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The Art of The Good Dinosaur – Book Review by Fred Patten.
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.
Bird, You Are Goin’ DOWN!
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
Losing My Religion, by Kyell Gold – Book Review by Fred Patten.
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.
Guild News: March 2016
Welcome to our newest members Skunkbomb and Jeremiah T. Foxx!
Member NewsCongratulations 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 Ashes, 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 NewsUpcoming 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 NewsOcean 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.
She Sings, She Travels Between Worlds
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
Death, memory and elephants: Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk
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.
First amendment furries, elephant balls, and woot for #Zootopia. NEWSDUMP (3/2/16)
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.
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AMAZING FURRY NEWS COMING SOON – Disney Opens Their Arms To Furries In #7!
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Ren Fair Guy With Satyr Costume Inexplicably Shaves His Balls
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 1, 2015Anarchy In Pittsburgh As Roving Gangs Of Furries Demand High-Fives, Niceness
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 1, 2015Furry Who Fell Into Icy Party Survives 45 Minutes Without Hugs
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015Study Reveals Furry Hugs Do Not Spread Kitty AIDS
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015Public Murrsuiter Criticised For Breaking The Magic By Taking Off Shorts
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 2, 2015Dromederriere Is New French Perfume That Smells Like Camel Butt
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) October 3, 2015The Cockroaches of Stay More, by Donald Harington – book review by Fred Patten.
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.
Thank You, Masked… Man?
In case you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy (as in the comics) lately… Last year Peter Quill gave up his duties as Star Lord to become the Emperor of Spartax. Leaving the Guardians in the paws of… none other than fan favorite furry, Rocket Raccoon! So Rocket assembled a team that included not only his old buddy Groot and his new-buddy Drax but also (among others) Kitty Pryde of the X-Men and none other than Ben Grimm, the Thing from Fantastic 4! Just in time too, as dangerous new threats have swung into this part of the galaxy… and some old friends may not be trustworthy. Big shock. Now Marvel Comics has assembled Volume 1 (i.e. issues 1 thru 5) of Guardians of the Galaxy: New Order into a full-color hardcover collection, written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Valerio Schiti. Take a look over at Goodreads.
image c. 2016 Marvel Comics
TigerTails Radio Season 9 Episode 33
Factors influencing the furry experience: A Statistical Analysis
Here at [adjective][species] we are just starting to get to grips with the wealth of data collected in the 2015 Furry Survey. We collected valid responses from more than 11,000 furries last year. This collection, including responses from annual surveys dating back to 2009, represents an unprecedented insight into furry.
We recently shared our entire dataset with Nuka (aka Courtney Plante PhD, aka Dr. Cat), who is one of the scientists behind (and co-founder of) the International Anthropomorphic Research Project. He performed an analysis for us, looking at how different factors affect the furry experience, which is presented below.
This is a little bit different from the way we normally present data here on [a][s] – it’s the difference between professional and amateur analysis. As you can see, the professional statistical analysis is comprehensive but can teeter towards incomprehensibility. Happily, Dr. Cat provides some interpretation rather than merely the dry facts.
(For the stats-savvy, the data were analyzed as a series of linear regressions. It’s worth noting that in a sample of 30,000 people, even the most minuscule effects can be “statistically significant” (e.g., p<.05). For the purpose of this analysis, Dr. Cat instead used interpreted standardized beta weights for their “practical significance”.)
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Based on this sample of 38,387 (collapsed across years of the survey), it seems that younger furries are significantly more likely to be “single” in the fandom. To put it another way, older furries are more likely to be in some kind of relationship.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Based on this sample of 39,193 (collapsed across years of the survey), it seems that age is basically unrelated to “how furry” a furry feels. To put it another way, there are older AND younger furries who are “just barely furry”, and older and younger furries who are “ridiculously furry”.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
These results speak to the ones above; Based on this sample of 38,873 (collapsed across years of the survey), it seems that “how furry” you are also has nothing to do with how long you’ve been in the fandom. Newer furries can be just as “ridiculously furry” as furries who’ve been furry for a long time.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Based on this sample of 27,410 (collapsed across years of the survey), it seems that age has nothing to do with how many furries you know. Older furries seem to know about as many furries, on average, as younger furries do.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
In conjunction with the above findings, based on this sample of 27,938 (collapsed across years of the survey), it also doesn’t seem to matter how long you’ve been a furry. Furries who’ve been around for just a year or two seem to know about as many furries as furries who’ve been in the fandom for a long time (suggesting either that furries make furry friends really quick OR that furries start to lose the furry friends they initially met as they spend more time in the fandom).
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
You’d think that, as you came to know more furries, you’d “come out” more as a furry, or vice-versa. And yet, based on this sample of 39,226 (collapsed across years of the survey), this doesn’t seem to be the case. How “out” you are as a furry is unrelated to how many furries you happen to know.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Knowing more furries doesn’t seem to help furries “come out” as furry, but, based on this sample of 39,362 (collapsed across years of the survey), it does seem to be the case that older furries are “more out” than younger furries are. Whether this is because older people are more secure with who they are, fear social judgment less, or are in a position where they don’t have to fear social judgment, remains to be seen.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Interestingly, while age was somewhat related with “coming out”, the extent to which someone is a furry is HUGELY predictive of how “out” they are, based on this sample of 39,971 (collapsed across years of the survey). Maybe it’s because furries who are REALLY furry find it hard to keep it under wraps, or maybe it’s because being “out” as a furry helps furries to feel “more furry”. Either way, the relationship is particularly strong.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
Based on this sample of 33,452 (collapsed across years of the survey), the extent to which furries see the average “non-furry” as having positive attitudes towards furries predicts how “out” they, themselves are. In other words, how “out” a furry is seems to be based, in part, on how positive they think non-furries around them are. This could be because furries who perceive hostility from the world around them feel they have a reason to keep it to themselves, OR it could be because furries who have “come out” have been pleasantly surprised by the acceptance of others.
… What am I looking at, Dr. Cat?
I created a composite variable of “fandom participation” which includes a variety of activities (participating on furry forums, going to cons, going to meet-ups, etc.). I then pitted three different predictors of fandom participation against one another – age, how many years a person has been a furry, and how furry a person is – to see which most strongly predicts participation. Based on this sample of 37,806 (collapsed across years of the survey), it seems that how many years a person has been a furry has next to no effect on how actively they participate in the fandom. Age, on the other hand, does seem to predict participation, with older furs being more active participants in the fandom. Most strong of all, however, is how furry a person considers themselves to be furry (by a LONG shot).
In other words, the most active furries are also the ones who most strongly identify as furries, not necessarily the ones who’ve been around in the fandom the longest (although older furries are more active; this may owe to the fact that they have more disposable income than younger furries, and are more able to, say, make it to conventions).
Birdsong: A Story in Pictures, by James Sturm – book review by Fred Patten.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Birdsong: A Story in Pictures, by James Sturm. Illustrated.
NYC, TOON Books, April 2016, hardcover $12.95 (60 pages).
This is my first furry book review of a little wordless picture book (9” x 6”) for pre-schoolers. Two thoughtless young children are playing warriors in a forest. The boy attacks a red bird singing in a tree. Wounded, the bird slowly flies up into a mountain, slowly enough that the children can follow it. They climb until the reach a cave inhabited by an angry hermit. The hermit magically transforms their bodies into monkeys. The children are captured and become a circus marvel: “They Read! They Write! Chimps Or Children?” Eventually (the implication is that several months pass) the circus owner gives them their freedom. They build a house in the trees. When they see another red bird, they do not disturb it.
This is a shallow but fine transformation story for beginning readers. Two children are transformed into monkeys (with long tails who live in trees, so they definitely aren’t chimps), and they are never turned back. This story is only 52 pages of art; there is an 8-page epilogue for parents “About Kamishibai”. This story is a modern picture-book version of the 1920s to 1950s kamishibai (paper theater) Japanese storytellers who would go about into neighborhoods, gather the children, and tell them short stories and myths that they would illustrate on a tiny screen. Many of the stories were based on Buddhist folklore, including stories of reincarnation and transformation. This book continues that tradition.
Birdsong: A Story in Pictures may be too simplistic for the adult furry fan, but it is an excellent first book for their children, or for any furry fans having children.
ep 114 - Fur Squared 2016 LIVE!!! - WE'RE BACK!! Great live episode, and a special a…
WE'RE BACK!! Great live episode, and a special announcement at the end! ep 114 - Fur Squared 2016 LIVE!!! - WE'RE BACK!! Great live episode, and a special a…
ep. 114 - Fur Squared 2016 LIVE!!! - Great episode!!! Plus, a special announcement at the end! I honestly don't know if this will ...
ep. 114 - Fur Squared 2016 LIVE!!! - Great episode!!! Plus, a special announcement at the end! I honestly don't know if this will ...
Episode -47 - And thus they were whole
Being Youself Can Take Bravery
I'm transgender, FTM, and struggling to tell my family. My mom, formerly dad (MTF herself, I do use male pronouns/say dad when around strangers) knows and is very accepting of me. My stepmom is also MTF and supports me as well. I'm planning on starting testosterone soon, but my mom and sisters are very transphobic, completely cutting off my mom (MTF) from their lives. To them, my mom doesn't exist anymore, while I still talk to her daily. I would love for my other mom and sisters to see me as a son/brother but am terrified they'll want nothing to do with me. If they want me out of their lives, then I'm also going to lose touch with my two year old nephew who I just adore. I can't stand to keep pretending to be someone I'm not around my family, but I can't stand losing them either. Any advice on how I can start coming out?
Ryvis
* * *
Dear Ryvis,
First of all, count your blessings that your mom and stepmom are in the same boat and supportive of you. It’s vital that you have at least some people on your side as you transition. As for the rest of your family, rejection is very common in life because many people are brainwashed about social standards of “right” and “wrong” that they don’t use the one measuring stick that is the only thing that matters: love.
Whether it is being trans, bi, gay, furry, or even simply a different race or religion, people the world over are faced with rejection simply for being who they really are. This is why almost all of us wear masks that we present to the world, hiding the true us. It’s a sad fact of the human condition.
Some people will go through their entire lives being who they are not. Others, the brave ones, choose to be themselves.
When you choose to be brave, the implication is always that some sacrifice is involved; otherwise, it would not be a brave act. It is brave for a soldier to face enemy bullets, knowing he or she might be seriously injured or killed. Likewise, it is brave for people to admit who they are to a judgmental family, even if they stand the risk of losing people they love such as your nephew (in my case, it was losing my wife to divorce, though we are, thankfully, still friends).
As with the soldier comparison, the best way to face the future is preparation. Really, choosing to march into the battlefield is not longer a choice because you have already decided you are going to start hormone therapy. Once that starts kicking in, there’s no way you’re going to be able to conceal what’s going on. Therefore, be prepared.
There are a few things you can do. First, do some research in the library and the Internet on being transgender, the process, and living your life; there is material out there on how to talk about this, too. Second, sit down and write out your thoughts. This will help you organize your thinking and make it easier to talk about. Third (and you have a little knowledge of this already because of your moms), play out the arguments in your head as to what your family might say and how you would respond. In fact, it could help to do this with your moms. Do some role playing, rehearse.
The best, last hope of getting acceptance from your family is to educate them about transgender people. This by no means guarantees success because, like religion and politics, people usually have their minds made up and are not easily swayed, even when faced with cold, hard facts. That’s people; they can be stubborn to the point of stupidity.
In the end, the most important person for you to please is yourself. If you sincerely believe to the marrow of your bone that this is what you must do, then you have no choice but to do it. Yes, there might be some sacrifice involved, but the alternative is far worse: sacrificing yourself.
I wish you luck and happiness,
Papabear
Before the Movie, the Manga
Just in time for the full North American release of Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime feature, The Boy and the Beast (on the same weekend as Zootopia’s release, grumble grumble…), Yen Press have published Mr. Hosoda’s black & white manga of the same title. “Fleeing tragedy and mistreatment, a young boy named Ren hides among the crowds in Tokyo’s busy Shibuya ward. His efforts to run away are more successful than he realizes when he ends up in the world of the beasts! A rough-living bear named Kumatetsu gives Ren a new life and a new name–Kyuta–but is Kumatetsu really up to the job of being a mentor?” Find out! And check it out over at Yen’s web site.
image c. 2016 Yen Press
FC-228 A Drama of Furries - Quite a long episode this week! Lots of silliness and discussions throughout.
Quite a long episode this week! Lots of silliness and discussions throughout.
Watch Video Discovered Media:- Religion Tree
- Wolf Hybrid saved from being on the street
- The Mermaid – Steven Chow Film
- Girl Meets Wolf
- RainFurrest 2016 Post-Mortem
- Why Can’t Some People Feel Pleasure?
- Horses Can Read Our Facial Expressions
- The Color Blue Is Trending Worldwide
- Paperclip-Sized Brain Implant Could Lead To Thought-Controlled Exoskeletons
- Man Skipped Work For 6 Years And No One Noticed Until He Won An Award
- Runaway ‘Unicorn’ Leads Police On A 4-Hour Chase
- Florida Teen Poses as Doctor
- Teen Poses as US Senator
- Yori – “Narration Tips? Best microphone for cheap?”
- Crazzywolf – “I did sum thing bad !”
- Uva – “Species and group identity”
- Anon – “Wanting to say thanks.”
- Mizu – (no subject)