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For a belated world Lion day post we have a wonderful music video by Benjamin Scheuer & Escapist Papers: "The Lion"
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For a good many of us, summer vacation is almost over and it’s time to return to the reality of classes, or just another day at work if you’re no longer in school. This past summer has been home to a number of controversial events at conventions and in the fandom alike.  We’ve got four more to round things out before all is said and done. Mercifully, there’s no convention drama this month… well, not unless you count Pokemon GO Fest as a “convention”. There’s a lot of things we’d call that disaster, but “con” isn’t one of them (unless you mean “con” as in “to trick”). Anyways, on with the news!

2016 FURRY OSCARS

It’s that time of year again, Oscar season! Not the actual Oscars, mind you, but the fandom’s equivalent of them: the Ursa Major Awards. Awarded to people and projects who go above and beyond in the name of anthropomorphic entertainment, the Ursa Major Awards are community-driven, with initial nominations and ultimately voting open to the fandom. This past month the winners for 2016’s Ursas were announced. The results were full of emotions, ranging from surprise to “ugh, not again”.

First off, the big daddy title of Best Motion Picture went to Zootopia… to the surprise of literally no one. If there’s such a thing as “Ursa Bait”, this was it; in the past decade there’s probably not been such an obvious shoe-in winner since The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Right behind Nick & Judy’s furry fling was Pixar’s Finding Dory, which, while this was a great movie in its own right, stood no chance against Disney’s powerhouse. The results of the Ursas are posted in order of who received the most votes, and coming in dead last was The Secret Life of Pets, a godawful CGI movie. In what we imagine must have been a three-way tie for last place, Sing and Kung Fu Panda 3 also made the bottom of the list.

Last year, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic won the Ursa Major for “Best Dramatic Short Work or Series.” I expressed confusion as to how MLP qualifies as “drama”. Well, it won the award again for 2016, and we’re still no closer to understanding how a cartoon meant to sell toys to little girls is somehow “drama”.

Zootopia won yet another Ursa Major this time, for its “making of” art book which conquered the Best Non-Fiction Work category, because as we all know Zootopia is real; also in the running was that VICE article we joked about last year, where their “update” on the MFF chlorine gas incident was that there wasn’t an update.  The Fursonas documentary went underrated, leaving popularity separate from breaking ground – as pointed out by the Dogpatch Press piece about the first fandom feature with mainstream crossover. (Let’s not talk about butthurt from runners-up who weren’t popular either.) Director Dominic Rodriguez told us: “there was an award?”

Visual novel Major/Minor won the award for Best Game, and for some reason we had a disproportionately high amount of people trying to get us to cover this story in order to take pot shots at Klace (the game’s creator) because he asked his fans to vote for him.  Uh, us here at What’s Yiffin’ did the exact same thing and no one batted an eye; these are awards chosen and voted on by the fandom, so if you’ve got the outreach to get people to vote for you, that just means you obviously stand a better chance at winning. That’s how this works. Besides, the “Best Game” category also had crap like Pokemon and Overwatch in it, games produced by people who are either unaware of, or don’t care about the Ursa Major Awards. Major/Minor winning its category doesn’t make it objectively better than these games. It just means that when it came time to vote, there were essentially two “null” options you could choose if you wanted to throw a vote away.

The illustrious Best Website award went to… wait for it… Fur Affinity. Again. Now, we don’t want to pull a John Oliver here and say “it’s [CURRENT YEAR]”, but it’s [CURRENT YEAR], and how on Earth is Fur Affinity even still a solid candidate for this award? The rest of the field wasn’t exactly strong, but e621 has been in the running multiple times and continues to get snubbed. I suppose when e621 finally does win the award, we can mark it as a turning point in the fandom. However until then, the Ursa Major will be the Oscar to e621’s Leonardo DiCaprio.

Finally, Dogpatch Press won the award for Best Magazine — shoutouts — but we’re putting you on notice. You might syndicate this show, but next year that award is as good as ours. We’re coming for you, Patch. You’ve got the remainder of the year to enjoy the title, because come 2017’s Ursas, we’re going to be top dog! (What’s Yiffin’ was eligible for nomination last year, however we did not qualify for the voting period. We’re working extra hard on making it in for 2017.)

CRUSHED, YIFFED, DESTROYED

Near the end of June, furry-critical website Vivisector disappeared off of the face of the web. We didn’t cover this at the time because we assumed it was just a random server outage or downtime. However as July came and went, we realized there was probably something more significant at play because it’s August 10th as of this article’s writing and Vivisector is still gone. Flayrah initially broke the story last month that the Crush Yiff Destroy archive site and forum had gone unresponsive; plenty of furs came out of the woodwork to say “good riddance”, but that doesn’t do Vivisector the justice it deserves.

Like it or not, Vivisector served an important purpose in the ecosystem of the fandom by allowing users to keep track of unsavory people and events in the fandom. You name it, Vivisector probably had a thread about it at some point. Stretching back to humble beginnings as a Portal of Evil spin-off website in 2007, Vivisector eventually outlasted fellow critic website Crush Yiff Destroy and became CYD’s archive when it went offline in 2010.

Though activity had waned in recent years, Vivisector remained online doing what it was known for, until a disagreement between the administrators resulted in the website being blanked and its server being taken offline.  It was mistaken for just nominal downtime when it happened last June. The website’s URL at vivisector.org began responding again in the middle of July, sans-forum, with only the message “Nazi Furs Fuck Off” emblazoned on its meager homepage along with a link to a Discord chat server and the notice that the website would eventually be returning. It’s important to note however, that by taking an official side in this argument, Vivisector has relinquished its central position as an “equal opportunity offender” when it comes to criticism. Bias has now been introduced into the fray. For many this has been the official death knell of a once active and informative website.

But this is okay, communities such as Vivisector come and go. A decade ago people were concerned about sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica, but ED in its golden years has also had a fall from grace as well as multiple host/domain switches, resulting in a loss of content and confidence. Neophyte community Kiwi Farms has already stepped in to fill the void left by Vivisector by adding a furry section to their website named “Animal Control”. Whether or not they wanted this to happen, Vivisector is now officially a relic of yesteryear.

You will be missed, Vivisector.

THERE’S ONLY DARKNESS

Sonic the Hedgehog, a comic series based upon the video game and cartoon of the same name, has come to an end. SEGA announced last month that their historic 25 year run with Archie would be coming to an end, making issue #290 the final one to be printed and published. Sonic the Hedgehog’s run lasted for the aforementioned 290 issues, however if you count all of the special series and spin-offs, there were over 500 installments in the series. In 2008, Guinness recognized Sonic the Hedgehog as being the longest-running comic book adaptation of a video game, as well as being the longest-running American comic book without a reboot.

The comic is also not so fondly remembered thanks in part to former writer Ken Penders, whose obsession with his characters led him to file copyrights on them and then turn around and attempt to sue SEGA on two different occasions, neither of which panned out in Ken’s favor.

SEGA also promised that this wouldn’t be the end of the hedgehog in comic book form. Just two days after their initial announcement, SEGA kept to their word and announced they were partnering with IDW Publishing to continue Sonic’s story. An official return date hasn’t been announced, however SEGA mentioned that publication would resume some time in 2018.

POKEMON GO GET A REFUND

Finally, in our last story we travel to Chicago, IL for the first ever (and probably last) Pokemon GO Fest, an outdoor festival for the mobile game Pokemon GO. (Yes, people apparently still play it.) The concept behind the meet-up was simple: unveil the first ever legendary Pokemon at GO Fest, and offer rarer Pokemon for players to casually find. There was also the lure of special medals and in-game items to draw people out to Chicago from all over the country, and supposedly the world.

The festival was a complete disaster. As many of you who attempted to play the game at release may recall, logging onto the game and staying connected seemed almost impossible. These problems eventually went away, but once hundreds if not thousands of players all came together to try and play it in one place, they came back with a vengeance. Ultimately, Niantic had to disable in-game animations and lure functionality to restore some of the game’s playability. The CEO of Niantic, after being booed and chanted at on stage, buckled and announced that everyone would be receiving a complimentary $100 in Poke Coins, as well as a refund of their $20 ticket to attend GO Fest.

This only served to soothe the people who made it into the event however.  Outside the gates of Pokemon GO Fest, the line to get in seemed to stretch endlessly in videos and pictures posted on social media by prospective attendees. There is also now a pending class action lawsuit against Niantic for travel reimbursement for the people who flew in from other parts of the United States, only to be substantially let down by the unplayability of the game.

GO Fest was such as disaster that Niantic has indefinitely postponed the “Safari Zone” event that was meant to start taking place in Europe right now. No new dates have been provided for the Safari Zone event, or if the event is even still set to happen.

That’s a wrap on last month’s top fandom stories. Thank you for joining us here on Dogpatch Press, we hope you enjoyed this peek into the fandom! Make sure you’ve subscribed to Gatorbox on YouTube and Twitch, so you’ll catch What’s Yiffin’ live!

– André “Dracokon” Kon & Rob “Roastmaster” Maestro

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

If you haven’t seen the works of Joe Weatherly, you should. Joe is well-known and well-respected illustrator who specializes in wild animals, portrayed in striking black & white and full color. His web site will show you what we mean. Joe has been hired as a drawing instructor by the likes of Nickelodeon Animation, Dreamworks Feature Animation, Universal Studios, Art Center, the Laguna College of Art and Design, and The Academy of Art in San Francisco. Now, Joe is offering several of his black & white sketches of various animals on a variety of t-shirts, through his new company called Fauna Shirts. The web site shows a limited number of the available designs, but you’ll see many more of them if you visit the Fauna Shirts booth — coming to a furry fandom or comic convention near you!

image c. 2017 by Joe Weatherly

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Sherman Williams has had this interesting commercial series where they make animals out of their paint chips and it's all rather beautiful stuffs. https://youtu.be/zN1id2dmH3o https://youtu.be/ouzYC2vufyc Thanks to Bluejaguar for this tip.
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Rune’s Furry Blog showcases “people within the Furry Community… their characters, life, thoughts, and beliefs”. It also covers furry issues and media plus some personal blogging. Rune joins other guest posters to Dogpatch Press like Andre Kon (What’s Yiffin’?) and Arrkay (Culturally F’d). Welcome Rune! – Patch

“Volcanic Bonding” – Art & Leothaun species by thelostcause86
Masika belongs to MasikaRayne (FA) / Thyra belongs to shewulf7

Creativity has always been the highest focus of the Furry fandom outside of the love for anthropromorphic animals. That is to say that creativity is what keeps pushing the fandom forward whether it be art, music, crafting, or something else entirely.  One of the amazing things that creativity has brought us within the fandom is the emergence of original species.

Why be a dog when you could be a RaptorDog? Why be a regular ‘ol rabbit, when you could be a Bunninut?

It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, but these are actual species imagined by people within the community!  Some create more of a stir than others… and in fact, most people know of a few original species that overwhelm the fandom today due to their popularity! For example: Primagen/Protogens, and Dutch Angel Dragons. These species don’t exist in the world that we know, they were brainstormed and brought to life by individuals that wanted something different and something more.  Sergals are another example of a popular original species that was shown to the community and changed it forever.

“Leo Friends”- Art & Leothaun species by thelostcause86 (FA)
(left) Masika belongs to MasikaRayne (FA) / (center) Thyra belongs to shewulf7 (FA)/ (right) Natalia belongs to thelostcause86 (FA)

So, what makes an original species?

Making an original species is a lot more complicated than it might sound. You can’t just slap two or more things together and call it “original” – that’s just a hybrid (and don’t worry, the community will correct you if you try). Original species are deeper than just a mix of animal parts – they require some sort of history, lore, or even a whole world. There has to be something that sets them apart as rare or unique.

For instance: Take the Mecari.

The Mecari are a creation of Craig Aimes (Blackpawwolf on FA – and Founder of CCSMascots) and on the outside, they seem just like a bat/dog hybrid (but are bat, dog, and bovine to be precise).  Still, these little guys are not just the average hybrid.  They are a species rich in culture and their own way of living.  Not all the info has been released yet (it is being developed and released in chunks), but the Mecari do reside in a particular universe with other original creatures.  They live very social lives with one another, and take on more tribal characteristics – from coming-of-age ceremonies, to other sorts of rituals they perform.  Recently it was announced that each Mecari gets a power over a single element.  Upcoming info will include things like family structures. Even their diet is outlined, and the colors of their eyes have a history.

I could go on forever… so I think you get the gist of it. I have owned a Mecari for a while (with a partial suit being finished this later in 2017) and I act as an Admin of the Mecari Den. They are so much more than slapping together some parts and a name. They hold a story as an original species.

Another great example of this would be the species known as the Leothaun.  As a proud owner of a Tempest Leothaun named Masika, and as Admin of the Leothaun page, I could ramble on forever about why this species is absolutely amazing.

Leothaun were created by Natalia Hardy (thelostcause86 on FA) and they reside on a planet known as Qualdralis. This planet has a lore deep in religious background, where there was a Goddess and the Light Bringers, and the first Leothaun stepped onto the planet. As time went on, the Leothaun evolved. Each type mutated to fit their environment (the biome they were residing in at the time), leaving us with several different sub-types of Leothaun, all with different characteristics.  These guys are DETAILED!

Natalia went all-out when developing the Leothaun. She has charts on differences between the sub-types and how each gender develops per its sub-type. The height, life-span, special powers, and even the specific and rare mutations each sub-type can have is listed in very detailed charts.

As mentioned before, I own a Tempest Leothaun. Their specific trait is either controlling the wind, controlling lightning, neither or even both! I was given the opportunity to have a ‘rare’ Leothaun. My gal Masika has two genetic defects that makes her stand out. She has the glowing/blank eyes, and secondly, her spot pattern is rare and sets her apart from the common Tempest.

Recently I was informed that the Tempest Leothaun are getting a third mutation they may have, which is wings. This has not been completely fleshed out yet, but it makes sense since the Tempest Leothaun reside in a city that is floating in the sky.

My wife was also given a rare Leothaun by the creator – a Volcano Leothaun named Thyra.  Thyra’s rare mutation is that the blood running through her glows blue, rather than the normal magma-orange-yellow color that Volcano Leothaun normally get. The females of this sub-type are taller than the males. There are many interesting facts about them, but in terms of anatomy, Natalia said she took inspiration from a lot of different animals.  They can sometimes have canid faces but most resemble big cats. A few of the aquatic ones look more like otters, and their retractable fangs are inspired by snakes.  So the Leothaun is an original species that is mixed, but more spread out to be unique, and it also has the rich story and history.

Cheshire the Mecari
Art by flamesvoices (FA) / Species created by Blackpawwolf (FA)
Cheshire belongs to: MecariCheshire (FA)

What makes an original species popular or unpopular?

There are a LOT of original species out there.  I couldn’t possibly begin to list them all.  It begs the question: What makes an original species take off?  How does an original species get as popular as a Dutch Angel Dragon or Sergal?  Why haven’t I heard of so many species?

Many original species are unknown because they tend to flop… even those that get a lot of hype tend to fall off the radar rather quickly.  Some species are mimics of other species with very few differences, making them rather unpopular (and they get a lot of backlash from the community).  A lot of it is based in how hard a creator works to build up a decent community.

Those are some factors in whether an original species will fail or succeed.

For a few examples, I made 3 species of my own which I thought (at the time) were amazing. There were the Graul, the Nintius Lupus, and the Bunninuts. They all had a history, lore, and guidelines for their looks and what set them apart. I even made Facebook groups for them! People came into the groups, but no one posted or made their own creature, and soon the groups died without taking off. Why? Because people need a starting point.

It wasn’t enough to give them a creature with a lore and say: “Here it is. Now make one! Enjoy!”

People are looking for an active creator that really wants these species to take off. I’m talking about making a Facebook group with an official banner, setting up Admins, giving out free bases for people to color, raffling off adopts, making adopts, and letting other people make adopts. An original species eventually will become a sort of business where advertising is the key to success. You want people to have fun and spread the word around.

While it may seem a bit rude to say: furries can be cheap. They will jump on a free base much faster than if they have to pay for a custom creature. Also, if you don’t let them make adopts for profit, it will dissuade a good few. But no one blames you for having rules and wanting to keep your species controlled.  Still, you have to be willing to be a little open with a species if you want it to succeed. I have also found that digital art will always do better than traditional art… and again, this kinda goes into making bases for people to use. Getting people that you know involved and having them rep your species to gain attention will help significantly.  I know several species that started out with just a few friends having one, and now it is a whole community… and whether popular or not, these things still tend to thrive in one way or another.

For the people that mimic other species and/or make hybrids of species that don’t allow hybrids… those never go over well. Because an original species comes with a particular set of rules.

“Korr – Skullin reference sheet” Art & species by Skylar Burge (facebook)
Edits by Element02/ owned by Element02

If you make a ‘sona of a particular (original) species: FOLLOW THE RULES!

Original species are more than just a lore and a look. They also have rules to keep them regulated.  Like with any art, a creator wants to be credited for their work. They created the species and want to be recognized for it. That’s why most original species have rules that MUST be followed.

Example: the Mecari can only control a single element. While ‘spirit’ is considered an element, it is extremely rare and only those with permission from the creator may use it. So far, only the creator himself has one that can use spirit.  There’s also a strict rule on how many Mecari a person can own. That’s so Mecari won’t be circulated heavily outside of the group, and they’re easier to keep track of on the master list.

The Leothaun also have rules…

While they’re free to make, people making their own Leothaun may not have rare mutations. They may only do common mutations that occur naturally on the sub-type of their choosing. Also, they may only own up to 8 Leothaun at a time. Rare Leothaun are reserved for adopts that the creator makes herself for sale. That’s to keep the rare mutations rare and special!

Even popular and well-known species have such rules.

Dutch Angel Dragons don’t allow their members to have a muzzle-ring. Only Telephone is allowed to have one. Dutch Angel Dragons aren’t allowed to have any sort of digestive tract, don’t engage in adult-content, and must have certain traits like feathered wings and horse-like face. They aren’t allowed to be hybrids and can’t have any sort of genitalia.

For some species, it’s important to know the difference between them being open or closed. A closed species means that you can’t make your own just because you want one. You need special permission from the species creator to make one, or you must adopt one straight from the creator (which usually means buying one). That’s so the species doesn’t go unregulated. Closed species are often more strict with rules on how their species look and function as well. Open-species means you’re free to make one whenever you like. Some open species are more regulated (like the Mecari and Leothaun) so that you can only make so many of the creature.  Most let you go all out, but even if a species is open, they will still have rules to follow.

Primagen are a closed species, so you must buy one from the creators or a former owner of a Primagen to get your own. Protogen are open, but they too have rules that must be followed. Protogen may only have wings if they’re the rare kind, and rare Protogen are closed and limited to auctions by the creators only. People making protogen adopts may only make 2 per week. Protogen aren’t allowed to be feral either, they must be anthro. Also, Protogen have certain parts of them that must be biological, and parts that must be robotic. This ratio may not be changed.

Breaking rules of an original species can result in many things including getting booted from the official group forever and a Beware then posted. While these rules may exist, thieving still happens… species do get stolen all the time, and altered so other people can claim them as their original creation. So, owning a species and regulating it can become something of a job. It takes a lot of time and dedication to make it work.

“Zensu – Arual Dragon Reference Sheet” / Art & species by ZhiibeColorai
Edits by Element02 / Zensu belongs to RUNEAngelDragon

Conclusion:

Original species are everywhere, and they really show off all the creativity in the fandom. They give people a place to feel they belong, meet new friends, and have something they see as special and unique.  Original species may not be for everyone, and sometimes people see them as overwhelming… but this fandom has always been about being yourself and being an individual. So whether you’re a cat, a leathersaur, gecko, or manokit, just be happy and stay true to what feels right for you and what makes you happy!

Thank you all so much for tuning in!  For more info on some regulated-open species, check out the list below. Special thank you to Craig Aimes and Natalia Hardy for letting me use your species as examples! If there are other original species that I did not list that you know of (and maybe you created), feel free to let me know in a comment down below!

As always, I will see you all in the next one!

Art by Aoijinn
Portal belongs to RuneAngelDragon
Protogen species created by MaliceXRisu

List of Original Species:

While I may not know of all the original species out there (nor would I have time to go looking for them all), I have compiled a list of some that I know of.  Some are newer, some are years older. A few of them I actually found this week while browsing the Furry groups on Facebook, because original species pop up just that often!  Feel free to check these out, and yes, all of these species are open… just make sure to read the rules. – Rune

1. Arual Dragons – created by ZhiibeColorai – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330933120254422/

2. Wisher Dragons – created by flamesvoices – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/OfficialWisherAngelDragons/

3. Shayu – created by Kristina Renee Haley – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/OfficialHomeoftheShayu/

4. Pokeball Dragons – created by RosexKnight – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/508866459260784/

5. Protogens – created by MalicexRisu – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/Prima.Proto/

6. Tea Tigers – created by Sophie Munro – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/318926134897778/

7. Mecari – created by Craig Aimes – (fb group)
   https://www.facebook.com/groups/301634430215800/

8. Leothauns – created by Natalia Hardy/thelostcause86 – (FA link)
   http://www.furaffinity.net/user/leothauns

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.

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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