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Kelly Frances Rutherford is a writer who’s been working on a series of picture books for very young beginning readers. Her first completed work is a collaboration with artist Wattana Khonmarath called Annie Just Wants To Play. It goes like this: “Annie justs wants to play and Athena just wants to be left alone. Follow these two cats on a wild chase!” Visit Kelly’s web site to order this new book or keep track of more upcoming projects.

image c. 2017 KFR-Creative

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Bonus video! Here is a classic short from 1984 the almost feels like the inspiration for the comic Two Lumps.
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A man, a tiger and a lot of "artsy and pretentious".
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Hello Everyone!

We open this week's show with a discussion about extramarital sex and relationships. Research likes to show that the older you get the more likely you are to engage in extramarital relationships. We discuss why the research might be biased against ethical polyamory and tear apart an article on the subject.

Our main topic is on Underwear and Sex Party Etiquette. For individuals at conventions or seeking play events within their local communities, the idea of a party centered around sex or mutual appreciation can seem rather overwhelming at first. We talk about what the do's and do not's are, as well as go over how to properly attend and organize such an event.

We close out the show with a question on guilt. For many people who have hurt others (either intentionally or not), the sensation of guilt after you have made amends can take some time to overcome. We talk about how you can move past your own feelings of guilt and shame and the role of ritual in healing and cleansing.

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 081 Underwear and Sex Party Etiquette - Is cheating the same as an extramarital relationship? How can you attend a sex party without being a creep? How do you move past guilt? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!

One of the neat things about identity is the fact that a shared identity can lead to a community.

This is the way furry works, after all. A bunch of folks all around the world started identifying with this thing. Maybe they identify as folks who see themselves as something other than human. Or maybe they identify as someone who really likes art of anthropomorphic animals. There’s a lot of different ways to approach the topic of anthropomorphics.

Getting a bunch of folks together with a shared identity takes a lot of organization. That is, unless you’ve got the internet.

Suddenly, we start to see a community cohere out of shared identity. It’s a strange attractor of sorts: folks who are outside furry but share that identity are drawn in, making the sense of community more appealing to those outside, yet still have the shared identity.

Similar things happen within the LGBT community. Parties, gay clubs, and pride parades are some of the most visible aspects of this, of course. Still, much the same happens with trans folk. There are whole houses and communities of trans people in the embodied world, and online, the community becomes even grander. We talk of the gender cascade or the transplosion, the idea of “the act of seeing in others that portion of identity we find within ourselves that lends the greatest validation to our membership”. Seeing others live happily embracing their identity makes it easier to embrace our own identity.

Now, come with me on a short diversion through furry fiction.

Short fiction anthologies come and go within the fandom. There’s a schedule of regular ones, and some that are just one-offs. There’s HEAT and ROAR and FANG for some of the regular ones, and then there’s Dogs of War and Seven Deadly Sins and, shameless plug, Arcana for some of the one-offs.

They all work in fairly similar ways, too. A call for submissions will go up, say, six months ahead of time with a list of requirements – genre, rating, word count, etc. – which will give authors a chance to write or polish a story to submit. In reality, of course, that means that many authors will spend five and a half months talking about the anthology, then two scrambled weeks of intense effort pulling something together. We’re pretty predictable like that.

One of those recent calls was for an anthology of lesbian erotica. There has been an awful lot of erotica written and published, and the vast majority of it has been gay or straight (and I’d hazard a guess that a lot of that has been gay). That would make CLAW, this anthology, the first of its kind.

The reasons for this are manifold and almost certainly not well understood.

Some of them have come up here, of course. JM wrote a few articles on gay furries and why the fandom may look appealing to them. My stock response is a hypothesis that, given the relatively even distribution furries along a scale from heterosexual to homosexual1, along with the overwhelming majority of furries identifying as male, a majority of homosexual relationships within the subculture is to be expected. If you’re a bi male fox, you’re more likely to wind up in a gay relationship by virtue of your dating pool being 80%2 male.

Things like that make CLAW’s position as the first lesbian anthology a bit easier to understand, at least.

So! I decided to write for CLAW. I don’t write much fiction. I’ve got one story published in the FC2016 con book, one story to be published in Arcana, and…that’s it. I thought it’d be fun to give this a go. The stakes were low, the restrictions loose, and the story was fun to write.

One problem: I wanted to write a trans character into the story.

I talked with Kirisis, the editor of the anthology, and she confirmed that it would be alright, so I went ahead with my plan. The character’s species was chosen out of necessity to the plot, and I didn’t really give it a second thought.

At least, not until I finished the story and thought it might be fun to write another. I know, I thought. I’ll write the trans character’s backstory! I’ll write her struggles with coming out.

I dropped that idea almost immediately. To write that story, I would have to go back further in the character’s past than I really wanted. I’d have to provide her deadname. I didn’t know that name. I didn’t want to know that name. I was too attached to her as a person, real or not, to want to disrespect her that way.

Okaaaay, well, I’ll write a different character’s story!

And now, eight hundred words later, we come to our topic.

Well, that’s easy. I can just find another character’s voice, pick a species, and go! It all seemed so straight-forward!

Leave it to me to over-think things.

Part of the success of Kyell Gold is that the characters he writes mirror some very basic things about large enough swaths of the fandom as to give them immediate social currency. Coming out stories, the bildungsroman genre3, even the species choices, they all speak to the reader in ways that provide a sense of shared identity.

Dev the tiger and Lee the fox, Sol the wolf, Kory the otter: they’re all relatable characters. The names are familiar, but more importantly, so are the species. The species all occur within the top ten most popular species in the fandom. They’re all species we know.

Gold is a far, far better writer than I am, and I’m constantly learning from him, both passively and actively.

So I figured I’d give this a go: if I’m going to write a trans coming out story, I want to pick a character in which the readers can see something of themselves.

I decided to go on a dive through some of the data and see what might make this work. Using the 2016 Furry Poll, we have data for both species and gender alignment (that is, trans- or cisgender). I usually just dump numbers in a post, but I thought it might be an interesting exercise to go through my actual process in getting those numbers.

The first thing we need to do is to loop through all of the responses we have in the database. This whole exercise takes the form of a python script; it’s not very efficient, but does show the steps required.

In this snippet, we loop through all of the responses in the dataset. For each response, we grab the fields we need: gender alignment, species, and just because, gender identity.

From there, we need to take the data we’ve collected and boil it down to some key statistics. This mostly involves tallyingup numbers. For instance, we can find the number of cis and non-cis respondents, as well as the number of masculine and feminine respondents, including breaking those down into cis-masculine/feminine and non-cis-masculine/feminine respondents.

The species bit is a little more complicated, however. If we haven’t seen a response of that species before, we have to add one to our set of species responses. We do this by adding a dict — that is, a list of keys and values (much like a dictionary, where there’s the word to be defined and the definition of the word) — with the name of the species associated with some data. In this case, that data is how many respondents of that species are cis or non-cis.

For the purpose of this exercise, we’re relying on the ‘species category’ field of the survey. These are general categories such as “wolves” or “cats”, rather than specifics such as “maned wolves” or “panthers”.

Another thing to note is that, for the gender identity and alignment fields, respondents were allowed to enter their own answers, rather than pick from the list of available answers. If they did so, we mark their answer to that question as subjective, rather than objective. If they did so, we don’t save that data.

All data in the database is anonymous, but the subjective responses could be identifying information. All of the data published by [a][s] is stripped of subjective responses. The datasets with the subjective data are limited to researchers only.

From there, we can start printing information about our results. In order to get an overall idea of things, we begin by printing a breakdown, by gender, of cisgender respondents, non-cisgender respondents, and respondents who answered “it’s complicated”.

The term “non-cisgender” is important, as, in this instance, we’re using it as a blanket category to include transgender, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender or neutrois, or other folks who don’t fall under the umbrella of cisgender.

Now that we’ve printed some of our basics, let’s sort our species data. We want to find the species category which contains the greatest number of cisgender respondents, as well as the one with the least. This is as easy as looping through the responses and finding the one with the most and least.

To do this, we start with some empty variables. For the most non-cis species category, we start with 0%. We loop through the data and calculate the percentage of non-cisgender respondents for that species. If that percentage is greater than the current one (and anything’s greater than our starting value of 0%), we update the variable to point to that species. If a future one is greater, we update; if not, we skip.

The same takes place with the least non-cis (or most cisgender) species, except that we start with 100% non-cis, and check if the species we’re investigating is less than 100% non-cis.

Almost done! Next, we print out all of our findings. For both most and least non-cis, we print out the percentage and number of respondents.

Last step: print out the number of responses we looked at, and the number of responses with species categories.

Alright, exercise over! Let’s get to the results!

Wow, uh…okay. Not quite what I was expecting!

First of all, what’s otherdog?

Not much, what’s other with you, dog?

Sorry.

otherdog is any dog not specifically named. We have a few that are, of course. Husky, German Shepherd Dog, and collie to be precise. otherdog is the catch-all category for breeds that don’t fall into any of the specified categories.

But what’s going on here?

The most cisgender species is husky. Other dogs are the least cisgender. And this is out of all species categories, of which there are 67.

Huh!

Now, let’s go back through that and tick all our boxes that make this result true.

• We are looking at only species with more than 100 responses. If we drop our threshold to 50, then we wind up with kitsunes as the least cisgender species, at 34%. Perhaps this makes sense, though, for a species known for its shapeshifting and magical abilities.
• We are looking only at species categories, not individual species. This means that there is likely some further variation to be had digging down a little further, but that involves coding subjective responses, and I don’t really have the time or energy for that. Additionally, there are doubtless species that aren’t represented here (as is shown by the other category).
• We’re discarding polymorphic respondents, as each would be its own species. If we allow for polymorphic respondents, polymorphic respondents are the least cis, and respondents who are at least part red fox are the most cis. The data gets muddy.
• We are looking at the 2016 survey, which only gives us so much data, about 5,400 responses, only about 4,800 of which have species categories set.

And how we’re here, with huskies being the most cisgender species, and other dogs being the least.

My original quest was to write a trans coming-out story that would find appeal within the fandom. One where many readers would find a bit of themselves in the main character, a character who was relatable. A lot of that’s on me, writing an engaging character that mirrors others’ experiences, but some of that is just in knowing one’s audience, and this is just one fact I can keep in mind.

There’s a lot that goes into species selection, just as there’s a lot that goes into gender. We make these choices about how we represent ourselves within the fandom carefully, even if it feels instinctive. Each aspect of our characters is representative of some aspect of ourselves. Our hopes and wishes, dreams and aspirations. Things we admire about ourselves are magnified and things that we despise about ourselves are reduced. We become the animal people we want to see in the world.

CLAW 1 is the inaugural volume of a yearly anthology of lesbian erotica edited by Kirisis “KC” Alpinus. It aims to be a showcase of healthy F/F erotica, with the secondary goal of showcasing diverse female and female-identifying authors in the fandom.

Submissions are open until September 3rd!

For more information, refer to the call for submissions.

1. The survey asks orientation in a sort of expanded Kinsey scale. That is, it asks whether one considers oneself heterosexual or homosexual on a seven point scale. There are other options that we add, but those aren’t really in play here for this little example.
2. Again, this is a little complicated. The gist is that there are about 80% of respondents who identify as masculine in some way.
3. Or bildongsroman, if you will, when it comes to erotica.

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

Another milestone of furry fandom has been achieved on 14-17 July 2017, when South African furs held South Afrifur, their first convention.

The size and longevity of furry fandom in South Africa have been difficult to determine, due to the large spread-out size of that country, with apparently only a pawful of fans in any one city. The ZA furs (from Zuid-Afrika, the Afrikaans name – see the history of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek from 1852 to 1902) socialize primarily via the Internet. There are currently about 600+ active through all the ZA furry websites and chat groups. But it is estimated that the majority of them are only casual browsers, and only 200 to 300 should be considered true ZA furs.

As to longevity, that goes back to two previous ZA furmeets. Some claim that they were conventions, but the attendees themselves did not despite their including registrations.

On 12-16 2008, the first national ZA furry get-together was held in the Cape Town suburb of Table View. Dracius was the organizer. He booked “At Cheryl’s”, a self-catering accommodation holiday house including five small buildings; a house, cottage, cabana, condo, and den. (The exact location was At Cheryl’s, 50 & 55 Circle Road, Table View, South Africa.)

There were 16 attendees. At Cheryl’s was primarily a gathering place for daytime socializing and evening activities. Daytime events included wandering into two shopping centers and other places around Cape Town, and a trip up its Signal Hill. In the evening there were films on a projector and the game Guitar Hero.

A second get-together was planned for 2010, but it was not held until 7-15 January 2011, in Port Elizabeth. The organizers were Nanukk, Electrocat, and Cat147. The venue was Nanukk’s grandmother’s house in the suburb of Blue Water Bay. 14 attended.

The meet was very relaxed and informal. It consisted of about an equal amount of time getting to know each other around the house while sketching and gaming, and going out to see various sites in the city. Some of the main events that had been organized were going to a Karaoke bar, car-pooling to a lion park (cut short when one of the cars got a flat tire) and a visit to a museum (with a behind-the-scenes tour), snake park and aquarium.

The highlight of the meet was when three furs dressed up in fursuits made by Electrocat and spent the evening walking around at a local shopping center. The suits created a lot of attention, and some questions from curious onlookers, but had the biggest effect on the children. Half of the children found the suits fascinating while the other half were terrified, freezing in place or bursting into tears at the sight of them. The day was then finished off by playing putt-putt in the fursuits, a game which Nanukk won.

Jako Malan estimates that the dominant personality there was Electrocat, already an accomplished artist and fursuit maker. She was a driving force behind the meetup, organized its outings, and sketched all during it. Most attendees were 18 or younger, and activities at the venue were mostly video games, sketching, and socializing.

After that, there was a long dry spell. A third meetup was suggested several times over the internet, but nobody organized one, even though there were some furry parties that far exceeded this. The record was a one-day braai (Afrikaans for a barbeque) in Johannesburg hosted by Victor on 30 July 2016 that had 37 attendees; although one in Pretoria in 2009 had 25, and another at Yukon’s in Jo-burg in 2012 had 24. (They claimed 25 – 24 plus Yukon’s Siberian husky — to match the previous record.) Some wanted to hold a real convention, but the small size of ZA furry fandom made this impossible.

During 2015 and 2016 a group of organizers gathered to work out a solution; Ivic Wulfe, Yukon, Scratch, YoteFox, Powercat, Valerion, and Dan Leo. (If they had been more formal, Ivic would have been chairman, with Yukon as his vice-chair, Scratch as the treasurer, YoteFox in charge of furry decorations (he gave the panels on fursuit making), and Powercat as website designer.) They took Canada’s Camp Feral! as their inspiration, and corresponded with Potoroo, the Camp Feral! director. Their target date was in 2016, but various problems pushed it into 2017.

The final date was 14-17 July 2017. It was organized and advertised as a convention, South Afrifur, with a website, although it was never expected to be more than tiny by furry convention standards. The venue, another rental vacation retreat, had a maximum attendance limit of 48. It was located in a little town, Magaliesburg, near the small city of Krugersdorp. Still, Krugersdorp was conveniently located about equidistant from Pretoria and Johannesburg, two of South Africa’s largest cities.

(Actually, Magaliesburg was a substitution. The original venue was the University of the Free State Open Residences in Bloemfontein, a major city, but it had cancelled the booking at the last minute due to “emergency renovations” – generally believed to be second thoughts by the University about hosting a furry convention. The Magaliesburg Retreat near Krugersdorp, 412 km. (about 4 hours driving) away, was a good – some said better – substitute, because it was more convenient to both Pretoria and Jo-burg, and because, being in a small town rather than a large city, it felt more exclusive.)

The ZA Furries site coordinated carpooling from Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Pretoria; the cities and the Jo-burg and Pretoria airports. The Magalies Retreat venue included accommodation for up to 48 furs, catering, a dining hall, a conference area, a private deck, pool, and boma, and many on-site activities.

Full attendance included all meals (3 meals a day) and accommodation for 3 days, plus a personalized-art badge by Electropaw Artworks (Electrocat’s business name). The price was R1500,00. (The South African rand was worth $0.078 dollars, or 7.8¢, in July 2017.) Sponsors paid R2000,00 and received the above plus a convention T-shirt. Super sponsors paying R2500,00 received all that plus having their T-shirt personalized with their fursona name on it, and a set of furred ears by YoteFox.

Attendees were requested to register in advance, for meal planning and to allow Electrocat time to prepare the personalized badges. The organizers were prepared to accept members at the door at a discounted rate, but in fact there were no attendees except those who had preregistered.

A controversial rule was that attendance was limited to those 18 years old and older, for legal reasons.

Attendance was 28, including the organizers; 27 ZA furs and Bravura from Switzerland (founder of furry.fm). The breakdown was 6 regular members, 7 sponsors, 13 super-sponsors, and 2 of the organizers’ assistants who could not afford a membership and had their memberships bought for them.

(A few prominent ZA furs could not attend for various reasons, including Electrocat who drew the badges, and Furnix Wolf who gave his membership to Victor.)

Activities included an impromptu Artists’ Alley/Dealers’ Den, free to all attendees. A scavenger hunt. An obstacle course. A Gladiator Arena. A movie night (the Russian feature Wolves and Sheep and the U.S. feature The Secret Life of Pets). Panels on writing, on fursuit making, on fursuiting. And on social media as related to furries. A quiz night. A raffle. A variety of board games.

The Artists’ Alley/Dealers’ Den had four exhibitors, including Jako Malan who sold his recently-published novel reWritten, and Landi who sold sketches for two charities (a pet sterilization center and a no-kill home for abandoned cats and dogs). She raised R1000,00 for each. This was in addition to an official convention charity, the Garden Route Wolf Sanctuary. R2130,00 was collected for it, and matched by the committee, for a total of R4260,00.

One amusing detail was the number of people that backed out of doing the Gladiator Arena once they had seen it.  The equipment was from an old popular South African TV show, MTN Gladiators.  Although it was booked and paid for 18 attendees to use it, only 4 were brave enough to complete it in the end.  It was rather physically taxing, and a lesson that most furries aren’t ones for strenuous physical activities.

Overall, South Afrifur was considered a success. There were some pre-convention complaints about the 18 age limit and the small convention-size limit, the move from a major city to Krugersdorp, and the “unpreparedness” of the committee (which had never even attended a furry convention before, much less organized one). But the attendance of only 28 in a venue for 48 showed that the committee was wise in not planning for a larger attendance.

There are already some calls for another ZA furry convention next year; maybe without the age limit. It is believed that more of South Africa’s estimated 200 or 300 fans did not attend because they were skeptical of South Afrifur’s success. With it now proven, a larger attendance at a next convention is almost definite.

There were no articles about South Afrifur in a newspaper or on local TV news. This was by design on the organizers’ part. In fact, after the cancellation of the convention’s original venue (who required the right to monitor the convention’s activities), the committee downplayed the convention’s furry nature when booking the Magalies Retreat. (Its staff was heavily Christian.) The most prominent media report on ZA furs’ activities in the past had been a 2009 extremely lurid piece strongly implying that furry fandom was all about having sex in fursuits. Ever since then, ZA furs have not sought any publicity. As it happened, the staff at the venue were most accommodating in every way, and the attendees felt welcomed at the venue throughout the four days; but it was felt wisest to not encourage the venue to Google for bad stereotypes before the convention’s arrival.

–Fred Patten

The following is a Con Report provided by Con Chairman, Ivic Wulfe

Erdwolf_TVL also wrote a narrative account of the con

Con Report – South Afrifur 2017

Introduction:

So the first South Afrifur Convention has come to an end. New things were tried and seemed to be successful overall. In this report I will attempt to outline some of the particulars of the convention and also evaluate to what extent they were successful.

Before I begin, I would like to start with a personal note of thanks to everyone who came to the convention. There were 28 attendees including myself as Chairman and Yukon as Vice-Chair and our con staff – Scratch, Power Cat, Yote Fox, Dan Leo.

Our members of staff were the glue that kept this idea together. They were the ones that truly put up their paws and claws when things took unexpected turns and allowed us to move forward and make this convention a success. I am eternally grateful to the team.

Summary:

South Afrifur started as an ambitious idea. Its roots in the earlier successes of national furmeets held in 2008 and 2010, respectively. The staff members had thought about creating a platform that would incorporate many elements of more established furry conventions. These include: some form of artist alley, panel discussions, activities as well as having a cause to donate to through a charitable raffle. It made sense to keep it small (initial thoughts of a cap at 50 people) and have it located somewhere as central (within South Africa) as possible.

We also wanted to (at least for the first convention) keep the minimum age for attendance to 18. This is because we were unprepared and unwilling to have to deal with the legal ramifications that may crop up otherwise. South Africa is still a very conservative country with an aversion to anything new. We wanted to ensure that we could at least begin to achieve something before we considered something as potentially difficult as lowering the admissible age requirements.

Most of the points on this checklist were met. We are proud to announce that we have raised R2130, 00 from the community. Proceeds payable to the Garden Route Wolf Sanctuary http://wolfsanctuary.co.za/.

Wolves are not native to South Africa and the majority of their benefactors are abandoned exotic pets. In addition to wolves, the sanctuary also cares for other wild canines. Because of recent wildfires in the area, we thought it pertinent to donate funds to them. The amount will be matched by South Afrifur, bringing the total donation to R4260, 00

Decisions made:

Despite overall success, the convention had its fair share of challenges – even before getting off the ground. Initial planning for it had started in 2015 and the convention was meant to happen in 2016. This year presented many challenges, like arguments about where the con should be held, pricing, slow responses from venues and at times a fair amount of pushback from furs themselves. Due to these reasons the convention had to be postponed to 2017.

At a point where most planning was already done, the original venue (University of Free State Open Residences) cancelled. We had to find a new venue at just about the last minute. We chose another venue just outside of Gauteng for similar pricing to that of UFS. The venue that was decided on was Magalies Retreat. http://www.magaliesretreat.co.za/

Pricing and how the money was used:

The admission prices were as follows: R1500.00 for con-goers, R2000.00 for sponsors and R2500.00 for super sponsors. The first tier price included three nights’ accommodation, three meals a day, hall area that could seat 50 people as well as payment for the venue’s activities as well as a personalized badge from Electrocat Artworks. The sponsor tier price included a personalized t-shirt with the sponsor’s furry name on it. The super sponsor tier price also included a set of personalized, furred ears done by one of our speakers (and resident fursuiter and fursuit maker) YoteFox.

Successes and Shortcomings:

It was important to find a balance between affordability, travel requirements and an environment that would attract more attendees. In hindsight, Magalies Retreat served this purpose far better than our original choice would have. Bloemfontein was initially considered because it is physically halfway between Cape Town and Johannesburg the two main areas of furry concentration. Camp Feral had been a personal inspiration in respect to vibe and the relative size of our active furry community. This was validated by some of the feedback already received from some of the attendees.

In respect to the venue, the food was good, the activity areas were somewhat unkempt and in varying states of disrepair, the obstacle course and the Gladiator Arena were, given these states still in relatively good working order nonetheless. Given a lot of our previous planning, changing the venue actually opened up many more options and it did come together quite well in the end and furs were kept busy throughout the convention.

There was some backlash in respect to our decision on age caps, relative distance to get to the convention, size of the convention, as well as what could be considered our “unpreparedness” for the entire event. Given these concerns I believe we allayed many of those voices but will endeavour, in future, to hear what the community wants from South Afrifur in 2018.

Venue and Activities:

The list of events were; an ad hoc artists alley (which was opened for anyone to join in at no cost), a scavenger hunt, an obstacle course, a gladiator arena (near-miss head injury to myself notwithstanding), a movie night as well as three panel discussions. One panel was on writing, one on fursuit making and fursuiting in general. The other on social media within the context of furries. Other activities include quiz night and the raffle. Ample time was given for socialization, which includes the playing of a variety of board games.

General consensus:

From those who attended, the majority response was positive. Attendees enjoyed the convention and its ability to bring the small group of furs together much like Camp Feral does. We had actually spoken quite a lot to Potaroo in our initial planning phase and this was exactly the kind of response we were aiming for as our first convention.

Closing Thoughts:

Going into this endeavour as far back as 2015, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it. I had the dream that furs would appreciate someone taking initiative and get something of the sort going. I for one would have been ecstatic had someone else come up with the idea and would have tried to be as supportive toward it as possible. This was not the case in many of the interactions I’d had. I however kept plugging, found people who were as keen as I to see this move forward. Those who helped me were very good at the specific tasks that were required of them. Our vice-chair Yukon, for organizing the events and activities as well as his ability to manage many other aspects that were necessary for the convention to be a success, Valerion for his experiences of the previous failures between the successes of 2008-2012, Scratch for his ability to manage funding down to the cent. Dan Leo for his ability to mediate and Power Cat for his experience in website building. Without these fine folk, South Afrifur Convention 2017 might not have happened, or not have been as successful.

On a Personal note:

I’d spent many days, even during the convention, just hoping that everything would go as planned and whenever a positive comment came my way, my inability to commit to the success showed in my responses. Much of this was an introspective journey for me and having this success behind me, I believe that we can do far better than this for next year. “Build it and they will come.”

The acid test of success would be whether we can host an even better convention next year. To stimulate a larger turnout. To ensure that whatever issues within our control have been dealt with and succeed in ensuring that we can have good conventions. Perhaps even on a yearly basis. I believe that we as the South African Furry Community can pull this off. As for the South Afrifur team, I wish us all the best of luck. I think we may just need it.

South Afrifur Convention Chair

Ivic Wulfe

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A brief weekly rundown of recommendations of new releases I’m intrigued by, excited for and will be grabbing off the shelves to curl up with every new comics day before delving into them later in the week! Have you hugged your comics store owner today?

 

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius.

Mister Miracle 1- DC Comics

From the unravelling of the best made plans or mice and sythanoids, deep dissections of the inherent darkness of Batman’s sprawling playground to the horrors or armed conflict, Tom King has quickly proven himself to be one of the comic industries top talents. This time he delves back into DC’s roster for a politically charged take on the master of escapism, Mister Miracle.

Part of Jack Kirby’s sprawling Fourth World saga, the future Mister Miracle, Scott Free is imprisoned on the tartarus planet of Apokolips before escaping to the sanctuary of New Genesis. This twelve issue series promises to explore Mister Miracle, still haunted by his time on Apokolips and take the cosmic grandeur of Kirby to tell a trademark personal King story. Early previews show Mitch Gerads, artist on King’s Sheriff of Babylon, using an impressive and immersive range of comic visuals from Ben-Day dots, watercolours and other visual distortions to give Miracles adventures a rougher, grounded feel.

King is a master of heady yet accessible storytelling and his new series is already garnering a lot of pre-release buzz and should be a great entry point for readers like myself who have yet to full dive into the world of one of comics true greats.

 

“They don’t even know what it is to be a fan. Y’know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts” -Sapphire (Almost Famous)

The Wicked and the Divine 30- Image Comics

Magic, music and mayhem continue to lead the cast of Gillen and McKelvie’s Wicked and Divine on a merry and mystical dance. Continuing the pairs Imperial Phase arc the focus this issue is on Dionysus. Drawing on Gillen’s obvious passion for music with knowing nods with musical archetypes and subcultures, the series has offered a real world hook before Gillen lays his deeply intricate mythos of gods, humans and the music that irrecoverably ties their fates together. 

Wicked and Divine is akin to falling in love with the music again, each and every issue and like the rest of his comics perfectly capture the energy, pain and passion of loving a band or song.

 

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 23- Marvel Comics

Although solicitations, especially Marvel ones, are usually the place for hyperbole, bombast and grandiose statements, describing North and Henderson’s Unbeatable Squirrel Girl as “the complete package, really” rings true! Come on folks, stop being so self deprecating, it really does have it all! Friendship! Fun! Computer Science! Dinosaurs?

Yeah, if you expected fourteen years of hilarious Dinosaur comics to have gotten giant reptiles out of his system, then think again as this issue continues Doreen and Nancy’s trip to the Savage Lands (that of X-men and big freakin’ dinos fame!) after taking a break from school and thankfully the off putting events of Marvel’s Secret Empire. Brilliantly presented as a pun filled Dino theme park, the pair are tasked with saving it and all it’s Triassic glory. While Henderson’s art ranges detailed to deceptively simple when letting a joke or scene breathe, last months issue really let her indulge with spreads and spreads of squirrel and giant lizard fun!

 

 

 

More we found at Comic Con: Genkimix is an Internet store associated with the Gaia on-line roleplaying community. They specialize in household items and knick-knacks featuring a variety of cute chibi funny animal designs. Everything from toothbrush holders to purses to t-shirts to notepads and more. What more can we say? Check out their many forms of cuteness.

image c. 2017 GenkiMix

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Mom always liked it when I gave her a dead mouse.
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Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of good conversations about [a][s], what it means, and how best to engage with it.

A lot of those conversations boil down to one core topic, and that topic falls out into one lesson. That is, [a][s] provides what many feel is an important resource. There is a wealth of data, a wealth of ideas, and probably at least three more articles on gender Makyo can write (ohoho…just you wait until tomorrow!). The lesson that comes out of this is that the project should never – indeed, few projects should ever – continue out of a sense of obligation.

Our esteemed Phil Geusz wrote me privately to share his thoughts on this, and brought up some very good points about what goes into running a project. It takes time, steady effort, and dedication. None of what I said two weeks ago is negated: I need to find a healthy level with which to engage (something that falls squarely on my shoulders), and I will gladly accept all the help I can get. Additionally, it could be that the site does need change: the articles and data, through the poll, form a core part of the project, but our voice and scope ought to be continually evaluated.

So let’s keep going. We have more than 41,000 responses to the Furry Poll to plow through and, as my work on tomorrow’s post shows, far more data than shows up when we just search for longitudinal responses, as we have in the past. When you add in the fact that the IARP also has a wealth of data, we have our work cut out for us. Plus, furry remains delightfully weird, so we’ll have no shortage of thinkpieces and longreads to toss out there.

Thank you all for your tireless patience, and if you have an idea for an article you’d like to pitch, do remember that our submissions are always open.

Do you like Scooby snacks?  The first time I ate a weed cookie was at a Really Really Free Market. That’s a swap meet seasoned with radical/hippie idealism. People who love principles of mutual aid get together and trade crap they don’t need with others who want it.  It keeps stuff out of the dump and helps people without money. It’s a place to score old books, music or some wiggy threads. They may have potluck food or dumpster dived treasure. Or both at once. (I once lived for two years with Freeganism – oh the stories I have.) And you might score weed (for adults where it’s legal, of course.)

The meet was in a 5th floor artist loft full of good music and fun people. There was a spread of free cookies with a sign to beware of overmedicating. I took one and nibbled a corner. Nothing happened so I went whole hog.  Then it happened… oh boy it happened.

My personal pile of treasure was all donated, so I took the exit to the twilight zone.  On the way down the stairs, I turned a corner and suddenly they weren’t going down… they were going up.  What the heck!?  I continued to fumble my way out while a faint satanic chanting emanated from behind the doors.  Somehow I found the street and got home. I sat down and time-traveled.  When I looked up, I realized that I forgot to shut the front door.  And there was a hooker in my living room (it was that kind of neighborhood).  She asked for a ride, so I told her to try one of those cookies for a real trip.

I wish there was a way to travel to a world full of furries. That would make some amazing blogging for you.  But you can make it happen where you live. The coolest thing about this fandom is how it’s so DIY. It’s like a sandbox for whatever you want to make of it.  If you live anywhere that has furries within petting distance, try getting together with them to throw cool events.

Imagine a standalone furry show and swap meet, minus the elaborate trappings of a con. Set up tables like a dealer’s den for members to sell stuff.  Have an art show, but not just for filthy lucre – if it’s not in a costly hotel and people don’t have to pay for a big blowout, do it for love. Make it participatory with an art jam and swapping.  This could be done in a show space, library, community center, apartment commons, warehouse, studio, comic shop, or any open place, with a co-op concept.

Why swapping?  Furries love to collect books, comics, and games that get read and re-read until it’s time to give them a new home. Same for art, art supplies, and fur scraps. And (my favorite), costume gear. I have a walk-in closet full of stuff that someone would love to wear.  But sadly, that one con shirt isn’t for me.  I have too many sparkly belts and pet collars. Someone else needs those pants covered with owls.  Maybe that’s you, and maybe you have some cool fursuit bandanas to throw on my stack!

These happen for general communities, but theming can be extra fun. For those who already have premade stuff for art shows or dealing at bigger cons, a locally-organized event could be an accessible opportunity with the chemistry that makes fandom great.  It could take advantage of empty scheduling between cons.  There are fairs/swaps for other indie groups (like goth clothing swaps, how cool is that?)  Furry art jams are already a thing – think of leveling up with a showcase for your local group.  Cons are full of distractions that make dealing hard (party fun is a focus for many furs) – a show like this could BE the party!

Please comment if you have any such events in your local fandom!

Side topic:  Remember when I mentioned doing freeganism a long time ago?  That’s where my packrat fursona came from.  Almost 15 years ago I did bad writing about it for the heck of it, and was immensely surprised to have some republished by cyberpunk-founder Bruce Sterling in Wired.

Subthread:  Furry cons try to be all things to all attendees. While they grow, maybe it risks spreading the effort too thinly. They have so many kinds of things to offer (shows, dances, panels, art, dealing, and more) that maybe more focus can help.

I think fandoms like anime & furry need to start treating artists like exhibitors/vendors, not as attendees. This is people's livelihood now

— Camp Eevachu✨ (@Eevachu) August 5, 2017

It leads to Eevachu’s point that “a furmeet/artist alley fandom model works well for <1000 attendee events,” but those who vend professionally may need a more focused model.  I can back up that point with complaints about limited dealer spaces that crowd out long-time pros. (They’re in my article about limits of a growing fandom.)  Perhaps local bazaars could make other options.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort (and a little weed) to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon, where you can access exclusive stuff for just $1.

Voracious is a recent full-color comic book series written by Markisan Naso and illustrated by Jason Muhr and Andrei Tabacaru. The first story arc (Diners, Dinosaurs, & Dives) was the simple (?) story of a young chef who inherits a time travel suit — and uses it to collect dinosaurs he can slaughter and butcher to make new meat for his ailing restaurant. (Not your vegan ed-otter’s cup of tea, but what the hey…) In the second story arc however (Voracious: Feeding Time), things take on a decidedly more anthropomorphic turn: “Hunting dinosaurs and secretly serving them at his restaurant, Fork & Fossil, has helped Chef Nate Willner become a big success. But just when he’s starting to make something of his life, he discovers that his hunting trips with Captain Jim are actually taking place in an alternate reality – an Earth where dinosaurs evolve into Saurians, a technologically advanced race that rules the far future! Some of these Saurians have mysteriously started vanishing from Cretaceous City and the local authorities are hell-bent on finding who’s responsible. Nate’s world is about to collide with something much, much bigger than any dinosaur he’s ever roasted.” Nothing worse than discovering you’re accidentally a serial killer… Feeding Time is available now in a collected edition from Action Lab.

image c. 2017 Action Lab

Vox, Tal and Adoom gather up to try to make the internet laugh. We moved into the basement this episode so there may be some unfurledness about the recording. Episode 6 - Shark in the basement!

The cast get together tonight for more good laughs Episode 5 - Shark it again

The unfurled crew returns for another good night of laughs Episode 4 - Shark it

Here is a bit of Rick and Morty fan animation for the insect furs out there. (Yes, like much of R&M this is a bit nihilistic.)
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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

A Dog’s View of Love, Life, and Death, by J. R. Archer
Hove, England, White Crow Books, June 2017, trade paperback $14.99 (ix + 299 pages), Kindle $4.99.

This is an intriguing fantasy, but from an anthropomorphic point of view, it’s ultimately unsatisfying.

The locale is New York City. The chapters are short. In chapter one, Svetlana witnesses Robbie commit suicide, leaving Rosie, a small dog. In chapter two, rich, elderly Margaret Roper and her small dog Rags are introduced. In chapter three, young Black police officer Teddy Dwight investigates Robbie’s suicide and takes charge of Rosie. In chapter four, Margaret has a fatal heart attack. Her son Will, who has anger issues, is mostly resentful at the inconvenience her funeral will cause him. He breaks his promise to look out after Rags, who is sent to a dog shelter.

Most of the first nine chapters are entirely about the human cast. The dogs are little more than props. Other important characters are young Milo McGarry, the conscientious Black receptionist at the East 110th Street dog shelter (which is expected to go out of business soon), where Rosie and Rags are taken; two other dogs there: Lennon, a hulking but kindly Great Dane, and Darcy, a rescued Greyhound ex-racing dog; Sebastian, Svetlana’s pet Borzoi-German Shepherd mix; and Elton, Milo’s long-haired Chihuahua.

The dogs finally talk in chapter Ten. Chapters Thirteen, Fifteen, and some others are also devoted to the dogs, but for an anthropomorphic novel, it’s too little, too late.

The dogs don’t talk verbally but mind-to-mind.

“‘Allow me to introduce myself, Lennon, my name is Rags.’

The Great Dane sat up, looking surprised. ‘How’d ya know my name?’

‘It came to me as soon as we connected.’

‘Seriously? … I’ve never been able to do that. Have you just arrived, little fella?’

‘I got in early this morning.’

‘Rags, if you want a heads up, I’ve been here for a while now, and for me it’s home. I don’t know how long you’re gonna be here but, while you are, let’s be friends.’” (p. 47)

Some of the dogs, especially Rags, are deep into reincarnation.

“‘Well, let’s just say I’m a little further along the path than you, and I’ve learned to do these things.’

Lennon stretched his long legs and walked round Rags, looking mystified. ‘What do you mean, ‘a little further along the path?’” He scrutinized the little dog. ‘I’m the old timer here. You still look like a pup.’

‘That’s true, my friend. As humans measure time I’ve been here for a little over a year, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, I’ve experienced more here than you have – maybe not in this lifetime but in others. Although when I say ‘I’, I don’t mean Rags – Rags is just the name a human gave me while I’m in this body. It would be more accurate to say my body is called Rags, but I’m not my body. Speaking of bodies, do we get exercised here? Mine could do with a run.’” (p. 48)

They are also deep into giving moral support to each other and, telepathically/subconsciously, to their humans.

“Rosie pushed the bowl round the kennel until there wasn’t a scrap of food in sight. Meanwhile, Darcey pricked up her ears.

‘What brings you to the shelter, Rosie?’

‘My owner jumped off a roof last night and killed himself.’

‘How horrible.’

‘How about you?’

‘My owners were killed in a car crash.’

Rosie burped. ‘That’s too bad.’

Darcey got up and stretched her long limbs. ‘It is. I really loved those people.’

‘We love all humans, greyhound, but they do dumb things. I’m amazed they live so long.’” (p. 60)

It seems to come to interspecies communication when Milo brings Rosie home one evening and she beams her thoughts to Milo’s father, Seamus. But he’s paralyzed from an accident and can’t talk, and he doesn’t believe in the voice in his head, anyhow.

The humans in A Dog’s View of Love, Life, and Death (cover by Astrid) work out their own problems without being aware of their dogs’ subconscious guidance, which is so tenuous that the humans often frustratingly ignore it anyhow. The novel is basically a soap opera about the humans involved, with the dogs as an unnoticed Greek chorus. The dogs may talk, but this isn’t really a furry novel.

–Fred Patten

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Um, we’ll let the folks at Kechal Comics explain it: “Placed in men’s tightie whitie underwear on a whim by the scientist who captures him, Baxter the monkey does the only logical thing possible – he instantly develops consciousness and the ability to speak. Because… SCIENCE!!! Excited by his discovery, the scientist decides to see if other animals react as well as Baxter. Gaining intelligence, rational thought and an innate understanding of justice and fairnesss. Let’s just say further experiments do not go as well. Join Baxter as he navigates a world he’s just starting to understand, a world full of fearful humans, zany animals, and one seriously deranged bunny rabbit.” See? We told you they’d say it better! Underwars #1 was written by Kevin Joseph and illustrated in black & white by C.M. Brennan, based on a series of paintings he did.

image c. 2017 Kechal Comics