For March, our Book of the Month feature spotlights two books devoted to fantastic felines. The first, Cats and More Cats, is the latest anthology from editor Fred Patten and features authors from the fandom and beyond:

The not-so-humble feline has fascinated mankind for generations. From the noble jungle hunter, to the witch’s familiar, to the stray on the back porch meowing to be let in, cats have snuck into our hearts and dreams for as long as mankind has made homes. They have become our companions, and we tell stories about their secret lives and the strange magic they might possess.

This is a collection of those stories, gathering some of the best fantasy and science fiction stories featuring our feline friends, from authors like Clare Bell, Mary E. Lowd, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Bryan Derksen, Lawrence Watt-Evans, James M. Ward, and Renee Carter Hall. These fourteen stories will give you a glimpse into the world of cats, and leave you wanting more.

Trouble by P. M. Griffin
Bomber and the Bismarck by Clare Bell
… But a Glove by John E. Johnston III
Born Again by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Masters and Students by Bryan Derksen
Trixie by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Destiny by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Three-Inch Trouble by Andre Norton
Defender of the Small by Jody Lynn Nye
The Luck of the Dauntless by James M. Ward
After Tony’s Fall by Jean Rabe
Magtwilla and the Mouse by Mary E. Lowd
A Spoiled Rotten Cat Lives Here by Dusty Rainbolt
The Emerald Mage by Renee Carter Hall
Furry Fandom and Cats by Fred Patten
A Bibliography for Bast by Fred Patten

Parental rating G. Available from FurPlanet.

The second book, The Necromouser and Other Magical Cats, features a variety of cat-themed stories from Mary E. Lowd, including four that appear for the first time in this collection:

An angry cat who discovers the techno-mystical ability to raise mice from the dead…

A starving kitten who discovers a secret hidden in the San Francisco bay…

A witch’s cat, a scientist’s cat, and a cat who recognizes no owner…

In this collection, follow the adventures of the beloved tabby cat Shreddy as he faces off with zombies, ghosts, gryphons, foolhardy dogs, and all sorts of household appliances.

Then meet a series of cats whose stories will take you from heartbreak to joy, showing the magic in our own world through the reflection of a cat’s eyes.

Necromouser contains four all new stories and five Ursa Major nominated stories, including “Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant.”

Contains the following stories by Mary Lowd:

The Necromouser
Shreddy and the Zomb-dogs
Shreddy and the Silver Egg
Shreddy and the Christmas Ghost
Shreddy and the Dancing Dragon
Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant
Songs of Fish and Flowers
Katelynn the Mythic Mouser
The Wharf Cat’s Mermaid
Magtwilla and the Mouse
Cold Tail and the Eyes
All the Cats of the Rainbow
In a Cat’s Eyes

Parental rating G. Available in print from FurPlanet and as an ebook from Bad Dog Books.

(The editor of this blog wishes to call attention to the fact that she did not use a single cat-related pun in this post. You’re welcome.)

Categories: News

The Art of Zootopia, by Jessica Julius – Book Review by Fred Patten

Dogpatch Press - Sat 5 Mar 2016 - 10:00

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

The Art of Zootopia, by Jessica Julius. Preface by John Lasseter. Foreword- Byron Howard, Rich Moore.
San Francisco, CA, Chronicle Books, March 2016, hardcover $40.00 (160 pages), Kindle $16.19.

Here it is! The coffee-table animation-art book that you’ve been waiting for! Note that the blurb says, “This lushly illustrated book offers a behind-the-scenes view of the elaborate artistry involved in creating the film.” The villain is revealed, but if you want the film’s story in detail, get Disney’s Zootopia Junior Noveliation.

The Art of Zootopia presents 160 pages of Zootopia artwork in closeup detail, with commentary by the Disney staff. There are not only finished designs, there are preliminary sketches and models showing early designs that were discarded.

“In an early iteration of the film, prey animals were dominant in Zootopia, so the motifs used in buildings reflected ther reality. We used vegetable patterns, leaf shapes, and flower murals in the architecture. –Dave Goetz, production designer” (p. 21).

“In early versions of the story, this division was overt, with prey animals exploiting their strength in numbers to dominate predators, who were forced to wear collars that prevented accidental expressions of their natural aggression.” (p. 28)

Preliminary designs of Nick Wilde the fox show him wearing such a collar. There are almost a dozen designs of Nick showing him with more or fewer whiskers, dressed or in just fur and in different colors of fur, dressed suavely like a debonair secret agent or casually as he was finalized. Judy Hopps the bunny is shown from tan to gray fur, “bald” or with a prominent cowlick.

“A World Designed by Animals” (pages 15-25) describes what a civilization designed by animals of widely different sizes would look like. Actually, the Disney staff concedes that they built an animal city for land mammals alone. The challenge of trying to make it fit avians and marine mammals like dolphins and whales was too daunting. Zootopia is referred to as both a city and as a world, but they admit that, theoretically, there are avian civilizations “out there somewhere”.

“The Animals of Zootopia” (pages 26 to 41) is actually just Judy and Nick, in detail.

“Zootoopian Habitats” (pages 42 to 149) covers the rest of Zootopia and its suburbs, from rural Bunnyburrow and Judy Hopps’ family to downtown Zootopia with its City Hall and Police Headquarters. The movie’s supporting chacters such as Mayor Lionheart and Police Chief Bogo are here. This section of the book is large because all the divisions of Zootopia are shown: Bunnyborough, Savannah Central, Little Rodentia, Sahara Square, Tundratown, the Rainforest District, and so on.

Matthias Lechner, Digital

I wouldn’t want to accuse this book of containing errors, but Bunnyborough’s Woodlands Elementary School is described on pages 54 and 55. Its animal children are “woodland creatures like bunnies, squirrels, deer, and bears”. Bears may be woodland creatures, but they do not fit with prey animals like bunnies and squirrels. Worse, the book shows that the students include juvenile elephants, tigers, hippopotamuses, and leopard children. ???

“Filming Zootopia” (pages 150 to 158) includes location reference photographs, closeups of different types of animal fur, and colorscripts which are the latest evolution of storyboards.

As with other coffee-table animation art books of this sort, each rough or finished sketch, background painting, poster, architectural layout, vehicle designed to fit a specific animal physique, and so on is identified to its artist: Brett Albert, Manu Arenas, Dale Baer, Marty Baumann, Jim Finn, Mac George, David Goetz, Shiyoon Kim, Matthias Lechner, Cory Loftis, Borja Montoro, Nick Orsi, Armand Serrano, and many others. Almost all of the art is in color, with a few black-&-white sketches or storyboards. There are also many quotes by department heads.

“We couldn’t use leather, so the belt on Hopps’s uniform is made out of Kevlar, with heavy nylon pouches. The rest of her uniform is neoprene so that she will be comfortable in all the types of weather and condition of Zootopia. – Cory Loftis, art director of characters” (p. 32)

“Trains in Zootopia are multi-scaled for animals of different sizes, with the biggest windows up top and smaller windows at bottom, and little seats underneath the larger seats. Since the Bunnyburrough train station is built for small animals, it only serves the bottom part of the train. –Matthias Lechnr, art director of environments” (p. 48)

Cory Loftis, (Draw Over) Digital

“There are multiple animal species in Zootopia, and each species’ fur has its own specific color, lighting, shape and texture. The uniqueness of each animal was a great challenge to us. –Michelle Robinson, character look supervisor” (p. 148)

The overall text is by Jessica Julius, a senior creative executive at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

The Art of Zootopia is for those who are more than casual fans of the film. It is for those who want to know more about how the world of Zootopia was designed; why some choices were made and others rejected. See the movie, then read the book.

(An intriguing detail is that “Zootopia began as all feature films do at Walt Disney Animation Studios: as one of several different ideas pitched by a director to chief creative officer John Lasseter and president Ed Catmull. In the case of Zootopia, director Byron Howard […] pitched six ideas, including […] a 1960s B-movie-style story about a six-foot-tall mad doctor cat on a deserted island who turned children into animals […]” (p. 9) The sample described of “The Island of Doctor Meow” sounds like a cross between The Island of Dr. Moreau and the Pleasure Island sequence in Pinocchio. I’m glad that they ended up making Zootopia, but I’d still like to see “The Island of Doctor Meow”.)

– Fred Patten

Categories: News

Fursuiting! w/ Huscoon and BCBreakaway - What makes for the best fursuit track? In our first episode of the new season, BCBreakaway and Huscoon call in to give their take on crafting a fursuit track and the best way for a fursuiter to get the most out of

WagzTail - Sat 5 Mar 2016 - 03:00

What makes for the best fursuit track? In our first episode of the new season, BCBreakaway and Huscoon call in to give their take on crafting a fursuit track and the best way for a fursuiter to get the most out of a convention experience.

Metadata and Credits Fursuiting!

Runtime: 37:28m

Cast: Wolfin, Levi, Huscoon, BCBreakaway

Editor: Wolfin

Fursuiting! w/ Huscoon and BCBreakaway - What makes for the best fursuit track? In our first episode of the new season, BCBreakaway and Huscoon call in to give their take on crafting a fursuit track and the best way for a fursuiter to get the most out of a convention experience.

Categories: Podcasts

When Logos Come To Life

In-Fur-Nation - Sat 5 Mar 2016 - 02:36

Here’s what they say: “For five years, readers have looked at the Action Lab Entertainment logo and wondered, “Who is that dog with the jet pack?” Wonder no more! The story you never thought would be told is now an ongoing monthly title as Action Lab: Dog of Wonder comes to comic book shelves everywhere! With art by the Princeless: Raven, The Pirate Princess team of Rosy Higgins and Ted Brandt and a story by Stray co-creator Vito Delsante and newcomer Scott Fogg, this is the title for young and old alike!” We see the pitch now: “It’s a dog! With a jet pack!” See the variant covers and several sample pages over at First Comics News.

image c. 2016 Action Lab

Categories: News

FA 008 Owning Your Sh*t - How do you take ownership of your emotional baggage

Feral Attraction - Fri 4 Mar 2016 - 19:00

Hello Everyone!

Tonight we talk about you again. If episode seven is about loving yourself, this episode is about accepting the darker, less fun parts of yourself and how to ensure you are not self-sabotaging your relationship. It's about accepting yourself-- faults and all-- and moving forward in life. It's a tricky subject, but we'll get through it together!

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 008 Owning Your Sh*t - How do you take ownership of your emotional baggage

Categories: Podcasts

Secrets of Bearhaven, Book One, by K. E. Rocha – book review by Fred Patten.

Dogpatch Press - Fri 4 Mar 2016 - 10:11

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

Secrets of Bearhaven, Book One, by K. E. Rocha. Illustrated by Ross Dearsley.
NYC, Scholastic Press, January 2016, hardcover $14.99 (242 [+4] pages), Kindle $9.24.

Here is the first novel in another talking-animal series for 8-to-12s. 11-year-old Spencer Plain has grown up immersed in bears. His parents, Shane and Jane Plain (well, some parents do give their children goofy names), are bear activists; wildlife specialists devoted to bears and founders of Paws for Peace. They know all about bears and have taught Spencer all about them. They give presentations on bears to the public. But Spencer has never lived with bears – not in nature, or in a secret bear civilization in the forest; a high-tech society where the bears have communicators around their necks that translate their growls into English. He has never imagined working with bears to rescue his parents from human villains.

The book begins at a breakneck pace:

“Roooaaaaaarrr!

Spencer Plain raced through the forest, his heart pounding. He dodged trees and skidded across patches of slick moss, trying desperately not to fall. Now was not the time to fall.

There was a bear behind him.” (p. 1)

Or this:

“‘What’s going on, Uncle Mark?’ Spencer said, his voice coming out too high and a little shaky. ‘I talked to Mom and Dad this morning, and they were fine.’ It was one o’clock now. How could so much have changed in only seven hours?

‘Same here,’ said Uncle Mark, slowing the car to idle at a red light. ‘But then I got a message from your mom around eleven, and I haven’t been able to get in touch since.’

‘What kind of message?’ Spencer asked. He looked out the window, trying to get his bearings, but they were stopped at an intersection in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the middle of a long stretch of brownstones. None of them offered any clues.

‘Your parents made an important plan a long time ago, Spence. Your mom’s message today was that I should put that plan in motion …’ The light turned green and Uncle Mark shifted into gear, quickly pulling ahead of a garbage truck. ‘So here we are. In motion.’

‘What important plan?’

‘I’m taking you to a safe place,’ Uncle Mark answered.” (pgs. 10-12)

I don’t want to just quote lots of the suspenseful scenes that happen when Uncle Mark tells Spencer to run and keep running without explaining why, but there are over a dozen pages of them. Then there’s Bearhaven, the bears’ secret community filled with super-technology. The translator, glowing green around the bears’ necks, is a BEAR-COM – a Battery-Enabled Animal Reinterpreting and Communication device. (Didn’t we see something very like this with dogs in Pixar’s 2009 animated feature Up?) There’s a hologram looking like empty air masking the entrance to the bears’ home. They travel by TUBE – Transcontinental Underground Bear Expressway. They have human names, like Kate Dora Weaver, a cute little black bear cub who decorates her BEAR-COM with pink heart-shaped crystals; and the huge Fred Crossburger who leads other bears in exercise classes.

After describing the marvels of Bearhaven at length – the juvenile bears have their own video games about catching salmon — the plot gets moving once again. Spencer’s parents often went on long trips throughout the world to investigate reports of bear abuse, and to rescue the bears if necessary. Over the years they found allies, learned how to communicate with the bears, and they and the bears built Bearhaven together as a secret home where rescued bears could recuperate. Some of the bears have made permanent homes there, raised families, and created a bear community. The Plains and Bearhaven’s leaders also gradually realized that many of the incidents of bear abuse were connected. At the same time, those behind the network of bear abusers grew aware of the Plains’ organization as a threat to be eliminated. The bear abuser network is better-organized than the Plains’ group realized, and they made the mistake of underestimating them.

“Mr. Bee [a bear] cleared his throat. ‘To explain,’ he began formally, straightening the blue-and-silver-striped tie around his neck. Definitely a principal. ‘At the top of this ‘network of bear abuse,’ someone is implanting bears with microchips. Once implanted, the bears can be controlled physically, and, we suspect, mentally. Shane and Jane – pardon me, your parents – have made progress toward uncovering exactly who is behind the microchiping. At the time of your father’s capture, they were working to understand the motivation and technology behind the control.’” (p. 93)

When Bearhaven’s Bear Council (including Uncle Mark) won’t let Spencer join their current bear rescue mission (which may also lead to his captured father) because he’s too young and untrained, Kate offers to train him in Bear Stealth and other bear tactics. Spencer’s perseverance gets him onto the mission; an operative, just like a secret agent. They’re supposed to rescue a captured bear from a small Southern carnival that is using her in a bear baying show. But:

“‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Mark. Something’s off. And I mean more off than a bear baying. There’s more there than we realized, I’m sure of it.’” (p. 169)

Spencer’s first specific antagonists are cruel Margo Lalicki and her brutish brother Ivan, but they’re only low-level members of the network. Spencer is instrumental in beating them and making the rescue mission a success; with his next mission coming in Book Two.

This Book One is good light entertainment for older kids and undemanding furry fans. Kristin Rocha uses loaded language, as in this description of a large screen monitor showing Margo Lalicki:

“Goose bumps rose on his [Spencer’s] arms, and the back of his neck prickled. Who is she? Her expression was stony, her muddy brown eyes cold and ringed in dark circles, making her look hollowed out. Her hair hung straggly and thin around her bony face, blond, but greenish, too, as if her own hair was nauseated from having to be attached to such a creepy-looking person.” (pgs. 88-89)

This book is loaded with full-page illustrations by Ross Dearsley in black-&-white that are in full color in Scholastic Press’ 30-second promotional “movie”. There is “bear information”, some real such as the collective term for bears, a sleuth of bears, and the name for a mother bear, a sow bear; and some fictional, like Ragayo, the bears’ language. The book looks shoddy, though, with cheap binding and low-grade paper, implying that most sales are expected to be of the Kindle edition. Ross Dearsley’s cover shows Spencer, Kate, and B.D., the leader of Bearhaven’s Bear Guard.

– Fred Patten

Buy on Indie Bound

Categories: News

Species Popularity vs Age: interactive visualization

[adjective][species] - Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 14:00

Click here for our interactive species popularity vs age visualization.

Visualization by Ruxley. Species and age data taken from the 2015 Furry Survey. click through for the interactive version.

Fake Furry News Video 2 of 6 PLAYLIST

Culturally F'd - Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 10:48

Categories: Videos

The Art of The Good Dinosaur – Book Review by Fred Patten.

Dogpatch Press - Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 10:10

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

The Art of The Good Dinosaur. Foreword by John Lasseter. Introduction by Peter Sohn.
San Francisco, CA, Chronicle Books, November 2015, hardcover $40.00 (168 pages), Kindle $23.99.

Have we all seen Pixar Animation Studios’ November 2015 feature The Good Dinosaur? Good.

“All about” coffee-table art books about the making of an animated feature have evolved recently, and I don’t think it’s for the better. Where such as The Art of Puss in Boots or The Art of Mr. Peabody & Sherman used to be “by somebody”, full of background details by some expert, The Art of The Good Dinosaur has only two pages of writing; the very brief foreword by Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter and the movie’s director Peter Sohn. The book is presented to speak for itself. Frankly, compared to all of the earlier coffee-table animated-feature art books, it’s not enough.

It’s especially not enough considering what kind of Computer Graphic feature The Good Dinosaur is. It’s supposedly about dinosaurs in modern times; without saying so, in the modern North American Rocky Mountains. Most of the favorable reviews that the movie has gotten have raved about how realistic Pixar’s computer algorithms have gotten. If we didn’t know any better, we’d swear that the movie looked like animated cartoony characters overlaid on live-action photographed backgrounds, instead of everything being created in-the-computer. But this is a behind-the-scenes art book of what went into the movie: the rough pencil sketches, the lighting studies, the set designs and concept art and storyboards. It may be that these art books have become too technical for the layman.

It’s bad considering what kind of feature The Good Dinosaur is, for another reason: cartoony dinosaurs in the realistic North American West. Let’s throw out the supposed scientific premise from the start. If the dinosaurs hadn’t become extinct 65 million years ago, they would have evolved just as the mammals did. They wouldn’t be 65-million-year-old animals given modern speech and intelligence. They particularly wouldn’t be four-legged, no-hands animals living in a pseudo-human frontier culture. I think that a major reason that The Good Dinosaur is getting such unfavorable reviews is that audiences are unconvinced by the basic premise of the movie — not that dinosaurs never became extinct, but that they haven’t evolved in 65 million years except for gaining human-level intelligence and the ability to talk. Frankly again, the movie’s story could just as well been about a lone human settler family in the U.S. or Canadian Rockies in the early 19th century, with a young human adolescent getting lost in the wilderness and finding/befriending a equally-lost friendly wolf cub during his search for home.

Lighting Study, Sharon Calahan; Layout, Erik Benson

But this is my criticism of what The Art of The Good Dinosaur is not, more than what it is. If you want to see almost 160 pages of behind-the-scenes art, from very rough pencil sketches to detailed full-color lighting studies, here they are. As usual for these coffee-table animation art books, each piece of art is credited to its artist. I was particularly impressed by the Spot maquette sculpt by Greg Dykstra (p. 21), and the color study of the Apatosaur family by Bryn Imagire (pgs. 50-51). If you liked the tough but friendly tyrannosaur cowboys, or the white-trash velociraptor rustlers, they’re all here. And if you liked Arlo Apatosaur and his pet human Spot, here are lots of studies of their artistic evolution.

The Acknowledgements on page 168 seems to give a name to the editor of this book: Denise Ream. My complaints for what the book isn’t aside, she has done a good job.

–Fred Patten

Categories: News

Bird, You Are Goin’ DOWN!

In-Fur-Nation - Thu 3 Mar 2016 - 02:59

Out of nowhere department: Thanks to the folks over at Cartoonbrew we learn that Sony Pictures Animation are hard at work on a direct-to-video sequel to the 2007 surfing penguin epic, Surf’s Up. (Gad, did it really come out that long ago??) Only this time it’s surfing… wrestling… penguins. Got that? “Cody Maverick, hungry for a new challenge, convinces an infamous big wave riding crew known as The Hang 5, voiced by WWE stars John Cena, The Undertaker, Triple H, WWE Diva Paige, and Mr. McMahon, to let him join them on their journey to a mysterious surf spot known as The Trenches, where legend has it, they’ll find the biggest waves in the world.” Okay then. “Abdul Williams (writer of the urban-comedy Lottery Ticket) will script Surf’s Up 2, and story artist Henry Yu will make his directorial debut. Yu’s previous credits include Sym-Bionic Titan and both Hotel Transylvania movies… Animation will be provided by Rainmaker Entertainment, the studio behind the upcoming Ratchet & Clank feature, as well as Sony’s Open Season: Scared Silly.” Check out the Cartoonbrew article for lots of preliminary artwork and an interview with the director. Look for Surf’s Up 2: Wave Mania cresting in the spring of 2017.

image c. 2016 Sony Pictures Animation

Categories: News

Losing My Religion, by Kyell Gold – Book Review by Fred Patten.

Dogpatch Press - Wed 2 Mar 2016 - 10:07

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

Losing My Religion, by Kyell Gold. Illustrated by BlackTeagan.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, September 2015, trade paperback $9.95 (126 pages), Kindle $7.99.

This Red Velvet Cupcake (a novella) released at RainFurrest 2015 is not age-restricted. Oh? It emphasizes male/male relationships and lots of explicit masturbation, and a close-up of cock-sucking in one of BlackTeagan’s full-page interior illustrations. But as usual with Kyell Gold, the writing is of extreme high-quality. There should be writing this good in the rest of furry literature!

Losing My Religion is a standalone story in Gold’s Forrester U. setting. Jackson Alley, the narrator, is a 25-year-old coyote in an all-male R.E.M. cover band, REMake, on a two-week tour. Jackson (guitar) is bi, Matt (drummer and their manager; wolf) and Lars (singer; arctic fox) are gay lovers, and Zeb (bassist; kit fox who’s just joined the band) is too young and inexperienced to know what his orientation is yet. The living is unrestricted while they’re on tour, and Jackson hopes to hook up for one-night or a couple-of-days stands with a girl, but he’ll settle for a guy if the guy is cute enough. Zeb is, but he hasn’t figured out his orientation yet. Jackson offers big-brotherly advice that he doesn’t intend to lead to any long-term commitments.

The story is developed in 15 short scenes, not continuous until the tour is ending. Night 3: Begin the Begin. Day 5: Talk About the Passion. Day 6: Radio Song. Day 8: Pretty Persuasion. And so on. As Jackson and Zeb chat, they reveal the band’s and their own backgrounds and aspirations to each other.

“Zeb nodded, but without conviction. Well, I could work on making him feel like part of the band. I’d figured anyway that that’d be my job. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what kind of people?’

‘What?’

‘Would come look at us?’

‘Oh.’ I tipped back the rest of the scotch. ‘No idea. Matt knows what he’s doing. I just wanted to get away and play real gigs for a couple weeks. Do something with these paws that doesn’t involve hammers.’ I wiggled my fingers. ‘We toured a couple of times last year, and it’s fun, sort of like a camping trip with the guys, only you get to play music at the same time and pick up lots of girls – and boys if you like that – in bars. We can’t do it that often, though, because we always lose money. Surprisingly, there are not thousands of people dying to see four random guys play the songs of an admittedly awesome band that had maybe three or four legit mainstream hits.’” (p. 5)

Losing My Religion alternates Jackson’s and Zeb’s conversations about music and conversations about sex, except that they get all mixed together. Jackson is married and he reasonably loves his wife, but love and sex are two separate things, and he is bi. He doesn’t expect any more restraint from Jazmyn while he’s gone than he has.

“He [Zeb] tuned his strings. ‘She doesn’t mind you leaving for weeks at a time?’

‘Pretty sure I miss her more than she misses me. I mean, we got married young,’ when she thought she was pregnant, I didn’t tell him, ‘and we’re trying not to lose our youth just because we’re married, you know?’” (p. 10)

Good music (of the rock sort) goes deep into the emotions and gets both sexually aroused. That’s what Jackson is looking for, but he only wants some mutually agreeable single-night encounters. He’s not looking for real love, for something that would replace Jazmyn. But is what he and Jazmyn feel for each other really love rather than friendly lust?

The big-brotherly talk gets pretty explicit.

“He [Zeb] lowered his voice and looked around as though someone from his family might be listening. ‘They [his college friends] showed me porn once … is it better in real life?’

I laughed, still trying to work out in my head how I was going to make my limited budget buy drinks for three girls. ‘Porn is always better. Real life is messy and sloppy and you’re worried about getting the sheets dirty, and you have to go to the bathroom and she ate something that didn’t agree with her, and sometimes your timing’s off. But watching Jaz with Desiree was pretty cool.’ I turned to his ear and said, very softly, ‘And they didn’t mind if I jerked off while watching.’” (p. 14)

Jackson is taken aback when Zeb confesses that he knows so little about the changes that puberty brings because he was raised Mormon. But that’s okay because he moved out of home to explore his sexual orientation. Can or should Jackson explore it with him?

Halfway through the tour Matt gets REMake an extension:

“‘So it turned out that the guy Matt had been talking to on the East Coast had seen a blog review of our second show and left Matt a message to call him tonight. They’d signed the deal: a dozen more clubs up and down the Midwest to the East Coast, starting a week from today. So instead of four more shows and done, we were going to do four more shows and then have to drive all through a night and a day and the next night, and then ten more shows in seven cities.” (p. 23)

Two more weeks sounds great to Jackson for the music, but really frustrating for holding back on his sexual release. Zeb looks better and better. But what really happens is completely unexpected, and has longer-term results for the futures of Jackson, of Zeb, and of REMake.

Losing My Religion is another bravura Gold production. It’s obviously of more interest if you’re a fan of rock music or of the rock bands that play it, but Gold makes this story of REMake and its four players un-put-downable whether you’re interested in the rock scene or not. Gold also integrates enough animal (mostly canid) aspects to make this more than just a funny-animal story. If all the explicit talk about male/male adult sex, and the one illustration by BlackTeagan (Teagan Gavet; she has four others), don’t put you off, this is a must-read.

– Fred Patten

Categories: News

Guild News: March 2016

Furry Writers' Guild - Wed 2 Mar 2016 - 07:11

New Members

Welcome to our newest members Skunkbomb and Jeremiah T. Foxx!

Member News

Congratulations to Lawrence M. Schoen on his Nebula nomination for Best Novel for Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard!

The anthology Cats and More Cats, edited by Fred Patten and featuring stories from members Clare Bell, Mary E. Lowd, and Renee Carter Hall (among other authors), is now available from FurPlanet.

In webserial news, Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort has completed From Winter’s Ashe s, and Frances Pauli continues with her two anthro-themed webserials The Earth Tigers and Much Ado About Bluebottles.

Renee Carter Hall has just launched her new blog Three From Waynesboro, about her experiences as one of the 13-year-old girls who wrote the story that became the Tiny Toon Adventures episode “Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.”

Elsewhere on the Internet, check out this interview with Tristan Black Wolf, a personal essay from Bill Kieffer on Our Queer Stories, and Dronon’s review of The Furry Future.

Congratulations, everyone!

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines: Gods With Fur closes May 1.

New markets: Fur Reality’s conbook is open for submissions on this year’s theme of “Believe,” with “a focus on the paranormal, the mysterious and the weird.” Maximum 3000 words, PG-13 rating, deadline July 18.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Guild News

Ocean Tigrox has been selected as the editor of the next volume of our Tales From the Guild anthology! Watch the forums for more information as the project takes shape.

The Cóyotl Awards are now open for nominations! This year’s awards ceremony will be held at Rocky Mountain Fur Con.

Our cabin for the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo is filling up fast! Come join us — see details here.

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here. (Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!)

Elsewhere on the Internet, we have a Goodreads group with a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that). We also have a Telegram group, and you can find more info on that and a link in this thread.

Remember, we’re always open for guest blog post submissions from FWG members — it’s a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for the details.

Have a happy and creative month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Categories: News

She Sings, She Travels Between Worlds

In-Fur-Nation - Wed 2 Mar 2016 - 02:59

Jonathan St. Amant is the creator of Shelby and the Blooms, a series of black & white mini-comics. Shelby is a lonely young slug, rejected by most of her hard-shelled insectoid peers in school. So what else to do but form a rock band with other misfits, with herself as lead singer of course! Well that’s how things start, anyway. Not long after Shelby discovers that he has the power to travel into a magical parallel world, filled with wizards both good and evil. And strange creatures, like a friendly little thing that is part unicorn, part narwal, and part water balloon. Yes. You can find out more about all of this at his Jonathan’s new personal web site. It includes a link to his Etsy store where you’ll find his comics.

image c. 2016 by Jon St. Amant

Categories: News

Death, memory and elephants: Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk

Claw & Quill - Tue 1 Mar 2016 - 11:00

Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard
by Lawrence M. Schoen
384 pp., $25.99 hardcover (ebook, $12.99)
Tor Books, December 2015

Furry books have popped up here and there in mainstream fantasy and science fiction. Most often, the furries are aliens (C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur series) or denizens of a fantasy world (Steven Boyett’s The Architect of Sleep, Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series). Occasionally we get uplifted animals (David Brin’s Startide Rising). Rarely do we get to see furries realizing their own society in a science fiction setting.

Enter Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, a new novel by Lawrence M. Schoen, in which Fants—anthropomorphic elephants—inhabit the planet Barsk, the only source of a drug that allows certain gifted individuals, “Speakers,” to speak to the dead. The Fants are generally despised by the rest of the races of the galaxy, all anthropomorphic Earth-based animals with names mostly derived from their Linnean genus name: Nonyx for cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), Cans for dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), and so on. But the drug, koph, is highly desirable for obvious reasons, and when one of the Fants dies after discovering a secret about koph, the Alliance, the governing body of the known universe, sends a mission to Barsk to find out what the secret is.

The story is told mostly through Jorl, a Fant Speaker, and Pizlo, a six-year-old albino Fant. Jorl is one of the few Fants who has been off Barsk, having served as an Ensign in the military branch of the Alliance, and so is one of the few who can speak effectively to the Alliance’s mission. Pizlo is an illegitimate child, and as such is not recognized by society, but he has a peculiar rapport with Barsk’s moons that allows him to see certain aspects of the future.

That’s as far as I’ll go with the plot of the book, which is well constructed and engaging. Schoen dispenses information with excellent timing to build the world as the reader follows Jorl and Pizlo through the book, leaving enough questions unanswered to make the narrative compelling without shrouding too much of it in mystery. The dilemmas facing the protagonists feel real and crucial, and there are seldom easy answers to them.

Where Barsk really shines is in its world-building. The planet itself feels real and lush, as do the societies Schoen has constructed. Furry readers will enjoy the presence of a different mix of species than are found in most furry novels: foxes appear only off-screen (I know, what’s with that?) and wolves, tigers, lions, raccoons, and rabbits are scarce. There’s an otter girl, but the other main characters are the Fants, a bear, a yak, and a sloth. Schoen does a nice job of using the species to enhance the characters in familiar ways, and though furry readers may find he doesn’t spend as much time describing the fur and forms as they’re used to, the anthropomorphic aspect of this book is quite well done.

The other aspect of Schoen’s world-building centers around the powers of prescience and speaking to the dead. The latter is explained through “nefshons,” particles generated by every living being that persist after that being’s death; the former is never scientifically explained. But a large part of the book revolves around certain individuals with the gift of prescience setting down paths for others to follow after them, and the question of whether the future has been set for you or not.

Here is where the book, for me, stumbled a little. The prescients can see things like “it is important to go to this place,” or “it is important to tell this person this thing.” Certain gifted prescients can see more, and on occasion, when more than one prescient is trying to study the same event, they interfere with each other, preventing one from seeing it clearly—but this is only mentioned once, as a way to prevent an antagonist from getting information. There are some very good themes in the book about free will versus carrying out a set future, but at times it feels like some of the characters are moving through a pre-written play, and several movements in the middle of the book are driven by prescient messages telling the characters to go to the right place. To Schoen’s credit, the most critical choice is indeed left up to a main character and is a gripping part of the book, and the characters do often struggle with the prescient messages they receive, and honestly the whole matter didn’t bother me until I was thinking back on it; it didn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the story at all.

Similarly, the tricky topic of speaking with the dead is generally very well handled, from the emotions of the Speakers to the experience of the dead themselves. In Schoen’s world, the dead can interact when called on and can form new memories—a dead person summoned multiple times will remember the previous conversations, though none of the time in between. And Fant society has incorporated this into its thinking in some ways; there is a ritual whereby Fants who feel themselves ready to die journey off to do so in private (as in the legend of the Elephants’ Graveyard). There are a couple places in the book where characters retain a fear of death that seems at odds with a society where the dead are accessible, albeit with a little more work—as if one of your friends traveled to Mars and you could only communicate with them by going to a NASA building and paying a lot of money to use their satellite bridge. But on the whole, this culture is well thought out. And of course, in any fiction where death’s impact is reduced, there must be a fate worse than death, and Schoen does not leave that unexplored.

My major complaint about Barsk is not a story-critical one. Jorl and Pizlo and two or three of the other characters are well-drawn and fully realized, but many of the side characters don’t have much attention paid to them, and the villains are by and large not much more than villainous (“you have something we want and we are going to take it”). The anti-Fant sentiment is similarly one-dimensional: they’re gross and hairless. (This prejudice is explained late in the book, but I still think that even if the underlying bias is physical, people have ways of cloaking that in different concepts.) There are a lot of different ways in which people view the other; not just physical, but societal and cultural as well. It would have been interesting to see a couple of those sprinkled in: Cans thinking about how weird it is that the Fants are solitary, with no pack concept; speciesist myths (“I heard that they run around that backwoods planet naked!”); cultural biases (“they don’t even have proper hygiene,” or “they never look you in the eye when they talk to you”).

Overall, Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard is an imaginative, engaging story, and it’s terrific to see another furry book enter the F & SF mainstream, especially as well done as this one is. It’s a great read, and furry readers can only hope that Schoen isn’t done with the Barsk universe.

Categories: News

First amendment furries, elephant balls, and woot for #Zootopia. NEWSDUMP (3/2/16)

Dogpatch Press - Tue 1 Mar 2016 - 10:30

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. Thanks to DRONON for guest editing help!

Zootopia: IT’S HAPPENING and I hope you’re ready for the peak of The Year of Furry! The article about furries renting their own theaters got 3 times more traffic than any other article ever posted here.

by Spalding

Fursuiting and Freedom of Expression: Anti-mask law challenged by Vermont Furs.

VermontFurs had frustration with getting their events shut down in the City of Burlington. Fursuits were banned for vague, unsubstantiated reasons. Supposedly, it was for protection from “panhandling” offenses.

Now WCAX.com reports a brave effort to change this. The furs have support from the ACLU to challenge the local anti-mask law on First Amendment grounds. Following consultation with the Ordinance committee, the City council sounds like they’re on the way to fixing the law to apply to only crime-related activity. Great work everyone! This is a silly hobby, but sometimes having fun is about upholding freedom.

It’s about identity, not sex – Bringing fursonas to life.

Sarah Dee, fursuit maker at Menagerie Workshop, gets an excellent write-up about her business by The Guardian. There’s a great video! Her story was repeated soon after by The Onion A.V. Club.

New from Culturally F’d – #TonyTigerGate.

When you hear the Official Version, there’s an elephant in the room. Sometimes sex IS a fun, funny furry thing. But it’s for furs to define themselves, not outsiders to mock. It’s about freaky freedom and defying normativity. #TonyTigerGate (a very popular article here) was a subcultural eruption of satirical, bawdy delight. Arguably it’s part of the very roots of Furry. (See Fritz The Cat from the 1960’s if you don’t believe it.)

Who’s the true Tony the Tiger on Twitter – @realtonytiger or @Real_Tony_Tiger? He’s had an evil twin since 2013, way before lame mainstream blogs noticed.

This tiger is getting his drink on! And I don't mean milk! ;3

— Tony The Tiger (@Real_Tony_Tiger) February 11, 2016

Bad Dragon dares Disney to launch litigation.

On the subject of confusing official products with similar-sounding knockoffs… Disney’s Zootopia film includes many neighborhood districts such as Sahara Square, TundraTown, and Savanna Central. Not to be mistaken for (all links NSFW) Neon Savannah. It’s a new line of Bad Dragon toys with suspiciously familiar designs. Seriously, guys? “Disney Lawyer” is it’s own term for a reason. But we already know they have elephant balls.

Furries on campus.

At Purdue University, Luna and other students in the Purdue Anthropomorphic Animal Club are bringing furry fandom back! An earlier attempt in 2009 was abandoned due to bullying, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier. The new club has gotten positive coverage from the local Fox affiliate.

Meanwhile, a furry student at Mississippi State University also got an interview. And the Georgia State Signal has it’s own introduction to fandom and interview with a furry.

More into the mainstream in the SF Bay.

Furries aren’t just being interviewed on campus – the strong San Francisco Bay Area furry community has been covered by The Daily Californian.

Meetings Today covers all kinds of conventions, and it’s our turn.

Let’s tip our hat to author Bob Calhoun, who each month crashes a tradeshow, convention or conference, and tries to find ways to fit in. His most recent experience was attending Further Confusion, even making a video about entering the fursuit parade. On the amount of endurance required to don and perform in a full-body costume, he remarks, “These furries are more than just mascots. They are athletes.”

High profile ESports gamer represents the fandom.

The Daily Dot showcases the talents of people under age 20. It has a spotlight on Sonic Fox, a furry and competitive Mortal Kombat champion.

Furs From Florida to Hungary.

Furries pop up all over the place! We’re part of the annual cosplay at SwampCon in Gainesville, FL, their sci-fi, tabletop, and video gaming convention. We meet up in Hungary and walk around in Budapest:

Anthropomorphic Pop culture news.

Julie Newmar, the original Catwoman from the 1960s Batman TV show, gets interviewed by The Smithsonian, to whom she’s donated her classic costume. (Previously on Dogpatch Press: The original Cowardly Lion costume from The Wizard of Oz was sold for over 3 million dollars.)

An Interview with the creator of Courage the Cowardly Dog

In classic kid’s books, Beatrix Potter’s storybook manuscripts for The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots have been rediscovered. They will be illustrated by Quentin Blake. An “older, slower and portlier” Peter Rabbit will make an appearance.

Looking for something darker and edgier – How about a metal cover of Gagnam Style with a bunny suit? (tip: Troj)

Going Highbrow – The New Yorker looks at different expressions of furryness.

An article by Robin Wright in the New Yorker describes two interesting takes on anthropomorphism. First, an Oxford don who’s written a book about his attempts to live like several animals – specifically, as a badger, an otter, a swift, a fox, and a deer. Second, people who post as animals on Twitter, from zoo employees to Episcopal priests.

Animals with cool jobs.

Meet Piper the airport dog, a border collie who protects the runways at Cherry Capital Airport in Michigan from stray wildlife. He’s even got a YouTube channel! Some videos show him with a cast on his leg (a toe injury from chasing a snowy owl), but he’s all better now.

______________

AMAZING FURRY NEWS COMING SOON – Disney Opens Their Arms To Furries In #7!

______________

Ren Fair Guy With Satyr Costume Inexplicably Shaves His Balls

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 1, 2015

Anarchy In Pittsburgh As Roving Gangs Of Furries Demand High-Fives, Niceness

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 1, 2015

Furry Who Fell Into Icy Party Survives 45 Minutes Without Hugs

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015

Study Reveals Furry Hugs Do Not Spread Kitty AIDS

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015

Public Murrsuiter Criticised For Breaking The Magic By Taking Off Shorts

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015

Dromederriere Is New French Perfume That Smells Like Camel Butt

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 3, 2015

Categories: News

The Cockroaches of Stay More, by Donald Harington – book review by Fred Patten.

Dogpatch Press - Tue 1 Mar 2016 - 10:12

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

The Cockroaches of Stay More, by Donald Harington.
San Diego, CA, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, March 1989, hardcover $19.95 (337 pages).

“One time not too long ago on a beginning of night in the latter part of May, a middle-aged gent was walking homeward along the forest path from Roamin Road to the village of Carlott, behind Holy House in the valley of Stainmoor or Stay More. The six gitalongs that carried him were rickety, and there was a meandering to his gait that gave a whole new meaning to the word Periplaneta. This wanderer gave a smart nod, as if in agreement to a command, though no one had spoken to him yet. His wings were not folded neatly across his back and were neither tidy nor black but flowzy and brownish. Presently he was met by a plump parson whose wings were very black and long and trim like the tails of a coat, and who was humming a hymn, ‘The Old Shiny Pin.’

‘Morsel, Reverend,’ said the flowzy gent, and spat, marking his space.” (pg. 1)

Donald Harington was a prize-winning regional author who built his literary career on writing about the backwoods Ozark area of Arkansas. He specialized in the small rural communities that were never large to start with, and that have dwindled since to ghost towns; one of his best-known books is the non-fiction travelogue Let Us Build a City: Eleven Lost Towns (1986). He set more than ten novels in the fictional village of Stay More, Arkansas, chronicling its rise and decline over a hundred-and-fifty-year period. All except this one have featured Stay More’s human inhabitants. In The Cockroaches of Stay More, it has become a complete ghost town except for two human recluses – and hundreds of cockroaches.

“’Tilt up yore jaws thataway, Squire, and let me look at yore face. Yes, that’s the Ingledew touchers and sniffwhips, I’d bet on ‘em, a little adulterated, ye might say, no harm meant, please sir. Why, you’re descended from ole Squire Jacob Ingledew hisself, the first roosterroach to set gitalong in this valley.’” (pg. 3)

Harington’s dialogue is rich in the dialect and slang of the Ozarks. His cockroaches have adopted the names of the humans who used to live in Stay More. The Ingledews were the social leaders, while the Dingletoons, Whittiers and others were the commoners. In this novel, the Ingledew cockroaches live in “Partheeny”, the Parthenon, the town’s former general store. The Dingletoons and others live in Carlott, a slum of bugs in the weeds and discarded human trash (including a stripped old Ford Fairlane) in the yard beside and behind what the roaches call “Holy House”. This old house where one of the two humans left in Stay More lives is a social halfway house between Carlott and the Parthenon; a popular spot with the roaches for its spilled food and beer, despite the danger of getting shot when the drunkard who lives there notices them:

“The bullets which Man fired to rapture the chosen Crustians always pierced the floor as well, the wall, the ceiling, a door, or a windowpane of the house, which was called Holy House because of all these holes. Each new hole created a new entrance for more roosterroaches, but it was not permissible for any ‘furrin’ roosterroaches to enter Holy House. Each hole also created drafts, and this past winter had been terrible, causing even Man Himself to take to stronger drink than beer. […] Our Man of Holy House, by contrast, bestowed upon the multitudes a great continuous feast of crusts and crumbs, to say nothing of the countless dregs of beer that kept most Holy Housers nearly as intoxicated as Man Himself. Brother Tichborne was old enough to observe that Man’s use of beer, and of the more poisonous bourbon, was increasing.” (pgs. 12-13)

The Cockroaches of Stay More is a bawdy novel; a combination of hillbilly human social customs and insect instincts. Roach dances and similar social events may start off decorously, but they invariably turn into orgies once the irresistible sex pheromones start filling the air. Despite the hellfire and brimstone sermonizing of Brother Chidioch Tichborne, Stay More’s self-appointed and only preacher, when males and females grab their nearest partners the result is likely to be incest. But almost all that any of the bugs are interested in is food and sex:

“The whole world was changed. The night was twelve shades of blue now, and thirteen shades of ultraviolet, and the air was beginning to fill with lightning bugs. Within range of Jack’s sniffwhips and eyes a lady lightning bug was perched upon the end of a blade of grass, testing and fine-tuning her lantern. Jack paid her no mind although his ocelli twitched at each neon flash of her summons. Choral groups of katydids were serenading in four-part harmony; here and there a cricket could be heard warming up his instrument of challenge, and in the distance sounded a background of countless Hylae peeping and piping.”

[…]

“The music of the night had its ominous overtones and also its discordant noises: somewhere nearby a huge nightcrawler worm was laboring noisily uphill with many shiftings of gears, backfirings, and faulty rumblings in its transmission. It was sending out signals: ‘BREAKER ONE OH. DO YOU READ? HOWBOUTCHA, BIG MAMA? UP THIS HUMP HUNTIN FOR BEAVER LOOKIN FOR A NAP TRAP AND GOTTA LOG SOME Z’S.’” (pgs 5-6)

“But instead, as very ill luck would have it, a centipede suddenly appeared, Scutigeria forceps, scooting forcibly up the trail in search of prey. This centipede, or Santa Fe, as they call it in the Ozarks, had only twenty-eight gitalongs, not a hundred, but its fangs were already dripping with the deadly poison that kills roosterroaches in an instant.” (pg. 8)

Brother Tichborne has invented the roach community’s Crustian religion, centered around the two human hermits who have come to the abandoned town. The Man who inhabits Holy House is their main deity. He feeds them, but He also raptures them with His gun whenever He feels like it. The Woman who lives in the Parthenon is a more mysterious figure, because the only cockroaches who share her home are the upper-class Ingledews, who do not invite other roaches in. Brother Tichborne is an aggressive sermonizer who hopes to convert most of the roosterroaches who have colonized the Holy House and will not let the riffraff of Carlott enter to share their bounty. Tichborne’s real goal is to become the social leader of Stay More, and to use his congregation to take over the imagined paradise of the Parthenon.

There are several main characters besides Brother Tichborne: Jack Dingletoon, an amiable drunkard whom Brother Tichborne schemes to use as a pawn to get himself into the Parthenon; Tish Dingletoon, Jack’s innocent daughter who is romantically attracted to both Squire Sam Ingledew and Brother Tichborne’s son Archy; Sam Ingledew, the shy last scion of a prestigious family who is handsome but almost totally deaf; and Doc Swain, the community’s physician, a diehard agnostic. Over the course of the novel the reader will realize who the Man and the Woman really are.

The first half of the novel sets up the roosterroaches’ social community. When the Man, in a drunken frenzy of rapturing the roaches crawling around his spilled food, accidentally shoots himself; and it is learned that the Woman is a health fanatic who kills roaches on sight, there is a crisis of faith that shakes up and revolutionizes Stay More’s roaches. Harington gets overly cute in the last half with too many extreme changes, including the introduction of Hoimon, the Great White Mouse (an albino lab rat with a thick Brooklyn accent); and having the roaches try to communicate with other humans to summon medical help for the Man. But all in all, The Cockroaches of Stay More is an imaginative and clever tale with a unique anthropomorphic viewpoint. You will learn more about how cockroaches have sex than you ever wanted to know.

– Fred Patten

Buy on Amazon

Categories: News