Feed aggregator

Our gray wolf guest joins us once again for some insanity.

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• NordicFuzzCon Drama
• Sheep and Wolves – Final Trailer
• Australian Man invents Hamdog
• Son of Chinese billionaire bought his dog 8 iPhones
• PCGamer – What’s it’s like to have the fastest internet in the country
• Your Map Of The World Is Wrong. Here’s How Big Everything Actually Is

News:

• Giraffe Wants To Nuzzle Way More Than He Wants To Be On Local News
• Driver Rolls Car After Stowaway Spider Drops Into Her Lap
• Potty-Mouthed Teacher Gets Time Out
• Student emails her college professor a toe-curling assignment written while DRUNK
• This is the cutest dog that ever stabbed its owner with a knife

Emails:

• Artic Fox – “My Mom Hates Furries”
• DiscoStu – “Plant Furries”
• Saber Gray – “Great Show”

FC-246 Through Fire and Legs - Our gray wolf guest joins us once again for some insanity.

Our gray wolf guest joins us once again for some insanity.

Download MP3

Link Roundup:

• NordicFuzzCon Drama
• Sheep and Wolves – Final Trailer
• Australian Man invents Hamdog
• Son of Chinese billionaire bought his dog 8 iPhones
• PCGamer – What’s it’s like to have the fastest internet in the country
• Your Map Of The World Is Wrong. Here’s How Big Everything Actually Is

News:

• Giraffe Wants To Nuzzle Way More Than He Wants To Be On Local News
• Driver Rolls Car After Stowaway Spider Drops Into Her Lap
• Potty-Mouthed Teacher Gets Time Out
• Student emails her college professor a toe-curling assignment written while DRUNK
• This is the cutest dog that ever stabbed its owner with a knife

Emails:

• Artic Fox – “My Mom Hates Furries”
• DiscoStu – “Plant Furries”
• Saber Gray – “Great Show”

[Live] Through Fire and Legs

we talk about Alkali's big camping vacation adventure and more! Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us a buck or two, we'd greatly appreciate it. www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow ALSO, we're not just on SoundCloud, you can also subscribe to this on most podcast services like iTunes! Don't forget to hang out in our telegram chat, now w/ over 100 members!telegram.me/draggetshow Lastly, don't forget to check out our YouTube, where we have many extra vids, Dragget Plays, and live streams & recordings of the podcasts. www.youtube.com/user/DraggetShow/videos ep 137 - Look At The Dick, Dan! - we talk about Alkali's big camping vacation adven…

​Dear Papabear,

Over some time I have felt my childhood dreams will not make me successful in the future, and have had people who try to get me to adopt "you cannot have happiness without sadness" or "there is no such thing as a perfect life" that seem needlessly complex. I also read "your child's genius is within his dreams," so I feel torn.
 
My childhood dreams were to have a secret underground bunker with supplies that lets me go on missions, like what you see in movies. Have a space base that was something like the Enterprise from Star Trek, so my imaginary friends and I could save the universe. Have a big house in an isolated place, being taken care of financially, so I could live a simple life free of doubt, worry, fear, not working from paycheck to paycheck, etc.; and I mean a house in the middle of nature, a forest, rolling hills, or where it snows.
 
Is this normal growing up? What should I believe? One side note is my parents have now divorced and I am living with my dad.
 
I wish the best for you!


Nick Husky 


* * *
 
Dear Nick,
 
It’s very nice to have dreams. Dreams can inspire us to do great things. But to achieve those great things requires work. The first “uh oh” I see in your letter is the phrase that you wish to be “taken care of financially.” You mean, someone will just give you all the money you need to achieve your dreams? I would not count on that.
 
But if you mean you would work hard to take care of your financial needs and then move to your lovely home in the woods, that’s doable, assuming you, again, are willing to work for it.
 
Are there dreams that are too big? Such as having an underground bunker or a space base? Hmm, well, there is a billionaire named Richard Branson who founded the private space travel company Virgin Galactic. But Branson achieved this by a huge drive as an entrepreneur, starting a company that would become the Virgin Group when he was still a teenager. Are you willing to work that hard?
 
Don’t let people tell you that you can’t dream, Nick. But, at the same time, if you really want those dreams to come true you need to be willing to do the legwork.
 
Hugs,
Papabear
 
P.S. Sorry to hear your parents have divorced. I wish you the best, too.

Allen Carter is a writer and comic artist from Hawaii, currently living in Southern California. Among his creations: After finding inspiration from Chuck Jones’ 1975 animated version of Rikki Tikki Tavi, Allen brought us the Figure of Speech Mongoose, who illustrates various well-known sayings (and awful puns) in particularly silly ways. (“Catching a bus” — with a fishing line…) After experimenting with animation, Allen turned the FOS Mongoose into an on-line single-panel comic. Later he collected those works in a series of one-shot comic books, which he sells from his web site along with prints and other works. Allen is another artist making the circuit of Southern California comic cons. Look for him.

image c. 2016 by Allen Carter

Decalzilla is an art project and on-line store created in 2010 by two artists named Jon and Courtney. No prizes for guessing: They create custom hand-made vinyl decals in a variety of designs and colors.  Comic book stuff, anime, and yes lots of cartoons (including cartoon animals!) find there way into the works you find at Decalzilla.com. All of them original designs, mind you, not just copies of official artwork. Based out of Southern California, they travel to anime and comic conventions all around — and they’re hoping to expand their circle into other parts of the country and even internationally as well.

image c. 2016 Decalzilla

Save

Save

FurBQ 2016 (Episode: 97)
The annual SoCal FurBQ is here once again, where everyone is saying goodbye to summer with a day full of food, fun and other shenanigans. See more at: http://www.TheRaccoonsDen.com FACEBOOK:... From: The Raccoon's Den Views: 3502 73 ratings Time: 10:31 More in Entertainment

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

ROAR volume 7, Legendary, edited by Mary E. Lowd.
Dallas, TX, Bad Dog Books, June 2016, trade paperback $19.95 (377 pages), Kindle $9.95.

ROAR volume 7, Bad Dog Books’ annual anthology of non-erotic furry adventure short fiction, is the second edited by Mary E. Lowd following last year’s vol. 6 devoted to Scoundrels. It is slightly smaller – 17 stories rather than 28, and 377 pages rather than 394 – but is still larger than the volumes edited by Buck C. Turner. This year’s theme is Legends/Legendary; the legends that anthro animals listen to and live by – or not.

In “Crouching Tiger, Standing Crane” by Kyla Chapek, three Oriental students – a fox, a crane, and a snake – listen to a tigress fortuneteller as she relates the history of their tiger-crane school of martial arts. “The Manchurian government of the Qing dynasty had become corrupt beyond measure. At the same time the Shaolin style [of Kung Fu] had become popular, gaining great respect and power within the martial arts world.” (p. 14) This is the story of how the betrayed Shaolin monks went underground and continued to teach their style, told with anthro animals: The Bengal tiger, snow leopard, and clouded leopard clans, disguised as traveling performers; their meeting the fragile-appearing cranes; marriage resulting despite official disapproval (“‘The Manchu do not look kindly on cross breed relationships, let along cross clan.’” –p. 20); betrayal and death; and the children, foster brothers Hoong Man Ting (crane) and Wu Ah Phieu (tiger), despite their own families’ anthropomorphic disapproval (“‘A crane couldn’t use tiger style because they lack paws with strong digits and claws; conversely a tiger cannot use crane style because he lacks a beak and the stance would be completely unnatural.’” –pgs. 29-30), leading to the climax showing how the two styles were merged.

“The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon” by Renee Carter Hall, tells how Frog used to have the most beautiful voice in the swamp; until one night when he swallowed a bucketful of water that had the full moon shining in it, and everything went dark. He learns what he must do to replace the moon, but that is why his voice has never been the same.

Hall paints an unforgettable word-picture of the pond in the dark night, except when Frog opens his mouth to talk and blinding moonbeams shoot out. This legend is an ethereal example of poetic writing:

“It didn’t seem to be the pond he’d known as a tadpole. In the stark light of his moonbeam, the pale stones led him across an expanse of water larger than he’d ever seen before. Soon there were no more marsh-reeds or cattails at the edges of his sight. There was only darkness and the moonpath, and when Frog dared to look up, even the stars had disappeared. He didn’t look up again after that, keeping his light and his eyes focused on the stones just ahead.” (p. 53)

“The Torch” by Chris “Sparf” Williams tells the bittersweet story of Rob Cantor (Dalmatian), Captain Electron in an old TV series that’s been forgotten and become mega-popular again by a current spectacular VFX movie. Rob has been dragged out to appear at a comics convention where everyone wants the autograph of John Pierce, the new movie Captain Electron. Rob has gotten tired of being introduced as “the legendary, original Captain Electron” to animal kids rushing past him to line up for Pierce’s booth – even the kids’ parents are usually younger than he is. Until he learns from an unexpected fan what “legendary” really means.

In “A Rock Among Millions” by Skunkbomb, narrator Alec (cat) is the just-graduated-from-college friend of Leif, a collie who is starting a job selling tail insurance. “‘You try walking around without a tail and see how many times you fall flat on your ass.’” (p. 89) At least Leif has a job that is just offered to him. Alec’s applications seem to all disappear. A hike together in a mountainous park, looking for a legendary rock that brings good luck, puts Alec into a better perspective.

“The Pigeon Who Wished for Golden Feathers” by Corgi W. is Epoj, who lives in an avian society based upon gambling.

“In avian society, gambling was a sacred affair. Games of chance were divine mediums, through which the gods declared their will. As some read signs in tea stains, and others looked for guidance in the stars, birds turned to gambling, whenever they wished for divinations.” (p. 97)

The pigeon Epoj, a student of Olanthun the dove, is a very successful gambler who is having his feathers set in gold as he can afford them. When Epoj gets an invitation to participate in a tournament of the gods, the peak of the faith (skill is not supposed to be a factor), he accepts despite Olanthun’s advice. Is what happens to them a result of Epoj’s hubris, or the gods’ will? The avian society and their games are fascinating.

“Unbalanced Scales” by Bill Kieffer is a chilling tale of rap music, Cold Blood, and family. Frosty Pine is a thin Bearded Dragon in the Reptile rap group The Knights of St. George, one of the groups of Large Scale Records’ tour The Large Scale Event (reptiles – scales – get it?); a roadie double for singer Dr. Ice and younger brother of giant Kudzu who has made himself into their flashy headliner, Saint George: nine feet tall, gold chains, mirrored coated sunglasses, gold capped lower teeth and upper teeth etched with the words ST. GEORGE and inlaid with gold. Others are Jonny Heartland, an Alligator; Mimic, a box Turtle; Bling Bling, an Anole, … Frosty has gone along at his parents’ urging to keep an eye on Kudzu, in a dangerous world of Mammal and Avi prejudice against the Cold Blooded Repts. But there is danger within the rap Repts themselves, and as the novelette progresses, the reader wonders if Frosty is looking after Kudzu or if Kudzu is looking after Frosty.

Insanity runs in our family.

“Reason: A Story of Aligare” by Heidi C. Vlach is an Aligare tale, the setting of three books by Vlach and a story in the Gods with Fur anthology. Linden, a back-shelled, green-skinned, antennaed aemet girl, is the young keeper of Castaway village’s sacred shrine tree. The shrine’s old tree is dying. Castaway village is at the edge of a large lake, and the soil is too watery for a plum tree; but the villagers don’t want excuses, they want a tree. Vrin, a weasellike ferrin, helps Linden to find a solution. Vlach’s tales of Aligare are always quiet little gems.

“Old-Dry-Snakeskin” by Ross Whitlock asks how the world broke? The bears, the doe, the foxes and the mice, all the animals have their stories, but everyone agrees that only Rattler knows the One Actual Story. Not any rattlesnake, either. Rattler. The outcast. The heretic. This is his story. But those he tells it to don’t want to hear it – understandably so.

“Kitsune Tea” by E. A. Lawrence features Rue, only ten months old and more fox than kitsune. She’s threatened by becoming roadkill in Manitou State Forest, or succumbing to any of the natural dangers that kill most foxes before their first birthday, before she learns how to use her magic kitsune powers. Does the enormous wooden dollhouse on an oak stump in the forest have any answers? What about her grandmamma who has shape-shifted into a human bag lady? Rue can change into a sparrow, but it’s easy to turn into something lesser; hard to turn into something larger. Yes, the dollhouse has answers.

The opening paragraph of “A Touch of Magic” by John D. Rosenman is:

“George Brewster hadn’t seen his Teddy bear in thirty-four years, so he was a bit surprised when he opened his office door and found it sitting on his desk. Or her, rather. As the door clicked shut, he remembered he had called her Susy Burkabine. He also recalled that his parents had disposed of her in the incinerator one day when he was six.” (p. 225)

Susy has returned because George needs help now. His 8-year-old daughter Sylvia has been possessed by a demon. The story is melodramatic, but unfortunately I never felt that George, Sylvia, or George’s other daughter, 12-year-old Tina, act like real people. Or that Susy acts like what I’d imagine a Teddy bear come to life would act like. I also felt that the story is vague as to whether Sylvia was possessed at birth, a couple of years ago, or whether it’s just recently happened.

“Long Time I Hunt” by Erin Lale is one of the best in ROAR vol. 7. It is narrated by a nameless large feline guardian spirit over countless generations, who begins in the prehistoric past and ends in the present. The spirit does not know what it sees, but the reader will recognize what is going on and what happens to its people. “Long Time I Hunt” is very different from “The Torch”, but they each have a bittersweet beauty in their own way.

“The Butterfly Effect” by Jay “Shirou” Coughlan, illustrated by Kadath’s wraparound cover for the book, shows Roi Longfang, the narrator, an anthro wolf in armor with Archimedes, his miniature gryphon spell-forme.

“All four of us [the others are Rahni, another wolf with Hermes, his miniature wolf-seeming spell-forme, and two humans] wore masks made of silver and stuffed with incense and herbs over our faces. Ours were made specifically to fit over our muzzles but they weren’t comfortable, especially for as long as we had been wearing them. No doubt the humans were feeling the same, despite their better fit. They were a constant reminder of what kind of war this was.” (p. 259)

What kind of war is it? The butterflies are ominous.

“‘What’s going on with the butterflies?’

‘Not a lot,’ Erin [another wolf] sighed, idly stroking my side. ‘The butterflies are too dangerous to get close enough to research them, and anyone who is possessed by them is out of our control. All we know is it has something to do with the air, and that they are more than normal butterflies.’” (p. 268)

It’s complex but colorful. There are other animals such as Fehri, a stoat bureaucrat, and an otter nurse. The reader has to figure it out since Roi can’t. He’s getting weaker and weaker, and the humans are getting more and more worried. Are the butterflies responsible?

Cover Art by Kadath

“The Roar” by John Giezentanner, set in the primeval past, is the first story or movie I’ve seen anywhere that features the latest knowledge about the legendary dinosaurs having feathers! A family of smaller carnosaurs – TraawkCnara the narrator, Djuxhaawtig, smaller Ikherrja and Thrutsee-e.

“We stay alive a few more days, catching some fish. The boys chase bugs and furry things; Ikherrja even manages to snag a bird. But we need bigger prey, especially Djuxhaawtig, who is more irritable than ever, and thin. So we keep our noses to the wind and wait. When the moment comes, we ford the river at a better place than the armored one knew of. The boys and I swim; my claws occasionally scrape cobble; Djuxhaawtig slowly walks across.” (p. 298)

They are desperate for enough food to stay alive. They try to take it from the monsters, the larger carnosaurs – but the smaller carnosaurs would be considered feathery monsters today, too.

In “Trust” by TJ, Will (coyote) and Allen (gray fox) are middle-aged homosexual lovers who have been going together for five years. Now that gay marriage is legal, Allen wants to marry Will before he dies of cancer. But Will has a secret … will Allen trust him enough? This is one of the few stories that I’d call genuinely “legendary”. It’s also a funny-animal story; with no need for any of its characters to be animals instead of humans.

In “The Golden Flowers” by Priya Sridhar, Sushil is an aged rhinoceros, the Guardian of the grove of the golden flowers. Emery Brittle (goat), grandson of Sushil’s old friend Sundar, comes to him for medical aid and the real story of why Sundar took Sushil’s horn. Sundar and Emery are cool. Everyone else in Emery’s family sucks. What does “The Golden Flowers” have to do with legends?

“A Thousand Dreams” by Amy Fontaine has a beautiful opening line:

“Tarascus was a wolf made of stars.” (p. 337)

Tarascus becomes a legend to the wolves for many generations, then is forgotten. What happens to a legend who is forgotten? Tarascus wanders the universe, meeting another star-legend, Ranslei the owl. But not forever.

In “Puppets” by Ellis Aen, Sook Callowain, Commander Stargrave, is a legend of the Interstellar Security Federation’s Havari War Academy. He died fighting. Or he died of old age. Or he doesn’t ever die. He is a wolf. Or she is a jaguar. Plug in, and you are both the puppet and the puppeteer.

ROAR volume 7 contains 17 stories. Most are well worth reading, even if their connections to “legends” may be tenuous. Some are true anthro stories; others feature very thinly disguised humans. But it’s an extensive mixture, from the dim past to the far future. Magic to technology. Feathered dinosaurs to wolves in silvery armor or spacesuits. It’s a good addition to the series.

–Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

What would happen when furry creatures of radically different backgrounds met? In this throwback to worldbuilding episodes of long ago, we ponder the consequences of first contact between an anthro and a feral species.

Metadata and Credits Furry Worldbuilding: First Contact

Runtime: 32:10m

Cast: Levi, Syruss, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 196kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

Furry Worldbuilding: First Contact - What would happen when furry creatures of radically different backgrounds met? In this throwback to worldbuilding episodes of long ago, we ponder the consequences of first contact between an anthro and a feral species.

What would happen when furry creatures of radically different backgrounds met? In this throwback to worldbuilding episodes of long ago, we ponder the consequences of first contact between an anthro and a feral species.

Metadata and Credits Furry Worldbuilding: First Contact

Runtime: 32:10m

Cast: Levi, Syruss, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 196kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

Furry Worldbuilding: First Contact - What would happen when furry creatures of radically different backgrounds met? In this throwback to worldbuilding episodes of long ago, we ponder the consequences of first contact between an anthro and a feral species.

Out-of-nowhere department… and more of a curiosity than a recommendation. There’s a new DVD out this week: A direct-to-video animated film called Elephant Kingdom. Here’s the tag: “When brave elephant Rock (Cary Elwes) sees his wife, Melody (Alexa PenaVega), kidnapped by the powerful human king (Patrick Warburton), the mighty warrior will need some jumbo-sized help from his friends in order to rescue her. Coming to his aid is a quirky, courageous troop of young elephants, including Rally (Carlos PenaVega), and Pugsley (Mikey Bolts), plus the ever-trusty and wacky Wingman (Garrett Clayton) and the kindhearted human queen (Ambyr Childers)”. Interestingly, other than “Grindstone Entertainment” and Lionsgate (who released it) we know next to nothing about who made this. The IMDB entry does not list any director, writers, or other crew; only the English-language voice actors.  It’s available and on the shelves now, but check out the trailer first.

image c. 2016 Lionsgate

In this inbetweenasode, Xander and Draggor discuss the different coping mechanisms with stress, work, and life. From good habits to bad, from chemicals to entertainment, they cover why we go to them, their favorites, and the coping mechanisms of others. Not your normal show, but we thought you'd like something between eps. Expect your normal Dragget Show fix on Sundays! Deep Shit! - Coping Mechanisms - In this inbetweenasode, Xander and Draggor discus…

Tonight the crew get together to discuss missing headphone jacks and more! Episode -25 - Sharkphone ports

Hello Everyone!

On this week's show we open with a discussion on whether or not your friends actually like you. In the day and age of social media how many of your friends are actually friends?

Our main topic is on sex toys! Join Metriko and Viro on a whirlwind tour of sex toys, from butt plugs to strap ons, what to look for, and what you should avoid. Try not to blush as you listen!

We close out with a series of questions from our backlog and some feedback on integrating sex toys into your bedroom with a partner.

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 037 Sex Toys 101 - Are your friends actually your friends? Do you like sex toys? How many questions can Metriko answer? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction

Hello, Dear Readers.

​Well, Papabear was trolled once again. This particular troll was quite clever. He tried to portray himself as someone needing my help, someone desperately trying to make sense out of life. But when I tried to give him some positive advice, he not only slammed me down but viciously attacked me to the point I had to finally block him.

I will be honest here: I just don't get trolls. Papabear tries hard to always see the good side of people. I try to see that, if they act badly, there is a reason for it, such as they have had a very painful life and are lashing out.

But after three or four experiences with trolls, I have to come to the conclusion, sad as it might be, that there are, in fact, some people out there who are simply giant assholes unworthy of any respect. (Yes, I know, trolls feed off reactions, even reactions like this one, but I wanted to have some closure here before initiating a policy in which I will simply no longer reply in any form to trolls).

Curious, I did a little research and found this article, which sums it up rather nicely. Trolls are twisted, sadistic, nasty people who get their jollies out of hurting others. This makes them the worst possible kind of people in my book.

So, to all you trolls out there, this is for you. Despite all your efforts, you will not shake my resolve to help others, you will not put a stop to this column, and you will not make me lose my faith in love and the Great Spirit.

You no longer upset me. I no longer worry about why you are the way you are. And, unlike the other wonderful people who write to me, I no longer care about you and will no longer try to help you (and that's coming from an empath!) Congratulations. You have officially alienated the last furry on the planet who might have given a damn about you.

You can kiss my... P.S. I'm leaving the comments posted below. Apparently, I have been writing this column for nearly five years only because I need validation from other people and to feel important because I am emotionally damaged. Gee, thanks a lot. This is the thanks I get for spending hundreds of hours trying to help people? Really? REALLY? Someone tries to help others and bares his soul online in an effort to show that he has empathy for others and he gets nailed as an egotistical jerk?

You know what? I wake up every morning crying my eyes out because Jim is dead. At night I lay down in an empty bed (well, except for sweet Ernie the Wonder Dog), and yet I drag myself to the keyboard and try to help people because it is the only way I feel I have any meaning in my life anymore.

If that makes me a bad person who is only doing this to suck validation out of strangers, then I guess I'm a selfish, needy twerp.

Thanks for pointing that out, Rouge and Lego Man.

BOTTOM LINE is this (and, Rouge, since you're so concerned about evidence, this is for you in particular): this column HAS helped people. And, yes, I am proud of that.

What have YOU done to make this world that you complain about so much a better place?

My name is Kevin Hile. I live in Cathedral City, California. If you want my phone number, you can email me using a form. Who the hell are you, really? Cowards hide behind pseudonyms. I challenge you to leave your name and email here on this site so that people can contact you (I could post your emails myself, but I promised people I wouldn't do that, but let's see if you are willing to have people contact you directly).

Visiting the Long Beach Comic Con we stumbled across the works of Melissa Douglas, also known as the Kitty Kat Maniac. She majored in digital media at the Otis College of Art and Design, and since then she has worked for animation studios like The Three Legged Legs and Twistory Studios. At her web site (artchamacallit.com) you’ll find many examples of her work — both original stuff, and stuff saluting her favorite cartoons and games. And of course there are also links to her stores where you can find many of her illustrations available not only as prints and stickers, but also on t-shirts, blankets, key chains, and more.

image c. 2016 by Melissa Douglas

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

Fragments of Life’s Heart, volume 1, editors: Laura “Munchkin” Lewis [&] Stefano “Mando” Zocchi.
Manvel, TX, Weasel Press, June 2016, trade paperback $19.95 (400 pages), Kindle $4.99.

Fragments of Life’s Heart is a new anthology of anthropomorphic stories of Love. “Join us as we explore the many different forms of love—family love, forbidden love, love that embraces what society always taught was wrong.”

This volume 1 contains “seventeen anthropomorphic stories with all different forms of sexuality and relationships, in a journey across genres, worlds, and time.”

“Tending the Fires” by Jess E. Owen features nomadic desert fennecs. Nara, a successful young bard from the Wadi Ocar, returns home for her sister Sarayya’s wedding after six successful years of traveling and learning in foreign lands. Nara looks forward to rejoining her loving family, but although her father, brothers, and sisters embrace her warmly, she is shocked when Arwa, her mother, greets her formally but coldly as an honored guest, not family. Arwa hasn’t even read the six years’ worth of letters that Nara sent home regularly. Nara must discover what she has done wrong in her mother’s eyes, and how to correct it in the midst of a colorful tribal wedding celebration.

Owen creates a rich North African (though it is another planet) setting:

“Nara sat with her family while Sarayya and her new husband made their vows in the blended light of the dying sun, the rising moon and emerging stars, and distant, blue Ocarus.

Time stilled as Nara watched her little sister’s face, glowing, and linked her heart and her life to a new tent, a new family – Nara’s new brother, a whole new addition. Their family had grown. Nara’s heart seemed to swell and expand and encompass the new foxes her sister had come to love, and now, they were all one. As darkness bloomed over them, Nara mingled with the in-laws, rapidly learning names and gossip.

It was not long before the men produced their tablah drums and a stringed rebab, and they broke into long recitations of songs by desert poets, all memorized and passed down for hundreds of years. […]” (p. 33)

In “Transitions” by Mog Moogle, Geoffrey has a secret. Or Freya does. He/she is transgender. The male otter has felt that he was really female ever since puberty. Geoff’s mother has accepted his decision, but his father has stubbornly insisted that he is 100% his son. So Geoff has gone through middle and high school as Geoffrey. Only his best friend, Douglass, a mole, has known his/her secret and has recognized her as Freya – and become her lover. Now that they have both graduated from high school and Doug is going into the U.S. Army, Geoff is set to leave for the university – and he/she’s decided to openly start her new life as Freya. Her mother is supportive, but confronting her father as a girl –

Will his/her father’s love for his offspring transcend his/her sexual identity?

“The Mistress of Kidwell Manor” by Renee Carter Hall is the first story here that isn’t just funny-animal. Mattie is a bioengineered Papillon dog by GenFront, made to be an old-fashioned domestic maid for Miss Emma. She’s served for so long that she has become the senile Miss Emma’s nursemaid, the last servant in the vast, empty manor, trying to keep up the pretense of normality as civilization disintegrates outside. Because Mattie loves the dying Miss Emma.

What will Mattie do after Miss Emma dies?

In “Yet Time and Distance” by Kris Carver, Danny (cougar) insists on dragging Reno (wolf) to a social get-together with Sam (leopard), their old friend whom they haven’t seen in a long time. Sam has gotten married and divorced, and his little son Jake is also visiting. During the social evening, it becomes clear to Danny that Reno used to have a homosexual relationship with Sam that he’s still not over, although Sam is. Danny shrugs. It’s Reno’s problem to work out.

In “Polynomials” by Fever Low, Cass (African wild dog; the narrator), Madison (Lapphund dog), and Jessie (bull) are housemates, with Cass and Maddie as lovers and Jessie as a tolerant friend. Cass, a leading physics student at the U. of O., invites them with her to a snowy department cocktail party. It becomes obvious to Maddie that Cass is open about their relationship to the other students, but she introduces Maddie as her “childhood best friend” to the professors, as though she’s ashamed of her. Cass admits it. “‘I’m fine telling all of the other graduate students. It’s just the professors, they can put my whole career on ice, and so many are so conservative.’” (p. 102) Cass bites the bullet and announces it openly. It’s worse than she fears – until a more liberal professor comes to Cass’ rescue.

“Polynomials”, like “Tending the Fires”, is lathered in anthropomorphism. “Watch your horns,” Cass warns Jessie as the bull climbs into a car. “‘Hey guys, y’all manage to get yerselves sorted?’ Her [Madison’s] warm tongue brushed up the fur on my cheek, mussing it.” “The sound of Madison’s tail thumping against the upholstery filled the rear of the car.” Dr. Tremblay, a chameleon, comments at the party on how California is more suitable for a reptile like himself than Ottawa is in winter. He performs his usual party trick for a large audience:

“‘Yellow watermelon? Oh, Millicent, you challenge me! Wherever did you find such a fruit out of season?’

As we approached, a tongue longer than I am tall, tipped with a sticky bulb the size of a large apple shot past the gaggle of office staff and returned to its owner laden with a slice of yellow and green fruit. It disappeared into Dr. Tremblay’s mouth and he chewed thoughtfully for a long moment. His skin morphed from the iridescent orange it had been to a striped white and green. He held the rind of the melon between his lips and took a bow. The audience applauded and tittered.” (p. 99)

Later, his chameleon’s ability to see in two directions at once becomes an important story element. Yet because of all the real place-names, around Ontario and especially Ottawa, I never felt that the story was more than a funny-animal story; basically a human story in fancier-than-usual anthro dressing that would still be too easy to turn into a non-anthro story with an all-human cast. The furry overlay is enough for many furry fans, but for those like me it feels like a bit of a cheat. The furry overlay is much thinner on other stories.

“Raise Your Voice” by Stefano “Mando” Zocchi is a genuinely anthropomorphic story. The protagonist is Edith, a motherly voice over an intercom to Treyo, a humanoid fox being raised in a sealed, sterile laboratory. As Treyo grows up, it becomes increasingly dubious whether Edith is a person or a computer program. Can a computer program feel love?

“Going Out” by T. C. Powell is an animal fantasy. EJ Raccoon is a paranoid who has spent the last two years, following a serious injury, huddling inside his tree nest inside Griffith Park in Los Angeles. His younger brother Skip has brought him food every day. When Skip disappears, hunger eventually drives EJ out to look for him. Skip’s wife Nona is not supportive:

‘You know,’ Nona said, turning a sharp eye on EJ, ‘I always told Skippy – I always knew – that you could leave that blasted tree of yours. If you needed to. Just let him get a little bit hungry, I said. Just let him feel it for a while, and he’ll get over whatever problem he supposedly has.” (p. 141)

EJ and his former girl friend Elsa go looking for Skip, EJ’s brotherly love for his sibling keeping him out of his nest until he becomes self-reliant – and rekindles his romance with Elsa — once again.

In “Harvest Home” by Altivo Overo, Argos Weaver (wolf) and “Red” Fennec (fox) are ancient lifelong friends. Argos is the former mayor of Westvale, and Fennec is long retired. Both are bachelors, and popular with the older animal citizens of Westvale. It gradually becomes obvious that although Argos and Fennec have never been homosexual lovers, their friendship is unusually close and lasting; a form of love.

“The Foreigner” by Dwale is Esi, a giraffe chimera, but the protagonist of the story is Ms. Fjola, an elderly wheelchair-bound horse chimera. Esi has come from Sapayo – São Paulo many generations ago – to learn how to make perfume from flower petals. It has been a long time since Ms. Fjola had an unaccompanied male caller. As they discuss their backgrounds, what happened to the world and to mankind becomes clear. A truly anthropomorphic story, with a memory of romance if not love woven through it.

“Trade All the Stars” by Watts Martin is definitely furry, and in the same setting as his “Tow” in The Furry Future. In fact, the rat-teenager Gail here is the same older rat-woman Gail Simmons in “Tow”. “Trade All the Stars” is part of a longer story that Martin is writing, set in the future when the Asteroid Belt is colonized and humans can have themselves transformed into semi-animal “totemics”. The protagonist is Sky (Blue Sky), an older adolescent two-meter-tall wolf-woman. She was raised in the New Coyoacán space colony by Judith Simmons, a leader of the totemics and foster mother of several including Sky, who has just left to start her own life in the smaller colony of Lariat Station, and the younger Gail, who has recently come from Earth and become a rattess. When Judith is assassinated, Sky rushes back to New Coyoacán to assist in the turmoil and to settle Judith’s affairs. The question is what to do with Gail, who is twelve and not old enough to live alone. Send her back to human Earth, now as a rat-girl spacer? Send her to a foster home in the Asteroid Belt colonies? Sky isn’t secure enough as a new spacer at Lariat to bring Gail to her tiny one-room apartment there. Over the course of the story, sisterly love leads them to a solution. This is a fine story, though it feels like a fragment of something longer.

“Draw to the Heart” by Ocean Tigrox rubs me wrong from its opening paragraph:

“‘This is amazing!’ Sammy exclaimed, eyes wide, taking in the sea of stars. The millions of tiny lights danced over him, filling the vast Saskatchewan horizon as far as the eye could see. The short, chestnut-brown beaver laid in the back of Cindy’s old, tan, ’86 Dodge Ram staring up at the wide night sky, unable to blink.” (p. 223)

Yep, it’s a funny-animal story. Sammy, a teenager from one of Canada’s big Eastern cities, has resettled in a small Saskatchewan town when his parents move there for a dam-building job. He is taken in hand by Cindy Petrenko, a doe who quickly makes him a part of the local teen social life and a player on the high school’s curling team. It’s very well-written, with lots of friendly animals – Linda, the cow moose proprietress of the town restaurant-bar; Josh, “a short and tan prairie dog” and his younger brother Jay; Mikey, “A tall skunk wearing a green Roughriders jersey”; and others – but there’s no reason for the anthro-animal cast instead of humans, except this story is in an anthro-animal anthology. The love is the camaraderie of the Saskatchewan townsfolk, especially the teens, and how Sammy becomes a fan and player of a game he’s barely heard of. Be prepared for an in-depth submersion into the sport of curling. (Ocean Tigrox is from Saskatchewan, and the story shows his love for Canada’s wide western plains provinces.)

“Paint the Square Cut Sky” by Slip-Wolf is about a war between mammals and birds, and two adolescents, Zaci (fox) and Leida (falcon) who become friends despite it. Do falcons eat birdseed? Never mind; it’s still a good story.

In “Hearth Soup” by Laura “Munchkin” Lewis, the vixen Huang Li Xia case worker is trying to place Natalia, a difficult rabbit orphan (not quite, but she has been abandoned by her parents), in a foster home. Li is running out of potential foster parents and is reduced to trying to place Natalia with two wolf farmers – a prey girl with two adult predators. But Piercing Thunder Claw and Gentle Snow Meadow have adopted other prey children into their family – their pack. “‘Why should species matter? So we need to look up recipes for roasted vegetable kabobs or make sure we wash extra well after a hunt. It’s worth it, for pack.’” (p. 308) “Hearth Soup” is so carefully a blend that I’m not sure whether it’s a funny-animal story or anthro. But it is heart-warming.

“Brass Candy Girl” by M. C. A. Hogarth is one of her Pelted stories. Rayne Starfallen, a foxine Tam-illee with a brown pelt and silver-furred mask and gloves and socks, and pointed ears, has come to the brass candy planet Ciracaa with her children, looking for an old college friend whom she hasn’t seen in decades. Ciracaa is a marvel:

“The planet was inhabited by giants. The Ciracaana were another race Rayne had never seen in person and they were more unlikely in the flesh than they were in pictures. Centaurs Rayne could encompass, particularly short ones like the Glaseah. But the Ciracaana looked like very normal Pelted folk that someone had stretched until they were almost nine feet tall. And they were riotously colored, with patterns that ranged from sensible felid rosettes or vulpine masks to coats that looked like someone had splashed buckets of paint on them. They were an arresting people, but she’d only been on-planet an hour and already her neck hurt.” (p. 319)

Rayne learns that her friend Carevei walked into Ciracaa’s outback ten years ago “to warn one of the aboriginal tribes about a seismic fault … and never came back?” She apparently joined the nomadic Lifehawk tribe. The Ciracaana aren’t worried; but if Rayne and her three children and her pet marshound want to go meet the Lifehawks, that’s easy. What isn’t easy is for Rayne and Carevei to reestablish their old friendship after ten years, after Rayne’s getting married and divorced and adopting human children, and Carevei’s going native among the nomadic huge centauroids. Rayne has come to bring Carevei home, to Tam-ley. But which world is Carevei’s home today? Fans of Hogarth’s Pelted stories will not want to miss this one.

“Footsteps” by Televassi is set on a future Earth ruined by warfare, with poisonous gases and a thorny wilderness outside the Havens. The nameless narrator is a human ex-soldier exiled from the Havens for his bloody lungs, who falls in love with one of the Modified:

“Half human, half animal; engineered to solve manpower shortages and reduce the length of casualty lists. It never worked. The Modified had our intelligence, so they were smart enough to revolt. When The War ended, plenty of them exploited the situation and escaped into the wild. Now they outnumber a humanity that has retreated from the world it messed up. Safe inside the Havens, cities for humans alone, we went on pretending the world was ours.” (p. 348)

The Modified have established their own civilization in the ruined cities outside the Havens. He accepts the half-human stag and doe neighbors, and a tiger child, but it is a wolf bachelor that he finds romance with. As the ruined Earth slowly heals itself, but his health deteriorates, the doe nurses urge him to be honest about his condition with his lover.

Uh-oh. “Rain Check” by Field T. Mouse is another funny-animal story. Ketchy (her) and Kody (him) are listlessly enduring another rainy morning at home. There are references to the Indiana Five Hundred and to Cheerios cereal. They’ve been saving up for a delayed honeymoon for ten years, and they have $4,000 now. Should they finally go, to the Caribbean or somewhere closer like Chicago or Milwaukee; or should they keep on saving? They’re in their mid-thirties; are they still a young couple, or have they become middle-aged?

“He shrugged, lowering his arms to grip her hips. She was dressed nearly as casually as him, wearing only a tank top with bra-straps visible beneath it and shorts that even go halfway down her thighs. He looked into her brown eyes and suggested, ‘Have my cereal, instead.’” (p. 378)

At the end (I guess this is a spoiler), they go into the bedroom for more sex, still in love with each other. Does it matter what species they are? They’re humans! (Okay, she’s a squirrel and he’s a rabbit.)

The final story, “The Soul of Wit” by Daniel Lowd, is shorter than this review of it.

So. Fragments of Life’s Heart, Volume 1 (cover by Darkomi) is 17 stories. They’re all very readable. Despite the usual rule that an anthology is a mixed bag and every reader won’t like every story, I found these all good, even those that I kvetched at for being funny-animal stories and not really anthro. A couple are set in their author’s worlds and will be especially enjoyed by those authors’ fans. I did feel that some had to work to justify fitting into the “love” theme. But this is a fine anthology. Enjoy it.

–Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

According to Bleeding Cool, Image Comics have a new full-color graphic novel for young adults on the shelves called Afar. Here’s what Image says: “Critically-acclaimed, Russ Manning nominated Shutter artist Leila Del Duca teams up as co-creator and writer alongside artist, colorist, and letterer Kit Seaton (The Black Bull of Norroway, Eve of All Saints) for an original graphic novel, Afar. In Afar, Boetema suddenly develops the ability to astrally project to other worlds, unintentionally possessing the bodies of people light years away. Inotu, her inquisitive brother with a pension for trouble, finds himself on the run after he’s caught eavesdropping on an illegal business deal between small town business tycoons and their cyborg bodyguard. When Boetema accidentally gets someone hurt while in another girl’s body, the siblings are forced to work together to solve the problems they’ve created on their planet and others.” As you can see from the sample images, many of the worlds our young heroes “visit” are quite interesting for furry fans. Check out the Bleeding Cool article to learn more.

image c. 2016 Image Comics

Save

​Hello,
 
I've always struggled with my identity as I am an African American teenager who has grown up in a military family. I've have always been struggling with my identity because I am black but I tend to have a more (what people call) a “white” personality. This isn't the only problem. My family and people I know say I have an “intimidating look.” I am 5’11”, and guess I could call myself pretty athletic. And added to all this I am black so nobody expects me to be into something like the furry fandom.

When I was 10 years (around 2009) I moved too Japan. Around that time, I discovered I liked looking at and drawing anthropomorphic animals. I never knew of the furry fandom at that time so it was just a little thing to me. It was like that for the next 3 years until we moved back to America. This pretty much ruined my social life as I had already established my life in Japan. 

We moved from Baltimore, to Rhode Island, then recently too California, all within 3 years due to my father being active military. I discovered the fandom when I first moved to Maryland. I slowly got into it and was started drawing and admiring artists through YouTube, DeviantArt, etc. But the thing is during this time between being in Baltimore and Rhode Island, my outside personality completely changed to conform with the people I hung around in school. And the people I hung around with was (yup, you guessed it!) the typical ghetto, suburban, rude teenagers. It was a struggle for me as I wanted to tell people about me being furry and share my art and make friends who liked furry art. I was actually lighthearted, nice person on the inside but yet I had this forced, rude outside personality that kept all that hidden. 

I recently moved to California as I said earlier and I decided to make this a fresh start, yet I still have this conflict inside and outside of me. Do you have any suggestions on how to make friends that have the same interest as me even though my conflicting personality and outside appearance gets in the way? 

Maximus
 
* * *
 
Dear Maximus,
 
It is indeed very difficult being the son of someone in the military who moves around a lot. Children are happier if they grow up with a sense of stability and home, which is hard to do when the average military family moves every three years (I’m just writing this for the benefit of my readers). One thing I would say about your particular experience is that you probably gained a lot of insight and knowledge about other cultures by living in Japan. That’s something that could benefit you and your view of the world.
 
As for looking muscular and athletic—yes, I understand how people get intimidated by that, sadly. People judge too much by appearance, whether it is someone who is attractive (he’s attractive, so he must be a pleasant person) or ugly (he’s ugly, so she’s a bad person) or whatever.  People see your muscles and that you’re black and think you’re a thug or some such. So sad. Obviously, you’re a sweetheart inside.
 
Now the trick is this: having the courage to show others who you truly are. You’ve conformed to the “ghetto” set because you wanted to be accepted and fit in (very human desire), and you are probably afraid to show your furry side because you could be rejected by your peers at school. For starters, since you are likely to move again and again, I would not be overly concerned about peers at school, unless some of them become actual friends and not just people you are trying to get to like you. Second, I would start slowly by first trying to make friends online. Fortunately, there are many places you can do this, and if you like I will send you some suggestions if you haven’t already located some good furry social groups. You could start with SoCal Furries (http://www.socalfurs.com/), since you’re in Oxnard, and, if you ever get the chance, try to go to the Prancing Skiltaire monthly furmeet that is held in Glendale (http://prancing.skiltaire.net/). Start talking to furries online, start posting your furry art, talk to fellow artists. When you locate some who start to click with you, then you might start to show them both your outside and inside through photos, cam chat, and the like.
 
You have to let your guard down. This is scary, I know. Very scary, but it’s clear you are not happy living a charade. You want to be who you really are, right? A nice guy who is into furry, likes to draw, likes to be physically fit, and happens to be black. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. And, you know what? You’ve discovered a community—furries—who are more accepting of differences than many other social groups. Here’s a cool article about how more and more African Americans are getting involved in the fandom (Anthrocon is an example): http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2013/07/10/more-african-americans-get-involved-in-anthrocon-every-year/.
 
Another thing that benefits you: many furries absolutely adore Japanese culture (especially anime, of course, and Japanese cartoons have had a very strong influence on the fandom—Kimba, the White Lion being of particular note), and you’ve experienced it first-paw! You can certainly find furries who share this interest with you, both in America and back in Japan.
 
Maximus, you don’t seem to know it, but you have stumbled into a community that might just be the ticket for your releasing the inner you: furries. I encourage you to get involved with them. I’m sure you’ll find some cool fuzzy friends.
 
Hope that helps.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

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

Back in February 2015, Dogpatch Press published a two-part “History of Furry Publishing” by me. (Part 1 and Part 2) Patch has asked me to contact the furry specialty publishers for a follow-up to bring it up to date.

The traditional “Big Three” furry specialty publishers are FurPlanet Productions in Dallas, Rabbit Valley Books in Las Vegas, and Sofawolf Press in St. Paul. They were profiled in the earlier article. Here is their current status.

FurPlanet Productions

FurPlanet has been doing very well, as evidenced by having 24 new titles at Anthrocon 2016. FurPlanet has had dealer tables during 2016 at Further Confusion in January, Furry Fiesta, Anthrocon, and Rocky Mountain Fur Con, and plans to appear at Mephit FurMeet, Furry Migration, and Midwest FurFest in December. Besides selling books, FurPlanet has established a strong presence and met a lot of great fans, some of whom have been encouraged to become writers in FurPlanet’s anthologies.

FurPlanet prefers to release new titles at the conventions it attends. Further Confusion in San Jose in January and Anthrocon in Pittsburgh in late June or early July are the big release weekends each year, and publications are aimed for those dates. FurPlanet used to have several releases at RainFurrest in Seattle in late September, but with the disappearance of RainFurrest FurPlanet may shift to Midwest FurFest in Chicago in early December. If something becomes ready at a different time, it is released at the first convention it’s ready for.

Some of FurPlanet’s art folios are annuals. Those usually appear at the same convention each year. FurPlanet and its readers can count on two short fiction anthologies edited by Fred Patten at FC and AC, and an annual volume of FANG and ROAR at AC. Other anthologies, single-author collections, comic books, and one-shot art folios appear as they’re ready.

Erotica clearly sells very well. About 70% of FurPlanet’s sales are adult titles versus 30% of “all ages”. Of the 24 new titles at Anthrocon 2016, only 5 were all ages. FurPlanet’s best selling titles are the comics and books with well-written stories featuring adult themes. Rukis’ novels and comics, and the “Cupcake” novella books have been especially popular.

FurPlanet has three tables together at Anthrocon, so it has a much wider display of titles there. At conventions where it has only two or one table, there are about 100 titles, focusing on what is new or still selling well. Titles that are part of ongoing series will stay on the tables much longer.

Convention sales and online catalogue sales are about equal. Sales of FurPlanet’s print books are much greater than of Bad Dog Books’ e-editions. The Bad Dog e-books are not Amazon’s Kindle books. The only difference is that the Kindle books do not have adult illustrations, due to Amazon’s rules on eBooks. The Bad Dog titles are not censored. That is why many of the Bad Dog eBooks do not appear on Amazon.

For conventions relatively near Dallas, FurPlanet drives its stock there and back in its hatchback. For Further Confusion in California and when it was attending RainFurrest in Seattle, FurPlanet shipped its stock there and flew.

FurPlanet regularly displays Rabbit Valley’s and Sofawolf Press’s titles at conventions where those publishers do not have their own tables. There are no arrangements yet with other publishers, but with several new ones appearing, there could be in the future. FurPlanet has stocked a few mainstream books like the American editions of the French Blacksad and Grandville titles, but those are rare exceptions. FurPlanet’s recent carrying of several of Disney’s Zootopia titles has been due to the extreme interest in Zootopia by many furry fans. There are no plans to carry other books related to anthro-animal movies.

FurPlanet Productions is basically a part-time hobbyist mail-order business in Dallas. Everything there is in a large room called the Production Room. FurPlanet’s stock is kept there, orders are packed and shipped from there, and their bookbinding equipment is there. This room is not open to the public, and there are no plans to open a store front.

FurPlanet consists of four people: FuzzWolf and Teiran, the two owners, and their two long-term employees Buck Turner and Zia McCorgi. All four have regular jobs and run FurPlanet in their spare time. All four appear at almost every convention that FurPlanet displays at. They are sometimes joined by their friends Ajax B. Coriander and Andres Cyanni Halden, who have edited anthologies for FurPlanet in the past.

FurPlanet has this to say:

We’d like to thank everyone, our authors, artists, editors, customers, and helpers, especially Buck and Zia, who have made this all possible for the last eight years.

Rabbit Valley Books

Rabbit Valley Books, technically Rabbit Valley Comics, is doing well enough to publish roughly 18 new titles a year; 4 novels, 3 anthologies, 6 comic books, and 5 art collections or folios. Approximately 30% of these are for general readers, 20% for mature readers, and 50% for adult readers. All Rabbit Valley titles are still in print.

Rabbit Valley is the leader among furry specialty publishers with dealer tables at furry conventions. RV had dealer tables at 10 conventions in 2015, and had agreements with other specialty publishers and bookstores to sell RV titles at an additional 14 conventions, making 24 conventions at which fans could shop for RV titles. New conventions are always being added to RV’s schedule. For 2016 it is planning for 38 events, not all of them furry conventions or in North America. These also include travel to cities to visit good customers outside of conventions. For events within 16 hours of driving time from Las Vegas, RV drives its own truck rather than shipping stock. Areas at which RV stock is displayed and sold include North and South America, the U.K., the European Union, and Australia.

RV’s convention tables, in addition to selling its own titles, regularly stocks those of FurPlanet and Sofawolf Press at conventions where they do not have their own tables. RV regularly picks up titles from independent authors and presses including Weasel Press, Thurston Howl Publications, and a host of other trade paperbacks published by CreateSpace.

RV, mainly Andrew and Sean Rabbitt, has a core staff of three principles and another half-dozen assistants. It operates five to six days a week. Orders are picked, packed, and shipped five days a week with an initial pick run in the morning and a second pick run in the afternoon when needed. All orders for in-stock merchandise ship within 48 hours of being placed, unless the core staff is traveling as noted on the website’s convention and events page. Rabbit Valley operates online and at conventions only, though furs visiting Las Vegas are often invited to visit the RV warehouse and make purchases directly, provided they are okay with paying local taxes.

RV has this to say:

Rabbit Valley has been distributing furry literature in the form of art collections, books, comics, DVD media. fanzines, furry games, hardcovers, independent works, movies, novels, novellas, shirts, toys, and much more since the late 90s. We are the only source to purchase titles from a variety of publishers including, but not limited to, 2 the Ranting Gryfon’s comedy DVDs and CDs, Bernard Doove’s Chakat titles, Bucktown Tiger’s and other furry performers’ music CDs, Radio Comix’s and other furry comic book titles, and issues of Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe.

Sofawolf Press

Sofawolf Press, originally founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2010, is run by its four principal owners (Jeff Eddy, Dale Trexel, Tim Susman, and Mark Brown), with the help of many volunteer editors, designers, and assistants. While it is run as a fully-formed small corporation, it is a labor of love undertaken on top of the owners’ professional careers, and rarely ends the year showing a net profit.

While continuing to produce several new titles a year, the company has been producing a decreasing number of total new titles over the last several years and has also been attending fewer and fewer conventions. President Jeff Eddy credited both the increasing costs of doing business and increased demands on the small team as factors in the decline.

“Conventions, as they have moved from ‘the outskirts of town’ to downtown tower hotels and convention centers, cost a lot more to attend. We only see positive returns from the very largest of cons, and… with the costs of shipping rising along with the size of our backlist, it becomes harder and harder to make conventions work as a viable sales venue for us.” He goes on to say that “Online shipping has also become a problem, with many big retailers offering free shipping thanks to economies of scale we can’t begin to approach. Buyers find it hard to swallow the shipping costs we have to charge just to break even.”

The complexity of running a small business with an entirely volunteer staff has also been an increasing challenge. “As we have gotten more complex, the sheer amount of time spent on accounting and tax compliance has also increased. I spend nearly all of my time these days on logistics, contracts, finances, and operations. No one has the time to be as engaged in the creative part of the process as we used to, and would like to. We’re deeply grateful for everyone who has been pitching in and helping us continue to produce the high quality products readers have come to expect, but a lot of the core operations just can’t be done by anyone else.” The company leases a warehouse in Saint Paul, MN which is not open to the public, but serves their product storage and distribution operations.

What does this mean for the future of Sofawolf Press?

“Bottom line is that some of what we are has to change, but we’d like to think it is going to be a good thing. We have been trying to be both a publisher and a distributor, and in a lot of ways the second half of that has been what has been seriously limiting what we can do with the company. All these resource limitations are driving us to re-evaluate that balance and look for new ways to be self-sustaining as a business, without that taking up all our energy. With some time freed up we can get back to doing the creative things that drew us into the business in the first place; and we have lots of ideas we’d like to explore going forward.”

In addition to the Big Three of the furry small presses, Jarlidium Press is still in business, we overlooked one tiny publisher last year, and there are several newer companies today.

Jarlidium Press

Jarlidium Press of Seattle has continued its two-fur operations, hampered by Tibo’s – James Birdsall’s — needing surgery this year. It had a sales table at Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno in May and Rocky Mountain Fur Con in Denver in August. New titles included collections of Aaron Neathery’s popular Internet graphic novel/comic strip Endtown, issues of North American Fur, and several comic books.

ENDTOWN Collected Volume #2 (2014) (Aaron Neathery)

ENDTOWN Collected Volume #3 (2015) (Aaron Neathery)

NORTH AMERICAN FUR. #32 (2015)

NORTH AMERICAN FUR. #33 (2015)

Furry Logic Productions

The overlooked furry small press was Gary Akins’ Furry Logic Productions. It was frankly easy to overlook since it only publishes Akins’ own novels; they’re only available online at his website and at a dealer’s table at the annual Mephit FurMeet; and he hasn’t had a new title in years. Still, they do exist, and Akins has talked about adding some other titles not his own.

Thurston Howl Publications

Thurston Howl Publications is a new operation centered around Nashville, Tennessee. Its first book was the anthropomorphic wolf fantasy, Farmost Star I See Tonight, published in March 2013. Its real debut began with the charity anthology Wolf Warriors in October 2014.

It has grown from one person publishing one book to several staff and publications. As it has grown in experience, its overall quality has also increased. Many of its books are furry titles, but THP is not a furry-exclusive publishing house. THP has not had any sales tables at furry conventions, but its titles have been available through Rabbit Valley’s tables in the U.S, and Fusselschwarm’s in Europe.

“Presently, THP has released eleven titles, with about ten more expected for release within the next year and a half. We publish both furry and non-furry books, and that is not expected to change in the near future. We do publish — and are publishing — novels, anthologies, collections, children’s picture books, and general nonfiction. We have not yet explored the comic or art folio market yet, but we are not closed to the possibility.

“Our print market is significantly higher than our e-book market, namely due to book signings and book release events we hold across the United States. Our e-books have only received minor sales, but we are constantly improving our strategies for marketing.

“We have been distributing some of our books through Rabbit Valley Press at some conventions, as well as Fusselschwarm at some of the European conventions. We have plans for our own tables at conventions in the future, but the company still needs to grow considerably before that can become a possibility.

THP’s Thurston Howl has this to say:

“THP presently has a staff of five to ten editors, three proofreaders, a team of beta readers, a cover design team, two copyeditors, a marketing specialist, an accountant, and Howl, the editor-in-chief and founder. We do not have a physical home location yet, though, in the coming years, I hope to see that become a reality. With the growing of our house, we have constantly been working toward quality process with authors. We accept works that inspire emotion, be it fear, love, passion, adventure, or even the basic happiness and sorrow. We define good writing as writing that moves people in the way the author set out to. As a publishing house, we will help make the language as sharp as it can be, but as long as a work is fixable, marketable, and a progenitor of emotion, we will always accept and publish it. Authors have always been surprised with our traditional publishing house process: query, contracts, major edits, proofreading, formatting, cover design and art, beta reading, and publication and marketing. We hope to be the balanced blending of both furry publishing markets and traditional publishing markets, always looking to support the new author without ever sacrificing quality and integrity. As is the motto of our house, ever onward.”

Weasel Press

Weasel Press is similar to THP, with an emphasis on beat generation mentality rather than pro-wolf literature. It prefers not to be tied down to a location (but its owner, Weasel Patterson, is in Manvel, Texas, near Houston), communicating through its locationless website. Its first book was a re-release, Ribbon and Leviathan in April 2014. Today it has 11 books of fiction and nonfiction, 18 of poetry, and just 1 of plays; plus 7 under its Red Ferret Press label for erotica. Most are available on Amazon in paper and Kindle editions.

The WP online catalogue has a “Furry” category for 7 of its books including both fiction and poetry, both Weasel Press and Red Ferret Press. Its furry authors include Vixxy Fox, Bill “Greyflank” Kieffer, and editors Stefano “Mando” Zocchi and Laura “Munchkin” Lewis.

WP emphasizes that it is a beat press, not a furry press. That said, it is eager to expand its furry line and actively solicits new submissions.

Weasel Patterson says that Weasel Press is not without turbulence, but overall it’s doing just fine. It publishes 15 to 20 titles a year, about 1 or 2 of them furry. About 3 or 4 of these are anthologies; the rest are novels and poetry collections. Only a few titles have gone out of print. Sales are almost all of paper editions, since readers who prefer e-books can get Amazon’s Kindle editions, usually for free. WP has not had any sales tables at furry conventions so far, although it hopes to in the future, probably starting at Furry Fiesta 2017.

WP’s Weasel Patterson has this to say:

“Weasel Press is a machine that dishes out some fantastic work. We’re a community driven by madness. We unfortunately do not have a retail shop aside from our Store online, but we do hang out at most Houston, TX literary events. We’ve hosted several poetry readings in the area and work with a lot of groups to keep the indie publishing world thriving. Our staff consists of: Weasel (Myself, main dude, operator, whatever), Sendokidu “the fox” Adomi (Finance guy, Proofreader), Emily Ramser (Editor of Poetry, Layout Design, Editor of Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones), and Mr. Z.M. Wise (Proofreader, Marketing analyst). Several of our authors have come to our aid. Authors like Neil S. Reddy, David E. Cowen, Matthew David Campbell, R.K. Gold, Sarah Frances Moran, and so much more!! We have all pooled together our time and resources to make Weasel Press what it is today, and I really doubt we’d be where we are at without our community to back us up. Folks can see some of the events we have hosted and projects we have taken on through our YouTube Channel.”

Goal Publications

Goal Publications is almost entirely Sean Gerace alone in Plainfield, Connecticut. It hasn’t entirely started yet, but as AnthroAquatic, Gerace has edited and published as e-editions three issues of A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature in 2016 — he plans to publish a paper volume of all three issues combined – and he has edited the first volume of the Furry Writers’ Guild’s literary anthology, Tales from the Guild: Music to Your Ears, published in September 2014 by Rabbit Valley.

What Goal Publications has also done so far is to represent Jaffa Books, Australia’s only furry publisher (so far), in the U.S. Jaffa Books has published two furry books in 2016, one edited by AnthroAquatic, and Gerace has made them available in the U.S. on Amazon. Gerace plans to get Goal Publications going with its own books and its own online catalogue soon, which will include Jaffa Books’ titles for American customers. All six – the three issues of A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature, Tales from the Guild, and the two Jaffa Books titles — are for sale on Goal Publications’ website.

–Fred Patten