens with a sex scene that felt very weirdly paced. I understood the back and forth, and tying the imagery of the race to the imagery of sex, but it ended up not really making either set of imagery work for me. However, while it failed in imagery, it worked excellently to build clear tension and conflict right out of the gate that never let up throughout the entire story. The plot carried this piece on its back, disguising its flaws such as moments of awkward word choice. There were weird and uncomfortable aspects to the world that I immediately wanted to know more about. When they were explained to me in the second scene, I was let down by the exposition. I wanted to learn the mechanics of this interesting system by seeing how it worked. Being told it instead caused the world to lose much of its wonder to me. However, the characters and plot tension filled that gap of wonder. I loved that the main character was so initially hate-able. It was a weird dynamic, since even though Basalt, Coltraine's peasant rival, was a jerk, he was the underdog whose perspective the typical sports story of this form would focus on. Yet Coltraine's spoiledness came across with a well-written naivety that allowed me to really feel for him when I absolutely knew what was going on with Rainee when he visited her in the tower later. That's hard to pull off. Bently, Coltraine's friend, became more important to the plot than Basalt, yet we saw far interaction with Basalt than Bently. In fact, the entire initial conversation between Coltrane and his friend Burtley felt forced. When talking about Stenworth's death, there should have been gravity with that moment, but I didn't feel it. Because of the mixed feelings the story gave me towards the protagonist, even though I did end up hoping for him to win the race, I was uncertain. If Basalt won, it wouldn't be a villain winning, but an upstart underdog able to push it in the faces of the nobility. Having set up the story such that I didn't know for a fact that the protagonist would win made it that much tenser for me going into that final moment of action. Despite that, the moment of greater realization about Coltraine's reason for racing didn't hit me like the budding tension did. I appreciated Coltraine's character arc, but I didn't see the gradual buildup of thoughts that led to him understanding his change in motivation. Furthermore, I didn't like the composition of the final competition in the race. It seemed to contradict the interpersonal race conflict that had been built up for the entire story beforehand. The ending was excellent with the built-up character conflict between Rainee and Coltraine maintaining the tension that had exploded in the climactic race. The finale itself was well executed and satisfying. I can absolutely say that I'd recommend this story. Although the shortcomings were stark with the confusion between antagonists and the few stylistic failings, the strengths -- especially the story's plot arcs -- more than made up for them. It was a delight to read.Final thoughts: As a cohesive unit, the stories, comics, and poems in Heat flow together very well. I don't think there's an issue with the progression of tone between the content. Furthermore, the illustrations throughout the book were absolutely stunning and showcased an excellent layout design that only faltered with Top to Bottom's text readability. I unfortunately found that the quality of the poetry and comics varied far more than the stories themselves. I would rather see fewer of these than ones not up to the same standards as the rest of the fiction. The short stories, however, were consistently well written, many of which easily matching the quality of mainstream fiction. In the end, I'd rate Heat 14 an excellent 8.5/10, and would absolutely recommend it to any furry that isn't squeamish about reading erotica.

[Back in town again, your ed-otter is happy to get caught up with new furry stuff!] Looking ahead to the delayed-but-still-coming film How to Train Your Dragon 3, Dreamworks Animation have a new full-color graphic novel coming early next year from Dark Horse. “This second standalone graphic novel based on the film series is a new adventure that takes place shortly after the events in How to Train Your Dragon 2, during the period in which Hiccup is desperately trying to fill his father’s role as the chief of Berk. Created with the help of the film’s writer, director, and producer, Dean DeBlois; it bridges the gap between the second and third films. Hiccup, Toothless, and the rest of the dragon riders encounter two deadly yet mysteriously linked threats: One is an island consumed by Dragonvine, an uncontrollable force of nature that’s poisonous to humans and deadly to dragons. The other is an all-new, all-terrifying dragon species – the web-spitting Silkspanners!” As they noted in the press release, How to Train Your Dragon: Dragonvine is written by Dean Deblois and Richard Hamilton, with illustrations by Francisco de la Fuente and Doug Wheatley.

image c. 2017 Dark Horse

The space race was a bit weirder than I remember it.
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Always Gray in Winter, by Mark J. Engels
Knoxville, TN, Thurston Howl Publications, August 2017, trade paperback, $12.99 (178 pages).

Always Gray in Winter is one of those novels that is deliberately mysterious at first, and only gradually reveals what is going on. To avoid my own spoiler, here is the blurb on the author’s website:

“The modern day remnant of an ancient clan of werecats is torn apart by militaries on three continents vying to exploit their deadly talents. Born in an ethnic Chicago neighborhood following her family’s escape from Cold War-era Poland, were-lynx Pawly flees underground to protect her loved ones after genetically-enhanced soldiers led by rogue scientist and rival werecat Mawro overrun her Navy unit in the Gulf of Oman. Pawly’s family seeks her out in a desperate gambit to return [to] their ancestral homeland and reconcile with their estranged kinsmen. But when her human lover arrives to thwart Mawro’s plan to weaponize their feral bloodlust, Pawly must face a daunting choice:  preserve her family secrets and risk her lover’s life or chance her true nature driving him away forever.”

Pawly is Pawlina J. Katczynski, a mid-twenties Polish-American in love with Lennart “Lenny” Reintz, a mid-twenties German-American U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security specialist. However, Pawly has become a were-lynx vigilante superhero in combat against Mawro, another werecat who uses his shapeshifting powers for sinister and unethical purposes: he is the leader and head scientist of the North Korean “ailuranthropic” R&D program. Here is Pawly, in text and also an illustration by Amy Sun Hee “inspired by the novel”, on the author’s website:

“Her fangs bit into the fur below her lower lip. Pawly fell forward and thrust out her legs against the railing. Claws sprouted forth from the tips of her fingers with a flick of each wrist. She dove toward the car and yowled to goad the driver into turning her way. Her claws sank into the skin above the bridge of his nose as she slid across the car’s hood on her butt. With a grunt she yanked her hand free, tearing both of the man’s eyes free from their sockets. He screamed and crumpled to the pavement, cradling his ruined face, weapon all but forgotten. His partner whirled around with his shotgun in one hand, leaving his chest wide open. Before reaching the wall, Pawly raked the toe claws on both feet across the man’s abdomen. She pushed off with her legs and landed past the front bumper. When she spun around, the wide-eyed man stood before her, trembling as he stuffed his entrails back inside him with both hands. Pawly responded to his horrified whimper with but a shrug before he collapsed.” (p. 7)

In fact, Always Gray in Winter remains deliberately confusing through its first half. The first chapter introduces Mawro and his were-tigress assistant Hana, and establishes that they work for North Korea. The next chapter focuses upon Pawly, the were-lynx (that’s her on the cover), shows her fighting a lone war against white slaver thugs, hints at her having an uncontrollable bloodlust, and ends with her capture by a mysterious organization. The third and fourth chapters reveal that Pawly’s captors are her own extended family, who are affiliated with the U.S. Navy but are acting on their own in drugging Pawly in San Francisco and spiriting her away to Chicago. Barry, Dory, Alex, Tommy, Sheila, Top (also called Topper or Big Top), and Ritzi are introduced, calling each other Mom, Dad, and similar names showing a close relationship. Flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks both clarify and further confuse matters. The family members are gradually more clearly identified – Top is Christopher; Dory is Teodor; Tommy is Pawly’s crippled twin brother Tomasz. Lenny, Pawly’s fiancée, is not a werecat, and has been unwillingly assigned as an assistant to arrogant DHS agent Manuel Latharo. The evil Russian Blaznikov is dead, but has he left death traps behind him?

“‘Everyone around you will die, Pawlina,’ boomed Blaznikov’s mocking voice in her mind.” (p. 10)

Art by Amy Sun Hee

The ominous MSG (not monosodium glutamate) has been stolen and could be anywhere in the world. Some disaster has recently befallen them:

“Top himself appointed her squad leader upon their arrival in Chah Behar. Within days his reputation would be ruined. Lenny would be wounded. Tommy would be paralyzed. And the woman she loved like a sister would be dead.” (p. 52)

Could things get any worse? Well, yeah. Engels has a fondness for acronyms, from the obvious (NROTC) to the obscure (BUD/S) to the imaginary for this novel (the aforementioned MSG); and a weakness for dangling participles. “Only the soft sobbing of the terrified girls, still seated on the car’s bumper, remained once their death throes subsided.” (p. 7) The girls’ death throes? No, their captors’ in the preceding paragraph. “Lenny squinted at the man’s eyes while he showed them inside.” (p. 37) While who showed them inside; Lenny or the man with the eyes?

Always Gray in Winter (cover artist named Bone in the book; named Boneitis in the author’s webpage) is not always convincing:

“Hana spied the thick limb of a poplar tree nearby. She sank the claws on her feet into the branch beneath her and pushed off. Little bits of bark fluttered earthward behind her. High above the Forest’s floor, she leapt from treetop to treetop toward the clearing along its southern border. The moonlight shimmering off the virgin snow glowed brighter as she neared her goal. She gritted her teeth and drove herself forward through the pain. There would be ample opportunity to rest once she reached the van.” (p. 135)

Hana is a were-tiger (“our Bengal bimbo”). Tigers don’t climb trees. Also, poplar forests are popular – Thomas Jefferson planted one that is a National Historic Landmark today – but is the poplar a good tree to go leaping “from treetop to treetop” among?

But quibbles aside, Always Gray in Winter is a fast-moving thriller. You will become wrapped up in the problems of the Katczynski werecat clan, and its struggles to escape both its physical enemies and the killing madness of Werecat’s Rage. Recommended.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• Mark Engels Website

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So for everybody out there currently playing Cuphead I thought I would share this old 1930s cartoon. Back in the 70s my parents collected 16MM films and I grew watching things like The 3 Stooges, Marx Brothers and old 30s cartoons on a projected screen and one of the favorites was this particular Flip cartoon. There is just something about these weird surreal old cartoons that's just kinda awesome and is probably why the developers of Cuphead went for that style. This is a film made by UB Iwerks [1] with music by Carl Stalling (More famous for doing all the music on all the classic Warner Brothers cartoons.) A weird thing about UB's Flip the Frog is he was the inspiration for the Eric Schwartz flip cartoons. If you have never seen those here is an example of the Schwartz animated shorts: https://youtu.be/2k42dipZt28 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ub_Iwerks
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Legacy: Dusk, by Rukis. Illustrated by the author.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, June 2017, trade paperback $1.95 (249 pages), e-book $12.95.

This is a mature content book.  Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region. (publisher’s advisory)

This is the sequel and conclusion to Legacy: Dawn, reviewed here last August and set in Rukis’ Red Lantern world. Rukis has said on e621, “Legacy is a story set in the Red Lantern world, and takes place roughly 20 years before the events of Red Lantern. You do not need to follow Red Lantern to understand this story, it can be read entirely independently, but if you follow the series, it will certainly enrich the world for you.”

But you do need to know Legacy: Dawn. This begins right after. Right after. Rukis serialized the complete Legacy online on Patreon, and you can’t help suspecting the two halves are meant to be republished as a single book someday soon. You should certainly read the review of Legacy: Dawn first and then this one together. That ends “Legacy: Dawn is about Kadar’s and Ahsin’s struggle for the freedom to be together, in a society where both are treated as property that can be casually separated. It is also about Kadar’s confused instinct to be a dominant personality in a society where he is of low caste, and those of higher caste do not hesitate to punish those below them who get ‘uppity’.” That’s more recapitulation than you will get in Legacy: Dusk.

Kadar (the narrator), a golden jackal, and Ahsin, a hyena, are homosexual lovers and indentured servants – read “slaves” – together. They have escaped from a plantation of the powerful Sura Clan in the desert nation of Mataa, following a slave revolt. Mataa is ruled by hyenas, but homosexuality is socially forbidden; especially for them, since the lower-caste Kadar is the dominant and the upper-caste Ahsin is the subordinate in their relationship. They can expect to be brutally tortured and then slaughtered together if they are recaptured. They and a few other Sura escapees had been taken in by a pride of free lionesses on one of Mataa’s oases, but bands of pursuers from the Sura Clan have made it too dangerous to stay there:

“We parted ways with Dela five nights ago, and we’ve been wandering ever since. She’d given us enough provisions to last at least a week, more than enough to make it out of the dunes, if we wanted to. But each time we neared a watering hole or a small town on the outskirts, we dipped our toes only to retreat back into the desert soon after. The pinpricks of civilization around the desert’s edge were bristling with hyenas from merchant caravans and plantations selling their wares, and we’re not sure how known we are to each of the clans, but we know there are hunters looking for us, and that’s reason enough to be cautious.” (p. 11)

They and the three other escapees – Raja (male cheetah), Anala (female, a non-Sura hyena), and Lavanya (lioness) – try to remain unrecaptured, and to find a Liberator who can remove their metal collars of ownership.

Kadar, Ahsin, Raja, and Lavanya are escaped indentured servants/slaves who just want to get rid of their collars and blend back into Mataa’s free citizens. Anala is a former Sura guard, working for their owners. They don’t know at first why she has joined the escaping slaves, just that she is from a warrior cult. The book is halfway over before she tells them fully. (All priestesses of their religion change their names to that of their warrior goddess, Anala.)

“‘Are we just going to… kill them?’ Ahsan asks, his tone possessing more strength than I thought it might, considering he’s speaking up to Anala. ‘Before we even know who they are?’

‘Do not insult me,’ Anala flicks her boxy ears back. ‘Do you not know by now who I am? What I stand for? The initial attack is simply intimidation. Threaten, convince them they have been caught unawares and stand no chance, and if they have weapons, seize them. We only fight these men in self-defense. They are not worthy combatants for the sake of combat. And no sneak attacks,’ she warns in Raja’s direction, narrowing her eyes. ‘Killing an opponent who has had no chance to defend themselves is just… murder. We are warriors.’ She clasps a paw over her heart, clenching it. I know it to be a clan salute, so I don’t reciprocate. No one else does, but I see Raja nodding.” (pgs. 30-31)

“‘For us,’ I point out. ‘You aren’t collared. You’ll forgive me for saying this Priestess, but you have no real investment in helping us find this man.’

‘I have seen you fight for your freedom, jackal,’ she looks around our camp. ‘All of you. Your ferocity is inspiring. There are grand battles before you, and devastation in your wake. I am absolutely certain Anala means for me to have found you, to join you, to be a part of the war to come.’

‘War?’ I narrow my eyes at her. ‘Since when is this a war? We want our freedom.’

‘How many others across Mataa share your sentiments?’ Anala asks in a low voice. ‘How many thousands… tens of thousands… perhaps hundreds of thousands? The melee at the Sura plantation was not the first of its kind, but you won. Do you know how unlikely that was?’” (pgs. 46-47)

“She knits her fingers together on the table, looking down at her rough palms. ‘The fight with the Aard—‘ She stops, looking to Ahsan’s disapproving expression, ‘with Lochan,’ she corrects quietly, ‘was the first real challenge I’d had in years. But after much soul-searching, I came to feel that while it would have been honorable to fall to a man of such skill in combat, it is not what the Goddess intended for me.   Was there as a witness to Matron Sura’s cowardice, and moreover, to see how the world as a whole is changing.’

‘That’s true,’ Raja mutters, flexing his shoulder with a wince. ‘Those weapons are fucking terrifying. Stuff of myth. It’s no wonder they’re conquering the damn world with them.’

‘Soon, there will be no place for women like me,’ Anala says, grimly. ‘Anyone with a pistol or a rifle and the will to use it can stop the greatest warrior dead in their tracks with one pull of a finger. Anala’s power will wane as the true art of warfare is lost, and our Order will fade away with her. All this knowledge, I contended with for many weeks, after the raid on the Plantation. It was hard. It was the most lost I have ever felt.’” (pgs. 161-162)

The War Priestesses of Anala (all hyenas) believe they are meant to die in battle, fighting enemy warriors one-on-one with swords and knives. But the world is changing, with the introduction of gunpowder weapons that kill at a distance (which Anala considers cowardly), such as those the Sura Clan is importing for its guards. This Anala can foresee her religion shrinking and disappearing. She hopes to join Kadar and the four others to accomplish more than a personal escape. She wants them to lead a general slave revolution so she can die in glorious battle.

Art by Rukis

It’s crazy. But – the chances of four escaped slaves hiding in a large country with all authorities and professional escaped-slave hunters searching for them are practically zero. Can four ex-slaves and a death-or-glory warrior priestess foment a full-scale slave rebellion? Can Kadar, the narrator, take part in such a revolution while he and his gay lover Ahsin conduct their personal NSFW romance, and while the group first help Kadar search for his son, who he has not seen for four years and who should be six years old now?

About page 170, their search takes them from the desert of camels and caravans to the muggy, humid coast of jungles, seas, ships, and new animals like otters, langurs, and several that are unknown to Kadar.

Legacy: Dusk (cover by Rukis, plus seven illustrations, some of which are explicitly erotic) mixes scenes of Kadar’s and Ahsin’s romantic trysts, Kadar’s musings on his past and his thoughts on his desert slave culture (what would be the 16th/17th-century Middle East in our world), and the hiding, escapes, and battles of the group’s adventures. If you haven’t read Legacy: Dawn yet, you should start there. If you have, you know you want to read this last half of Legacy.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Fur Planet

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Friday the 13th is coming up and who better to help us celebrate than Glove and Boots!
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Hello Everyone!

We open this week's show with a discussion on the difficulty of admitting fault. We look into an article that analyzes why we as people are unlikely to seek responsibility for our mistakes and shortcomings. Is this an issue of the ego or is it something deeper, and how can this harm us in the long run? 

Our main topic is our F.A.G. to Convention Attendance. With last week covering how to plan for the convention, this week we talk about how to enjoy a convention to the best of your ability. Part recap, part conversational, this is a show meant for newcomers to conventions. Spoiler: next week we talk about when the convention plans go awry and how to triage that. 

We close with some feedback on our previous episodes and a question on admitting love in the face of difficulty-- our questioner is closeted, unsure of his sexuality, and unsure how his friends and family will react if he follows through on his feelings for another male. What is he to do? 

For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode.

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 089 Feral Attraction Guide to Convention Attendance - Should we be more willing to accept blame? Can we talk about convention attendance for 90 minutes? FEEDBACK! All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!

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

Monster Island. Directed by Leopoldo Aguilar, from a script by Billy Frolick & Alicia Núñez Puerto. Sony Home Pictures Entertainment, September 12, 2017, 80 minutes, direct-to-DVD, $14.99.

Distributed in the U.S. & Canada by Vision Films (Sherman Oaks, California). Produced by Ánima Estudios (México City).

Is Monster Island worth an article for DP? How can we ignore any movie with a character like Verónica, the pig-girl?

This 80-minute CGI animated movie premiered theatrically on July 21st in the U.K. It got devastating reviews. Newspaper The Guardian said the day before, “… it’s […] dispiriting to encounter this ploddingly mediocre knockoff, with its budget effects, utterly uninspired visual design and flatlining dialogue. […] The whole forgettable movie looks as if it has been generated by ageing software.” As if that wasn’t enough, The Guardian followed it up with an even worse review three days later. “There are few things more unpleasant to look at than bad animation. And Monster Island’s Technicolor yawn of regurgitated influences is monstrous in all the wrong ways. The eyeball-melting colour palette is just the tip of the tentacle – this is a cobbled-together, plotless mess […]” It got a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s just been released theatrically in South Korea (September 7th) and China (September 9th). We get it in the U.S. as a direct-to-DVD “family entertainment” (kids’ movie) release.

Lucas Frunk (voice of Philip Adrian Vasquez) is a stereotypical 13-year-old nerd at Brown Middle School. His best pal is also-nerdish Peter Kavinsky. They are both picked on by school bully Cameron (voice of Michael Robles) and made to do his science class experiments (the frog explodes). Lucas discovers the hard way at school social queen Melanie’s (Jenifer Beth Kaplan) Halloween dance that his “asthma inhaler” actually delivers a medicine that keeps him from turning into a towering orange ogre.

Nicolas (Roger L. Jackson), Lucas’ dad, confesses that he and his whole family are monsters from Calvera Island (on the back of a giant turtle), where everyone becomes a monster (no two alike) when they reach puberty. His Grandmother Carlotta (Katie Leigh) is still there; his mother Dina died there when he was a baby. Nicolas refuses to say howhis mother died, why he took Lucas and left Monster Island, and why he has been keeping Lucas’ past a secret from him. Lucas angrily objects to not being told until “the time is right” since the “right time” never comes.

Lucas. Using his inhaler to stay human, steals the magic “carta” (map) to Calvera Island to go there alone. Nicolas finds Lucas gone the next day and rushes with Lucas’ pet lizard Watson to Shiro & Kuro, a wise, two-headed slug (Shiro is tall & thin; Kuro is short & fat) to get a new carta to follow Lucas. Shiro & Kuro tell Nicolas he doesn’t need a carta; he can just stop taking his inhaler, turn into a monster, and automatically know how to find the island. Scenes are intercut of Lucas on the island, and Shiro & Kuro humorously trying to turn Nicolas back into a monster (he’s been in his human form too long).

In Calvera City, Lucas meets his grandmother Carlotta and her shop assistant, Veronica (Fiona Hardingham), a pig-girl monster his own age. Lucas learns that he’s come to Calvera at a bad time; people have begun disappearing. Stupid police constables Fergus (the short pumpkin) and Giraldo (tall zombie) decide that since the disappearances coincide with Lucas’ arrival, he must be guilty and follow him.

Lucas learns what the audience has known since the film’s introduction: the villain is a stereotypical “BWAHAHAHA” evil Mad Scientist. We later discover that the Mad Scientist is Lucas’ uncle Norcutt (Johnny Rose), who is also Carlotta’s son. He is the only person on Calvera Island who did not become a monster at puberty. His desperate attempts to “cure his affliction” resulted in the explosion that killed Lucas’ mother. Both Nicolas (and infant Lucas) and Norcutt left the island in self-imposed exile. Now Norcutt, completely mad, has returned with monster assistants Mongo (spider-man) & Durgo (zombie). Norcutt has decided to become more than a unique monster; he will kidnap & kill all the monsters to steal their abilities and become a composite of all their monsterishness. Norcutt has his assistants kidnap Carlotta, his own mother; Lucas and Veronica go to her rescue; Veronica is captured and Lucas is defeated; Lucas discards his inhaler to become a monster to fight Norcutt’s assistants; Lucas’ dad arrives to join him; Norcutt is completely beaten, and Lucas and Nicolas, as monsters, settle down as citizens of Monster Island.

Monster Island (no relation to the Monster Island in the Godzilla movies, or to previous horror movies with the same title) is pretty lackluster, all right. You’d expect the home of monsters to look monsterish. Instead, the town on Calvera Island looks like any other seaside small city, with the monsters stuffed into ordinary clothes, living in ordinary homes, going to work in ordinary buildings, and acting more-or-less like regular people. One of the comic policemen, Fergus, looks like a Halloween pumpkin stuffed into a uniform. His jack-o-lantern head even comes off, rolls away, and has to be retrieved (several times), which may supposedly be funny (does anyone laugh?) but destroys any illusion of a live creature. (And how convincing is it that any municipality looking to create a police force would hire the stupidest, most buffoonish clods they could find?) The sets in The Addams Family, The Munsters, and Hotel Transylvania look more monstrous. Comparisons with Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University are unavoidable, and Monster Island falls short every time.

Granted, Ánima Estudios doesn’t have the CGI capability that Pixar does – look at the attractively stylized but completely unnatural ocean waves and water effects — but its imagination is much shallower, too. The monsters in Monsters, Inc. are mostly nude (except for safety helmets) because they obviously aren’t human shaped and wouldn’t fit into human clothing. The monsters in Monster Island are mostly unimaginatively conventionally dressed, even if they look more grotesque clothed than nude.

Still, the monsters are a form of anthropomorphic animals, particularly Veronica the pig-girl, so it belongs here.

Monster Island is directed by Leopoldo Aguilar and produced by Ánima Estudios in México City. Ánima advertises itself as the largest animation studio in Latin America, founded in 2002. Its theatrical features shown in the U.S. are Top Cat: The Movie (Don Gato y su Pandilla), September 16, 2011; Wicked Flying Monkeys (Guardianes de Oz), April 10, 2015; Top Cat Begins (Don Gato: El Inicio de la Pandilla), October 30, 2015; and The Legend of Chupacabras (La Leyenda del Chupacabras), October 14, 2016 limited*; all of which but the last have anthro animals in them. Ánima has also produced many TV cartoon series, of which Teenage Fairytale Dropouts and Legend Quest have been shown in the U.S.

*La Leyenda del Chupacabras is the fourth in a Halloween/Day of the Dead series, preceded by La Leyenda de la Nahuana (produced by Animex, not Ánima Estudios; November l, 2007), La Leyenda de la Llorona (October 21, 2011), and La Leyenda de las Momias de Guanajuato (October 30, 2014); to be followed by La Leyenda del Charro Negro next year. The others were never released theatrically in the U.S. but have had DVD releases; Chupacabras had a very limited U.S. theatrical release. See also the Legend Quest TV series.

Monster Island is a direct-to-DVD movie here in English and Spanish languages, and English and Spanish subtitles, released on September 12, 2017 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It is scheduled to be released theatrically in Mexico on September 15 and in Spain on November 17, under its Spanish-language title, Isla Calaca.

– Fred Patten

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Dear Papabear, 

So I'm having trouble with getting out of my toxic household and commissions haven't been of much help. My job has cut my hours and I feel very lost on how to escape. Been trying to apply to other jobs but so far I've been getting silence and a mountain of rejections. How can I get out of this mess as quickly as possible?

Blitz

* * *

Hi, Blitz,

I'd like to have more information before I offer advice on this one, please. Here are some questions:

1. What education do you currently have?
2. What is your current job?
3. What are your career goals?
4. What types of jobs are you applying for?
5. Are you living in a small community with few opportunities, or a large one?
6. What job skills do you currently have?

Answering these will help.

Hugs,
Papabear

* * *

1. Nearly done with my A.A. for Art/Art Education
2. Currently working as a biller/authorization specialist at a psychology office. The pay is abysmal now that my hours are cut, making it harder for me to move out.
3. My career goals are to get to combine what I love and live for (which is art) with trying my best to help people out, whether it's to entertain (video game industry) or to comfort with the help of creativity (art therapy).
4. Been applying to are multitude of store clerk/cashier jobs and a few fast food places. Still nothing from any of them.
5. I live in a fairly medium sized community but nobody really interacts with each other so... it's a little lonely here. And as far as I'm concerned, opportunity doesn't really present itself much over here given how expensive everything is. Florida is notorious for being expensive.
6. I'm currently certified with using Microsoft Office (even have a certificate for it. Completed the testing during High School). I now have plenty of experience with customer service over the phone and I have developed decent communication skills. I'm fluent in both English and Spanish whilst having a vague understanding of written French (I can roughly translate some of it).

Blitz

* * *

Hi, Blitz,

Art therapy can be an immensely satisfying job. I have a friend who is an art therapist in Fresno and he enjoys it greatly. But to get a job in that field you really need at least a master's degree, so after you get your AA, you will need a minimum of three more years of college education. As for working in the video game industry, if you mean as a programmer or designer, you would also need considerably more training. This is an incredibly competitive industry, and only the most avid people who eat, breathe, and live video games have any chance of getting a job. From your email, it doesn't sound to me as if you have the obsession and passion required to succeed here (could be wrong; could be a lot you haven't told me yet).

On the short term, if you are simply looking to get some kind of full-time job as a clerk or other similar position, then it would seem to me that being bilingual in Miami would be an enormous benefit; if you don't already do so, you should play that up when you apply to jobs in your area.

Since you are interested in finding something that will help you get out of the house sooner, and because it sounds like you're good with computers, I would like to recommend that you start studying to get an IT certification of some sort. There are a wide variety of certifications available, and many of them can be accomplished in a matter of weeks or months. You can also make good money in areas such as network engineer, systems administrator, or (an area that is hugely short of people right now), some type of security analyst.

If I were you, this is the course I would steer toward for the short-term, at least. Continue to look for the jobs you are seeking now, but apply to a good IT school and get yourself certified. Then find a better-paying job, move out of the house, and, as time allows, seek your preferred degree in the arts.

I hope that is helpful!

Hugs,

Papabear

Here is a gorgeous short by Robin Joseph. Also foxes are well known for their stick and boat usage.
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