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My relationship with games could be described as patchy, at best. As I kid I all but destroyed my much loved Megadrive from constant play, but beyond the warm nostalgic 16-bit fuzz I’ve rarely picked up a joypad since. I even had to ask my husband if ‘joypad’ was still a legitimate gaming term just now, deciding on it over ‘controller’. Having played only a handful of games since; Max Payne, Starfox Adventures, and Bit Trip Runner, a video game per generation give or take I’d defiantly not fit anyone’s idea of a gamer. Which is weird, considering that Tim Weeks’ Savestate is currently one of my favorite furry webcomics. In case the name didn’t give it away, the motley crew of Savestate really, really love their video games! Centering around siblings Nicole and Kade regularly joined by their friend Rick ,Elder god Harvey and the demonic entity, Ness on their gaming misadventures. Weeks’ artwork really shines when he draws his characters in the game worlds themselves, showing off well known favorites like Mario Kart in his own charming and polished style, even incorporating animation, such as his crossover with gaming webcomic, Gamercat.

Last year saw another major milestone for Savestate when it was nominated for the comic strip category of the Ursa Major Awards, which are voted upon yearly and intended to award and highlight “excellence in the furry arts”. Although Savestate ultimately came in second it was to Housepets, a comic that has itself been running four times as long and won the category for seven years, consecutively. Moving up from third place the previous year and vastly outstripping much more established furry webcomics, it’s a testament to how well the mix of humor, positivity and gaming culture has built up such a strong and loyal fan base in it’s first two years.

The very first strip found Kade porting over the now infamous glitch Pokemon, ‘MissingNo’ (the easiest glitch to catch, an integral part of Pokemon lore although still considered by Nintendo as simply “a programming quirk”) proving from day one how deeply passionate Weeks is about gaming culture and how central it is to his comic. This last months strips have seen Savestate returning to it’s roots somewhat with the rewed interest in the now 20 year old franchise that came the release of Pokemon GO has started, rekindling the franchise once more. As you’d expect Kade, the consummate gamer lives up to every online scare story by getting himself into places he shouldn’t in order to catch them all!

Again, the highest praise I can personally give Savestate is that even as someone who isn’t a gamer, at all, it still has me engrossed and eagerly awaiting a new strip every Wednesday. Playfully incorporating pop culture and gaming staples in new ways, the comic exudes Week’s passion for video games and why it has quickly become and furry favorite.

  Okay, so some basics first, what is your favorite game and console?

Game: Ocarina of Time. It was the smoothest transition from 2D to 3D ever and had a huge “wow” factor in terms of graphics and gameplay. Console: Either the Genesis or SNES, I love 16-bit games. If I had to pick one then SNES, with classics like Star Fox, Final Fantasy III (VI), Chrono Trigger it edges out the Genesis.

How did it feel to come 2nd place in the Ursa major awards, especially very close behind a comic that is now in it’s 8th year? Does it help knowing you’ve built a strong fanbase like this in such a short time, what do you think has captured furries and gamers about your comic?

That was crazy! I thought Savestate could avoid last place, but never to come in second on it’s second year. Now I’ve got to work extra hard to keep that second place. I don’t think anyone is going to dethrone Housepets until Rick chooses to decline his nomination. It’s amazing how quickly the Savestate fanbase grew. When I started the site I was getting something like 300 hits every time I posted a comic which seemed like a lot. What’s most impressive, to me, is that before Savestate I had never really posted any of my art online; so all the hype was generated purely by the comic itself.

I think gamers enjoy the comic because Kade embodies a more child-like sense of gaming. Back when it was more about showing your friends your Pokemon rather than trying to beat them in a battle.I think furries are drawn to the comic because of the art style. I tend to draw things in equal parts cute and cool. I also hope people are enjoying that the comic is PG (or maybe PG-13 when Harvey gets angry). There’s just so much adult material in the furry universe that it starts to drown everything else out. People seem to forget that the furry fandom really started with children’s characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.

Is there any direct analogue of yourself in the comic in terms of characters, if not who do you think you identify with more?

Kade and Nicole are a split of my personality. Nicole was based on our family dog, Mandy. Any personalities I shared with Mandy went to Nicole and what was left over went to Kade. If you combine the two you basically get my messed up brain

.What drew you to using anthropomorphic characters in Savestate?

I’ve loved anthro since Rescue Rangers! Games like Sonic and TV shows like Swat Kats further embedded that fandom. I actually wasn’t even aware “furry” was a thing until I randomly found Havok, Inc in my local comic shop. Even then I thought Chester was a girl for the longest time. :3

A lot of comics like yours heavily reference video games to the point of the characters being shown in the game.Visually are there any game genres of games you wouldn’t include in Savestate or would be too difficult to accomplish?
I won’t do anything adult, so AO rated games are out.  If I ever used something violent like Gears of War 4 I’d just limit myself to blood and leave the gore out.  I suppose the only other thing I wouldn’t do is a game with extremely simple stylized graphics, like Limbo.
What are your favorite game elements or characters to draw?
Sonic.  I could never count how many times I’ve drawn Sonic.I also like drawing the Savestate characters in different game character outfits.  It’s fun to try and modify clothes to fit a furry build.
 How did including animated elements in certain strips come about? Was it something you were familiar with before or learning as you went?
Animation has always interested me.  Mostly traditional animation or the old hand drawn 2D sprites.  I love doing facial expressions and animation let’s you really play with that. I’ve dabbled with various forms of animation over the years, but the idea to put in a web comic came from GaMERCaT.  That’s why I had to make sure the guest appearance with Gamercat was animated.
What was your experience like working on the recent Starfox strips for Nintendo Force?
Nintendo Force is the spiritual successor of Nintendo Power and that comic was a lot of fun. Since the magazine is done by fans I could really do anything, like mention characters from the canceled SNES Star Fox 2 game. The original plan was to print the comic in the December issue which was going to be Star Fox themed to go along with the release of Star Fox Zero, but Nintendo pushed the game back a few months. Since the magazine is crowd funded we decided to print in the December issue anyway since there was no guarantee it would continue. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and I’m really excited that I got the chance to do it. My favorite part of EGM was reading Hsu and Chan. I really miss that comic.

 

Savestate is updated every Wednesday. Tim also has a gallery of his other work over on his deviant art page and can also be found on twitter.

The artist describes himself like this: “Michael Fleming has 15+ years of practical experience as a professional illustrator, working with both digital and traditional mediums. Specialities are children’s media and character design.” His web site, Tweedlebop, also shows that he has had his art displayed at numerous galleries around North America. Of course he also has a shop where you can check out his available prints and the books for children that he’s illustrated — many of the latter falling in the “early reading” curriculum.

image c. 2016 by Michael Fleming

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We can’t make this stuff up, folks. [We’d be a lot richer if we could!] This is straight from Cartoon Brew: “South Korean animation producer Redrover has teamed up with Canadian performing arts company Monlove to create The Nut Job Live! Monlove, founded by Cirque du Soleil composer Ella Louise Allaire, with Martin Lord Ferguson as partner, also created Ice Age Live!: A Mammoth Adventure, which is now in its third year of touring.The stage direction of The Nut Job Live! is scheduled to be led by Guy Caron, one of the founding members and first artistic director of Cirque du Soleil, and the world tour of the show will be coordinated by Barry Garber of Garber IMC. Nut Jove Live is intended to run for four years in over 100 countries, and will be accompanied by DVD sales, t-shirts, character plushes, and other merchandise sold on-site.” I had not heard of Ice Age Live!: A Mammoth Adventure. Had you?

image c. 2016 Redrover

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Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us a buck or two, we'd greatly appreciate it. www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow periscope video - https://twitter.com/xandertheblue/s.....15796719681541 ALSO, we're not just on SoundCloud, you can also subscribe to this on most podcast services like iTunes! #BFE. #BFE. #BFE. #BFE. Oh, and dragons and cars. And listener questions and stuff. This was a great episode. 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, like a fireside chat. www.youtube.com/user/DraggetShow/videos ep. 129 - #bfe - Reminder: We're on Patreon! If you could kick us …

Hello Everyone!

On tonight's show we open with a discussion about what happens when a sex-positive comic goes, perhaps, a bit sex-negative. We discuss anecdotal reactions to fursuiting sex, Metriko mispronounced Dr. Nuka's IRL name (sorry about that), and we discuss how furries and non-furs view pornographic material within the fandom. Watch that space.

Our main topic is on how to find a mate. Last week we discussed how to be Single and Happy. This week, we address the idea that not everyone wants to be single. We go over what you should do for yourself, various resources that exist for dating within the fandom, and how to keep your head up in the face of rejection.

We close out with a question on whether you should look up a date's social media on the internet before meeting them before the first time. Could this be our first disagreement?

Please note that this episode does have slightly different audio quality due to a cross-country move and setting up new studios. We are working on improvements and ensuring that Metriko's whistling s's don't kill your eardrums in the future, and we appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy the episode nonetheless!

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

Thanks and, as always, Be Well!

FA 030 Finding a Mate - Sex-Negativity Outlets, How to Date Well, Doxing a Date, Audio Quality Woes! All this and more on tonight's episode of Feral Attraction

August 2016’s Book of the Month is Sixes Wild: Echoes, by Tempe O’Kun.

Life’s not all whiskey and revelry for this bunny gunslinger. In a recent tangle, Six had cause to dynamite a lion crime lord in his silver mine. The kitty had the nerve to survive and vanish with one of the guns tied to her dead father’s spirit. A sensible hare would go to ground, lying low while she tracked down the varmint. And that’s just what she’d do, had she not stumbled into love with the local fruit bat sheriff. Love’s all well and good, but courting a gentleman when you’re no proper lady is a challenge Six never thought she would have to tackle.

All told, Frontier life is enough to trounce anybody. But then, Six Shooter has never been just any bunny.

Echoes is the sequel to Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny, which won a Cóyotl Award for best novel in 2011. It’s available in print from FurPlanet and Kindle ebook from Amazon. (It should be available as a DRM-free ebook from Bad Dog Books soon.)

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

Fred writes: three or four reviews of furry books that I wrote in 2003 or 2004 have vanished from the Internet.  I wrote them for the first version of Watts Martin’s Claw & Quill site, which he has apparently taken down. Here they are back online.

It’s More Fun When You’re Not Allowed: Namir Deiter, Year One, by Isabel Marks. Fredericksburg, VA, Fuzzy Kitten Comics/Studio Ironcat, September 2004, trade paperback $11.95 (128 pages,.

This tidy little package presents the first year’s worth of Isabel Marks’ online Namir Deiter comic strip (November 28, 1999 through January 5, 2001), plus a lot of bonus goodies: biographies of 21 main and minor characters, an original ten-page story, a Fantasy Gallery showing the main gang in s-f and fantasy settings, a foreword by Bill Holbrook, and more. Almost as good as the strips themselves are Marks’ notes on practically each one describing the conditions under which it was written and/or drawn.

Basic advice for writers is “Write what you know about.” Marks appears to have done this to excellent effect. As she explains in her notes, she was a high school senior with some spare time in computer class. She had recently discovered on-line comics and wanted to try one of her own.   What about? High school dating! The first strip introduces four high school gals and a guy. The guy, Devlin, is just present to start the action (he asks Tipper out on her first date). The main cast is the girls: sisters Snickers and Tipper Namir, Blue Deiter, and Joy Satu. Snickers and Joy are relatively demure; Tipper, the youngest, is tomboyish; and Blue, who was neglected as a child and raised herself by watching TV, is self-centered and apparently attention-seeking. As Namir Deiter advances during its first year, Marks points out in her marginal asides the ways in which it begins to evolve. The art style shows her experiments with different computer drawing tools and techniques. The story starts with individual gag strips, and gains depth as her characters develop individual personalities and become involved in more serious human-interest situations.

It is this latter that has made Namir Deiter so popular. Marks has a very attractive art style, but it is the ongoing life situations of Snickers, Tipper, Joy, Blue, and their expanding circle of acquaintances that make readers want to follow the strip regularly. This first-year collection is frankly very rough and erratic compared to the current strip, now in its fifth year. The girls, who were high-schoolers during this first year, are now in college; Snickers is married. Hopefully Marks will not wait a year between collections to bring the strip in book form up to the present.

Since Namir Deiter is a high school/college human interest strip, the anthropomorphic nature of the cast is largely window dressing. Marks enjoys drawing cute furry characters, and the girls are mostly cats except for Joy who is a rabbit. Devlin is a raccoon, and other characters introduced after this volume will include dogs and pandas. The really jarring exception is Bob the slug, who was drawn as a slug because he was supposed to be just a one-shot exaggerated comedy-relief foil. Marks had no idea Bob would keep appearing until he was a popular member of the main cast. There are occasional story-acknowledgements of the characters’ animal natures; Tipper does a cat-food commercial, and Joy’s pink fur turns white in the Winter.

Fans of Namir Deiter have probably already read these strips on-line, but Marks’ “behind the scenes” notes add an extra dimension to them. And a paperback collection is always handier than having to turn on your computer and click on the strips one by one. The major drawback is that all of the strip reprints are in black-&-white; only the new material is in full color. But considering how much a full-color book would have cost, this is understandable.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on My Comic Shop

We're alive! And what a few weeks it's been. We have good reasons for our absence though.. Hope you're ready for Pokemon talk, Pokemon Go grumping, and more. We learn about Lone Star Noir, Shiva's plague, plans for the near term, and get a LOT of emails. Also lots of Savrin abuse this weekend. Poor fennecs. Want to support the show? We have a Patreon! www.patreon.com/knotcast Episode 323 - King Of The Dickies

Dave Hulteen Jr. and Jerome Green got together and formed Hulgreen Productions with the intention of making some seriously silly entertainment using puppetry, animation, and video effects. Their first creation was The Bang and Bump Show, featuring “two little monsters in a big studio”. According to their web site, “Finding two store bought and generic monster puppets, Dave and Jerome created a simple buddy style duet video naming the puppets ‘Bang’ and ‘Bump’. They were named after the respective sounds monsters make in the night. The video caused enough attention for the two to make a regular series.” They’ve since gone on to create many other humorous videos and animated shorts.

image c. 2016 Hulgreen Productions

Dear Papabear,

I have a bit of an unusual problem and I really don’t know what to do. I’m in a long distance relationship with another fur for three years (living in two different countries), we’re both trans women and despite having different schedules we both made an effort to talk to one another regularly through good times and bad. Though recently she has been responding less and less and becoming seriously depressed to the point that all she does is work (14 hours a day), make lunch, sleep and nothing else. She has no appetite and rarely drinks fluids. Nothing gives her joy anymore.

​We’ve talked about getting help but meds are expensive and therapy even more expensive. Last time we talked she was worried about her friends, one tried to commit suicide and was in the hospital. He might lose his job and can’t afford to pay the bills. Another lost his mother and another yet lost his apartment. She is usually a very helpful person but she feels she can’t even help herself let alone her friends. I’m legitimately worried about her to the point of tears. I feel so useless not being able to help her when she needs it the most, I just don’t know what to do. I know it’s not an easy problem but any advice you could give would be helpful, thank you. 

Concerned in Canada

* * *

Dear Concerned,

You don't explain why she might be depressed, so I can only respond in general terms. First of all, yes, she does need to get some professional help. Does she have insurance? You say she works, so she may have insurance through her company. As you know, the Affordable Care Act requires you to have insurance (you're in Canada, and I'm guessing she's in the USA? Actually, if she's in Europe she is even better off). Recently, a U.S. law was passed that said insurance companies need to include 3 free consultations with a psychologist; some provide more, depending on the policy. Anti-depressants, of course, must be prescribed by a doctor or psychiatrist and should also be covered by insurance. So, saying "medication costs too much" really should not be an issue (Lexapro cost me $20 for a month's supply, and my insurance is pretty lousy). Furthermore, a little Internet research should lead you to free group or even one-on-one counseling for depression.

Your friend needs to think of her own well-being first before trying to help others. You might have noticed, for example, that Papabear has been posting less often of late. This is because I am still grieving after losing Jim last year. On good days, I will write the column, but on bad days I focus on myself and feeling better.

Therefore, my advice to her is that, while it is nice of her to be concerned about her friends, she is not in a position right now to help them (other than being a shoulder to cry on, perhaps, on occasion). She needs to try and help herself first.

The same goes for you. Stop worrying about all those other people. Are you doing okay? If so, good, and do your best to help your girlfriend. Do some research on getting her help that is at no- or low-cost. Believe me, it's out there. Be there for her, she needs you.

If I knew more about what was going on with her, I'd try to give more details, but that's as much as I can do right now. Write again if you wish to.

Good Luck,
​Papabear

Submitted by Fred Patten

Fred writes: a few reviews of furry books that I wrote in 2003 or 2004 have vanished from the Internet.  I wrote them for the first version of Watts Martin’s Claw & Quill site, which he has apparently taken down. Here they are back online.

Rats, Bats & Vats, by Dave Freer & Eric Flint. Maps by Randy Asplund.
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, September 2000, hardcover $23.00 (388 pages), Kindle $6.99; September 2001, paperback $7.99 (448 pages).

The Rats, the Bats, & the Ugly, by Eric Flint & Dave Freer. Maps by Randy Asplund.
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, September 2004, hardcover $24.00 (391 pages), Kindle $6.99.

I had intended to review just the latter “sequel”. But it is such a close continuation of the former that to read RBU alone is like starting an 800-page novel in the middle. The introductory synopsis is adequate, but it is much more enjoyable to read the whole story.

Harmony and Reason is a colony planet founded on utopian ideals, which has evolved into a split between an elite upper class of founding Shareholders and an oppressed labor class of cloned “Vats”. Unknown aliens, the sea-urchinlike Korozhet, come to HAR to warn that it is about to be conquered by still other aliens, the brutal insectlike Magh’ empire. But the friendly Korozhet will share their superior technology with the humans to help them defend themselves. Among this technology are soft-cyber implants (brain chips) to increase the intelligence of animals. The two species of animal soldiers that HAR bioengineers are bats, for flying explosive devices into Magh’ camps, and “rats” (actually a bioengineered cross between rats and elephant shrews) which make fanatically vicious commandos.

It does not take long for the front-line troops to realize that the Korozhet are not the benevolent saviors they claim to be. They have engineered the Magh’ invasion to whittle down HAR’s defenses so they can safely conquer it for themselves. The creation of the bats and rats is to develop new cyber-controlled slave species. But by then, the Korozhet have gained psychological control over the incompetent Military High Command. To complicate matters, neither the Korozhet nor most humans realize that the bats and rats are more than just computer-guided cannon fodder. They are truly intelligent and are each planning their own revolt.

This may sound dramatic, but the two-volume novel is mostly a military-political s-f comedy. Much action revolves around the evasions that the front-line troops use to get around the stupidly suicidal orders from the pompous High Command so they can effectively battle the Magh’.

The main story follows Private Charles “Chip” Connolly, a Vat-bred conscript, and the handful of rat and bat soldiers who get to know each other when they are trapped behind Magh’ lines. Their friendship evolves into a popular front to unite the rats, bats and Vats at the same time that they save all HAR from the Korozhet and the Magh’.

The bats have taken human revolutionaries as their role models:

“Fluttering along behind Connolly, Michaela Bronstein tried to formulate strategy. Revolution! Throwing off the cruel yoke of human oppression! Liberty, equality and belfry! […] Of course, bats, by their very nature, had always chittered and argued about how liberation should be achieved. Eamon Dzhugashvilli was one of the notorious Bat Bund who had advocated straight and bloody murder, blowing every non-bat to kingdom come with as much high explosive as they could lay their claws on, and allying batdom with humankind’s foes.” (pg. 24)

The rats are even more anarchistic, and much more individualistic. An increase in intelligence has not changed their interest in not much besides food and sex, except to make them aware of alcohol. A rat community seems at first glance to be little different from a non-stop drunken orgy:

“‘Hello handsome,’ said the rattess who was supporting the ornamental light on the cornice. Unless Fluff’s eyes deceived him, she was wearing what looked like black fishnet stockings. ‘If you hath the money, I hath the time.'” (pg. 238)

Fluff — full name: Don Juan el Magnifico de Gigantico de Immaculata Conception y Major de Todos Saavedra Quixote de la Mancha — is a seven-inch tall galago, a lemurlike primate. He is the only uplift of his kind, a pet manufactured for a Shareholder’s daughter. It amused the Shareholders to give him the personality of a Don Quixote. But Fluff is no fool, and he uses his tiny size and arboreal abilities to aid the Good Guys. If Rats, Bats and Vats had not been published in 2000, almost four years before Shrek 2, Fluff would have looked like a shameless imitation of its Spanish-caballero Puss in Boots.

This two-volume novel, both with amusing covers by Bob Eggleton, is only about 50% anthropomorphic. But that 50%, about how Chip, other humans, and the animals propose to blend “normal” humans, high-strung bats and hedonistic rats into a joint society, is enough to put it onto any anthropomorphic reading list.

Please note that the order of the co-authors’ names is reversed on the second title. They may not be filed together in bookshops and libraries.

– Fred Patten

• Buy Rats, Bats, & Vats on Amazon
• Buy The Rats, The Bats, & The Ugly on Amazon

In a counterpoint to last week’s show, we talk about the ways in which the furry fandom elevates some individuals to celebrity status, and how perception changes with time involved in the fandom.

Metadata and Credits Furry: Popularity in the Fandom

Runtime: 40:04m

Cast: Levi, Path, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 96kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

Furry: Popularity in the Fandom - In a counterpoint to last week's show, we talk about the ways in which the furry fandom elevates some individuals to celebrity status, and how perception changes with time involved in the fandom.

In a counterpoint to last week’s show, we talk about the ways in which the furry fandom elevates some individuals to celebrity status, and how perception changes with time involved in the fandom.

Metadata and Credits Furry: Popularity in the Fandom

Runtime: 40:04m

Cast: Levi, Path, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 96kbps AAC Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0.

Furry: Popularity in the Fandom - In a counterpoint to last week's show, we talk about the ways in which the furry fandom elevates some individuals to celebrity status, and how perception changes with time involved in the fandom.

Tabitha Ladin describes what she does as “fantasy, science fiction, creepy, and nature art”. We couldn’t describe it better. She has a particular affinity for mice — winged mice (especially that!), robot mice, zombie mice… but gryphons, dragons, and other fantastic animals work their way into her paintings as well. And of course, many of them are available as prints at her web site also. She’s another artist you’re likely to see displaying at fannish conventions as well, in the dealer room or at the art show.

image c. 2016 by Tabitha Ladin

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Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.  Fred writes: three or four reviews of furry books that I wrote in 2003 or 2004 have vanished from the Internet.  I wrote them for the first version of Watts Martin’s Claw & Quill site, which he has apparently taken down. Here they are back online.

Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales, by Gregory Maguire. Illustrated by Chris L. Demarest.
NYC, HarperCollinsPublishers, August 2004, hardcover $15.99 (197 pages, Kindle $7.99.

Some people can’t hear Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” without thinking of the Lone Ranger. I couldn’t read Leaping Beauty without imagining it being read aloud by Edward Everett Horton as the Narrator of the “Fractured Fairy Tales” on Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends/The Bullwinkle Show. Leaping Beauty is categorized as an Ages 8 – 12 children’s book. Sure, and Jay Ward’s TV cartoons were for kids, too.

Leaping Beauty is exactly in the style of “Fractured Fairy Tales” except that the eight stories all feature animal casts. Some are in traditional fairy-tale settings, such as “Leaping Beauty” which takes place in a swamp kingdom with a bullfrog king & queen. At their polliwog princess’ christening, a bumblebee good fairy blesses her with a loud voice. “She will have a beautiful voice for all to hear and enjoy. Her ribbit will be as loud as a foghorn.” Old Dame Hornet, the nasty fairy they forgot to invite, wishes she will die as an exploding frog, but the last good fairy who has not used his wish yet tries to save her. So the polliwog grows up to become a weeping, sleeping, leaping beauty who hops over to demand Dame Hornet lift the curse. “The sound came right up to Old Dame Hornet’s doorway and went away again, like an ambulance driving by, and driving right back. Like an ambulance going up and down the street, hour after hour.”

Some are in modernized settings, such as “Rumplesnakeskin”:

“Down by the old mill stream, there stood a mill. In the mill there worked a miller. He was a sheep named Bubba.

Now Bubba had a beautiful daughter named Norma Jean. Her fleece was as yellow as a field of dandelions. Furthermore it was naturally curly. When she went for a drink in the millpond, she tossed her flaxen locks and admired herself in a mirror. ‘How like a movie star I am!’ she said. ‘If only I could be discovered!'” (pg. 175)

She changes her name to Beauty and is discovered by a stag king who is a wannabe horror movie director and promises to star her in it. But he is really more interested in her spinning gold to finance it:

“The king stag chattered all the way to the studio about camera angles and foreign rights and how genius usually ends up on the cutting-room floor. ‘You’ll be a big star one day,’ he said to Beauty. ‘You’ve got the looks. You’ve got the curves. I’ve got a serious case of the nerves. Spin me some gold, sweetheart. All the world will thank you for it.’

And off he went, locking the door behind him.” (pg. 178)

Some stories involve gender reversals. “Little Red Robin Hood” is a boy, not a girl. A boy with an overactive imagination:

“Little Red Robin Hood pretended he was a superhero with special superpowers. Sometimes he wore a little red cape with a red hood. It was his superhero costume. It made a nice fluttering noise when he flew, like the sound of baseball cards slapping against a rotating bicycle wheel.” (pg. 107)

When he is sent to bring a basket of goodies to Grandma Robin “in a retirement village for old birds on the other side of the forest,” he is alert for the opportunity to confront any supervillains he may meet on the way.

The stories embrace all animals and locales. “So What and the Seven Giraffes” is an African tale about a chimpanzee prince of baboon parents, a gorilla evil stepmother, and seven female giraffes who are bespangled performers in the local circus. “The Three Little Penguins and the Big Bad Walrus” takes place at the South Pole. Or maybe the North Pole (does it matter?):

“Once there were three little penguins who lived in an igloo with their mother.

“The oldest penguin liked to eat fish.

The middle penguin liked to eat fish.

The youngest penguin liked to get dressed up in a ballet costume and put on a show. This was not usual for penguins, and it worried old Mama Penguin a lot.” (pg. 129)

The remaining three tales are “Goldiefox and the Three Chickens”, “Hamster and Gerbil”, and “Cinder-Elephant”. Betcha can’t read these without imagining them narrated by Ed Horton, and drawn in the Jay Ward art-style (which is pretty close to the illustrations in this book anyway). If you remember the “Fractured Fairy Tales” from 1960s TV and later video releases (they just came out on DVD), that should be all the recommendation you need for Leaping Beauty, and Other Animal Fairy Tales.

– Fred Patten

• Buy online

Frank Forte is a professional storyboard artist who has worked on projects as diverse as Bob’s Burgers and Despicable Me 2. In his spare time he paints largely-monochrome works that are often very funny-animal oriented… and very, very strange. He offers many of them up as prints through his company, Asylum Press. Visit his web site (if you’re an adult!) and see what we mean. You might also see his works at local art galleries or fannish conventions. It travels a lot!

image c. 2016 by Franke Forte

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Two Old Furry Fans, Episode #3b: In which Mark gets his “skiltaire” put in a role-playing game, and helps to start anime fandom in America, while Rodney gets started down the path to Furry Fandom thanks to two Disney mice. Meanwhile, rabbits go to war, and Ralph Bakshi actually makes a good movie.

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TOFF Episode 3b

New members

Welcome to our newest members: Kris Carver, Jay “Shirou” Coughlan, TJ Minde, and Mog Moogle! If you’re not a member of the Guild and you’d like more information about joining, read our membership guidelines.

Member news

Sean Rivercritic has started a new publishing imprint, Goal Publications. (Also see Market News, below.)

The novel From Winter’s Ashes, co-written by member Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort (with Keith Aksland), is available on Amazon as an ebook.

Editor Fred Patten was interviewed on the Furry Times blog.

Madison Keller’s steampunk short “Poppy and the Great Expo,” originally in the 2016 Furlandia program book, is now available as an ebook. In addition, her novella Snow Flower is now available as an audiobook.

Member (and past president) Renee Carter Hall launched a bimonthly newletter.

Kris Schnee’s novel The Digital Coyote has been released in ebook and print form.

Mary E. Lowd sold two stories in July, one to Daily Science Fiction and one to Analog (which she notes is a furry story, “about a dragon/lizard-like alien”).

Daniel Potter published the second volume in his successful Freelance Familiar series, Marking Territory.

New markets

• Seven Deadly Sins: Furry Confessionals, themed around Dante’s seven deadly sins. Publisher: Thurston Howl Publications. Length: 2,500–8,000 words. Payment: contributor’s copy. Deadline: December 1, 2016. Submission call.
• Species is a projected anthology series in which each volume presents three sections—folktales and myths, reprints, and original stories. The first volume is Wolves. Publisher: Thurston Howl Publications. Length: 2,500–8,000 words. Rating: PG-13. Payment: contributor’s copy. Deadline: January 1, 2017. Submission call.
• Heat #14, annual anthology “in which sex or romance play an important role in the overall plot but are not the sole purpose for the story’s existence.” Editors: Dark End and Teagan Gavet. Publisher: Sofawolf Press. Length: 4,000–8,000 words. Payment: 1¢/word. Deadline: September 19, 2016. Submission call.
• While Goal Publications has wound down their eponymous magazine, they are now looking for “full-length works,” novels and novellas. Submission guidelines.
• The Symbol of a Nation, anthology themed around “furries that are the national animals of country.” (The guidelines get somewhat complex.) Editor: Fred Patten. Publisher: Goal Publications. Payment: 1¢/word. Deadline: December 1, 2016. Submission call.

For ongoing markets previously covered but still open (and occasionally, open in the future), visit the FWG web site:

• Paying short story markets
• Non-paying short story markets
• Novel/novella markets

Remember to keep an eye on the Calls for Submissions thread on the forum, as well as other posts on the Publishing and Marketing forum.

Odds and ends

Member Malcolm F. Cross appeared in a brief profile on seminal science fiction blog File 770.

The World Fantasy Convention programming this year offers an “animal fantasy” panel which refers to Watership Down and The Book of the Dun Cow as being “in recent years.” We have a lot of work to do, people. (With some pressure, they added Kij Johnson’s The Fox Woman, so they’ve at least hit 1999. Progress! That also nearly doubles the number of women authors their programming refers to.)

The Tuesday Coffeehouse Chats have been successfully transplanted from the FWG forum shoutbox to the now-official FWG Slack. If you have no idea what any of this means, you haven’t visited the forum in a while, have you? Go visit it. There’s cool stuff there.

The FWG Goodreads group needs more love. Go add things to our members’ bookshelf (see the instructions here on how to do that). Start conversations. Put subversive happy faces with cat ears in your reviews of non-furry books. (No, don’t do that.)

The FWG blog also needs more love. If you would like to love it, consider writing a guest post. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a terrific month! Send news, suggestions, feedback, and steampunk bats to furwritersguild@gmail.com, or leave a comment below.

From Cornbread’s photo gallery

Sports fans are notoriously devoted.  Fursuits are incredibly photogenic.  Mascots and fursuiting make a powerful crossover when they meet.

It happens at games when fursuiting fans get noticed for national TV.  Sometimes a furry gets to be a mascot with the sweet moves and personalities that seem to spring naturally from our cons.  There are even official, high-profile team characters commissioned from fursuit makers.

That’s all covered in the article series continued in the recent Q&A with Uncle Kage and Kodi of Midwest Furfest.  It started with 1) The beginning of mascots and fursuiting, 2) Fursuiting crossover with pro sports, and 3) The National Mascot Hall of Fame.

Cornbread Wolf brings the voice of a true furry fan to this story.  This isn’t about ordinary furmeets, or a safe way to support teams like everyone else.  He stands out in the crowd in a super powerful way by following two passions to the same place.  It’s a great example of my favorite thing, Street Fursuiting.  Find him on Furaffinity, Facebook, and Twitter.

From Cornbread’s photo gallery

Cornbread explains how it started:  

“I’ll be honest – I was initially inspired by someone else to start suiting at the college games. It was Fall of 2012. I was pretty new to the fandom and didn’t know very many people in the area or even the state. At the time I was a sophomore at GA Tech, and had just commissioned a partial from Syber.

One Saturday I started watching the University of Georgia game (they’re our rivals). At one point the camera panned over the student section. On the outer edge of the screen, I saw a tiny, dog shaped blip of blue and green in all that awful red and black. At that moment I was completely convinced I saw a fursuiter in the uGA student section. However, they never really panned back over that section again. I eventually started to doubt what I had seen. There was no way that there was a fursuiter in that crowd.

So I eventually reached out to /r/furry in search of this mysterious fursuiter. Within 24 hours I got my answer. It was true. His name was Alec. It made me feel this sense of awe. There was a fursuiter? At uGA of all places? I was pretty impressed. uGA is not nearly as progressive as GT in terms of something like this. So that day I told myself I would start suiting at GT games as soon as I could. I was not going to allow furry to be represented front and center at a school in bumble fuck Athens and not in the heart of Atlanta, known for being much more progressive. (Excuse my french!)

That is basically my motivation for why I started suiting at the games. I wanted my fandom to be represented on my campus, especially if it was being so openly displayed at uGA.”

From Cornbread’s photo gallery

Like Superman does his thing.

“Running around in suit was quite a fun time. I tend to treat fursuiting the way superman does his thing. I’d throw the suit on in my dorm and try to quickly run out. That way no one knew who this crazy wolf guy was running around during home games.  Being in the middle of a college gameday, while wearing a giant dog suit, is pretty exhilarating. So many children smile and run up to you wanting pictures or high fives. I would even heckle the opposing teams fans, steal their hats playfully, basically anything to stir up friendly banter. It was rewarding to see the children and even the less sober adults laugh and smile as they interacted with me. That’s the part I love the most.

As for getting into the stadium, I never contacted anyone about being able to wear a mask in the stands. The first try was terrifying. I had no idea if they would let me in. However, it worked flawlessly. Plus I wasn’t asked to remove the head so I didn’t even have to break character! Once you get in the gate it’s a mad dash to see who gets to claim the front of the stands. That’s the best seat in the house, right in the front of SWARM (the student section).

I would stay in suit the entire duration of the game. Some of the earlier games in the season were giant fursuit endurance tests, but I had no desire to give up my front a center view of the game. Every now and then I would get on the big screen inside the stadium. I could be seen on ESPN a few times, and I was once featured on ESPN’s weekly “Super Fan’s” gallery.

All in all I loved every moment of it. I am extremely thankful that I saw Alec that day. Without that I know for a fact I never would have pursued this and I owe it all to him.”

Thanks Cornbread!  Have a bunch of hugs for sharing this slice of life, and keep doing what you do. 

Sarah Clemens is an all-around artist (being a medical illustrator pays the bills) who has chosen to focus her talents on creating oil paintings that are almost photo-realistic. Not only of friends, family, and landscapes, but also of numerous fantasy topics. If you visit her web site you’ll find a special fantasy gallery — and it doesn’t take long to notice that she has a special affinity for both cats and dragons… often in the same picture! Her two favorite characters — named Magnus and Loki — even have their own special web site. Ms. Clemens displays at art galleries and convention art shows throughout the US, but of course many of her works are also available as prints on her web site.

image c. 2013 by Sarah Clemens

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