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Dear Readers,

As you know, Papabear gets a lot of letters about love and relationships, so this seemed like a good time to write a note to all of you about love.

I think the most frequent problem I see from letter writers is that they think love is something that they get from someone else. They are troubled when they feel they are not getting the attention they deserve. While it is important that the other person in your life respects you and cares about you, you should never think of love in terms of what the other person does for you. If you are truly in love with someone, you'll know it because the only thing on your mind will be "How can I help my love be happy?"

Love isn't about sex. Love isn't about money. Yes, these are important issues, but love is about a heart connection that cannot be broken if it is real love. I've often written about the issues of sex and money in relationships, but I want to make it clear that when I do so it is really more in terms about whether lovers have respect for one another, not so much about the money and sex itself. For example, perhaps the one you love is poor and is having trouble finding work, but he or she is trying very hard to do right by you: they don't take advantage of the fact that you have money and they don't use you; they sincerely try their best to get by. That is a person you can support and love back.

I've sometimes written about long distance relationships, and I'm going to change my POV there a little, if you don't mind. I'm currently in the longest of long distance relationships that is possible because the one I love is now in the spirit world. Yet my love is still strong. Given this, who the hell am I to say that a relationship via Skype or an iPhone is less possible?

There is a thing in physics called "entanglement." This is a phenomenon described by quantum physics in which two or more particles influence their physical states ... and they do so no matter the distance between them. They can be in different galaxies and still interact with one another.

I must amend my opinion on LDRs, then. Love knows no distance. Love knows no barriers or boundaries. Love is not limited by time. Love just is.

As we travel through this existence, we learn and grow. Papabear is no exception to this. Every letter I write, I do so with sincerity and in the spirit of helping. You, dear letter writers, actually help me to learn and grow, too. We can help each other along the way, and that is what life here is all about.

Whether you are with someone or all alone today, you are never truly alone. The universe cares about you. And I care about you. Thank you for contributing to this column and thank you for being you.

Happy Valentine's Day,
Papabear

This week the group talks about literary awards in the fandom. Are they useful? Should you participate?

 
Send us your feedback, questions, concerns, complaints:

@FangsAndFonts

Facebook.com/FangsAndFonts
 

Fangs and Fonts

Click below to Listen http://www.fangsandfonts.com/FnF/Episodes/Ep60-Awarding_The_Best.mp3

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Ep 60 – Awarding Work - This week the group talks about literary awards in the fandom. Are they useful? Should you participate?   Send us your feedback, questions, concerns, complaints: @FangsAndFonts Facebook.com/FangsAndFonts  

Another new full-color comic from the Previews kid-friendly special feature is Fuzzy Baseball, written and illustrated by John Steven Gurney. “It’s the game everyone has been waiting for-The Fernwood Valley Fuzzies Vs. The Rocky Ridge Red Claws! The Fuzzies, featuring such all-star players as Jackie Rabbitson, Sandy Kofox, and Hammy Sosa, are ready. So are the Red Claws, with players like Gator Gibson, Stetch Giraffolo, and Fernado del Toro. Together they’ll make this the greatest game ever played between the two longtime rivals. And you have a front row seat at Fuzzy Field!” It’s coming from Papercutz in late April. You can preview the first volume over at their web site.

image c. 2015 Papercutz

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

Cat Crimebusters, Part 1.

Cat Crimebusters, Part 2.

This third animal crime series is what I consider to be the first in which the cats genuinely detect to solve human crimes. No pussyfooting in the background while the human amateur detective solves the crimes. This is the Joe Grey series by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Joe and his feline assistants Dulcie and Kit are talking cats fully in the human world. They have their human helpers, but they do all the important detecting. There aren’t as many Joe Grey novels as there are Midnight Louie or Mrs. Murphy novels, but there are eighteen; and there will be a nineteenth next February.

Cat on the Edge. April 1996.

Cat Under Fire. November 1996.

Cat Raise the Dead. May 1997.

Cat in the Dark. January 1999.

Cat to the Dogs. January 2000.

Cat Spitting Mad. December 2000.

(Cat on the Money. 2001.)

Cat Laughing Last. December 2001.

Cat Seeing Double. January 2003.

Cat Fear No Evil. January 2004.

Cat Cross Their Graves. January 2005.

Cat Breaking Free. December 2005.

Cat Pay the Devil. March 2007.

Cat Deck the Halls. December 2007.

Cat Playing Cupid. February 2009.

Cat Striking Back. November 2009.

Cat Coming Home. November 2010.

Cat Telling Tales. November 2011.

Cat Bearing Gifts. November 2012.

Cat Shout for Joy. February 2016.

The setting for the series is Molena Point, California, a fictional California coastal resort village maybe a hundred miles south of San Francisco – a lookalike of the real Carmel. The mystery begins in the first paragraph of the first book:

“The murder of Samuel Beckwhite in the alley behind Jolly’s Delicatessen was observed by no human witness. Only the gray tomcat saw Beckwhite fall, the big man’s heavy body crumpling, his round, close-trimmed head crushed from the blow of a shiny steel wrench. At the bright swing of the weapon and the thud of breaking bone, the cat stiffened with alarm and backed deeper into the shadows, a sleek silver ripple in the dark.” (p. 1)

This is an apparently absolutely mundane crime—so why do two cats who happen to be nearby suddenly gain human intelligence and the ability to talk and read? And why does a human housewife suddenly find herself transformed into a cat?

The two cats are Joe Grey, a gray (Russian blue) cat with only a two-inch stub of a tail who is the pet of Clyde Damien, the owner of an automobile repair shop that specializes in restoring antique cars, and Dulcie, an orange tabby cat belonging to Wilma Getz, a retired parole officer. It turns out that both Joe and Dulcie saw the murder. Why this murder gave them human intelligence and the ability to talk is a mystery, but the killer is aware of it and wants to eliminate them as inconvenient witnesses. Kate Osbourne, the housewife, is also turned into a cat by the murder. Molena Point is small, and Clyde, Wilma, and Kate all know each other. Joe is satisfied to live as a pampered pet, while Dulcie wants to know why she is suddenly intelligent and can talk; but both cats are forced together to escape the murderer. Also, Clyde was the business partner of the murdered man and is suspected by the police of being the killer, so Joe has to prove Clyde’s innocence to preserve his own comfortable life. Cat on the Edge ends with the real killer unmasked, Kate restored to humanity, and the cats’ intelligence revealed to their human companions; but the mystery of how and why the cats are now intelligent and can talk still unknown.

In the subsequent novels, the mystery of Joe & Dulcie’s ability to talk and Kate’s turning into a cat (and Kate herself) fades into the background. Joe & Dulcie can just talk, and in each book, they enjoy playing detectives. They get involved with a new crime, invariably a murder (or a lesser crime that leads to a murder), and have fun (1) learning who the killer is, (2) finding the evidence needed by the police, and (3) finding how to deliver the evidence to the police without revealing themselves. They become adept at giving mysterious telephone calls to Police Captain Max Harper.

As the series progresses, the cast grows. Kit, a tattercoat tortoiseshell kitten who can also talk, appears in #7, Cat Laughing Last, and the feline duo becomes a trio. With #11, Cat Breaking Free, a whole clowder of feral cats who can talk is discovered living in the hills above Molena Point. Some of them become a major supporting character for one novel; in #12, Cat Pay the Devil it’s Cotton, Coyote, and Willow, while with #15, Cat Striking Back, it’s Tansy and Sage. With #17, Cat Coming Home, Misto, an old yellow prison tomcat briefly joins the trio. Even before that, the regular human cast grows tremendously with Wilma’s niece, Charlie; Molena Point Detectives Dallas Garza and Juana Davis; building contractor Ryan Flannery; elderly Pedric and Lucinda Greenlaw; and others. Almost all the humans get married. The number of humans who know and keep the talking cats’ secret increases. Azrael, a possibly demonic cat (he practices voodoo), appears in #4, Cat in the Dark, and occasionally in later novels. Kate Osbourne reappears more rarely. One human criminal, Greeley Urzey, who knows the cats’ secret, is in #4 and #12, but he keeps the secret for his own reasons.

In the real world, several of the novels have become winners of the Cat Writers’ Association’s annual Muse Medallion for the best writing about cats in several categories. However, even granting the premise of talking cats, the series includes some major implausibilities. Kit remains a little kitten for years before growing up; and Joe & Dulcie remain “just good friends” for equally far too long before “getting married” and having kittens – in fact, this is still due to happen in Cat Shout for Joy coming in February. Joe, Dulcie, and Kit regularly get information by pretending to be normal cats at human tables and listening while they beg for food or eat dropped human food like dogs; but those increasingly include human food like Mexican and Chinese food that would probably not be good for real cats – if they did not ignore it. The first few novels give convincing reasons for the cats to take interest in human crimes, but in the later novels Joe, Dulcie, and Kit become implausible do-gooders who just want to help human strangers out of a love for justice. But the Joe Grey series is a “cat cozy” fantasy, so readers will not care about a few implausibilities.

To be noted is the “unpublished” Cat on the Money. This is a novella that began serialization in Cats magazine. Cats was discontinued before the serialization was completed. The entire story, too short for a book, can be downloaded from the official Joe Grey website: http://joegrey.com/

There was a break of four years between #18 and #19. This was because Murphy collaborated on two novels with her husband, Pat J. J. Murphy:

The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana. February 2014.

The Cat, the Devil, the Last Escape. February 2015.

These are two spinoffs about the Devil tormenting a mortal, Lee Fontana, and his being helped by the old tomcat Misto as a ghost cat. They are more fantastic/supernatural than the Joe Grey series.

–Fred Patten

Previews magalog was kind enough to point out some new upcoming kid-friendly comic book titles — several of which are definitely anthropomorphic. First up is The Mighty Zodiac, written by J. Torres and illustrated by Corin Howell and Maarta Laiho. “When the Blue Dragon dies, six stars fall out of the night sky! Ailing Master Long, leader of the Mighty Zodiac, orders his warriors to gather the stars, lest they fall into the hands of the malevolent Moon Rabbit Army. With the stars, the Mighty Zodiac may yet revive their master, rescue their world, and restore the light. Without the stars, the darkness threatens to divide the tribes and destroy Gaya… ” Got all that? Look for it from Oni Press in early April.

image c. 2016 Oni Press

Dated February 12, here is an article in the 2016 Sex Issue of The Daily Californian, the student-run newspaper serving the University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community:
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/02/12/fursona/

The article includes words from Bay Area furries Jason Panke, Jeff Bowman, Alex Roviras, and Darkwolf.


“Come for the fur, stay for the hugs.”

This is the slogan we work out 20 minutes into a discussion with three self-described “furries” — members of the fandom known for their animal-inspired costumes (and huge conventions across the country) but are still waiting for a multifaceted portrayal in popular culture.

They’re in street clothes, chatting amiably here at a cafe just a short walk from the UC Berkeley campus, where Bay Area furries (alternatively, “furs”) gather on the first Tuesday of every month to share the latest in art and meet other furries. Many have found friendships and lifelong bonds amidst the furry, feathered and scaly “fursonas” that populate the community.

“Being a transplant from Chicago. I had no one to really hang out with,” said Jason Panke, a local furry at the gathering. “(Here) you get to do fun things, go downtown San Francisco and get on trolleys, everyone in fursuits, waving at people. … It brings happiness to a lot of people.”

The meetup serves as an essential in-person gathering for a community concentrated extensively online. Furries have flourished in online communities such as sofurry.net* and Tumblr and witnessed their growing numbers at annual conventions throughout the country.

The Berkeley cafe meetup has been going on for at least eight years. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, the community meets consistently for barbecues, bowling and Frolic — where once a month, they take over San Francisco’s Stud Bar with custom art and costumes.

The gatherings give furries a chance to trade “fursonas” — alter-egos used in the furry community that play off animal and human personality traits, often represented through art in social media profiles or in full costume. Jeff Bowman, a 2009 UC Berkeley graduate who’s organized the meetup for years, describes the fursona as an “open-source framework” for creative expression derived from games, myths and popular culture. Some furries inhabit multiple characters at a time.

Many furs encounter their first taste of the fandom online in fan-generated art and stories. Alex Roviras, another local there Tuesday, found his way to the fandom as a high schooler when he clicked on a wrong link that brought him to stories centered on human-like wolf characters. A long-time fan of “The Lion King” and the fierce Digimon Garurumon, Roviras was intrigued.

“I was like, this is not what I’m looking for, but I’m interested in writing too,” Roviras said. “I came across furry and looked at it and kind of went with it. Things just kind of clicked.”

Roviras recounted how quickly he was intrigued not only by the stories but the art. As he delved further into the fandom, the community became a place where many interests — art, writing, friendship and exploration — intersected. Roviras said that for people reconciling their own sexual identities with the confusing norms of high school — and the bullying that can come with them — the fandom offered a place of acceptance. This was true for Darkwolf, who added that her girlfriend, who is transgender, found solace in the community as she underwent her own transition.

“Coming across furries and how accepting and open that was allowed them to kind of accept themselves and become comfortable with themselves and their own sexuality,” Roviras said. “Or in my case I figured out, ‘Hey, I’m bisexual.’”

The fandom has long struggled with stereotypes that its members are a fringe group, mostly male, united by a desire for sex in costumes. A 2003 episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” ruffled feathers within the community when it portrayed a Las Vegas “Fur Con” as a spot for anonymous, fur-filled orgies. The depiction of “fur piles” or “cuddle pods,” Darkwolf said, was overblown.

“We’re not more sexual than the ‘Star Trek’ fandom or the ‘Star Wars’ fandom,” she said. “It’s just expression and being sexual are more accepted.”

The episode was Darkwolf’s first look at furries, then as a high schooler in Tucson, Arizona, reckoning with her own emerging identity with fur. Amid the episode’s spectacle of promiscuous furries, she saw in Gil Grissom, the lead detective, an attitude of acceptance.

“He said, ‘What’s wrong with your deeper animal instinct?’ and he always spoke about it in a positive way,” she said. “That’s what really kinda light-bulbed with me.”

In recent years, the fandom’s numbers have been growing in hotspots such as Seattle and Philadelphia at conventions such as Rainfurrest and their most popular, AnthroCon, which last year saw more than 6,000 in attendance.

There is no official, overarching organization dedicated to furs. Instead, annual traditions such as San Jose’s Further Confusion, hosted over four days every January, are organized by dedicated volunteers. Bowman, who works nearby as a software engineer at Google, is next year’s Further Confusion chairman.

This year’s Further Confusion featured dance competitions, a parade and a gauntlet of “Critterlympics.” Some people anticipated awkwardness this year when the convention shared its venue with a Super Smash Brothers tournament. But after the initial shock, Darkwolf said, the two groups found common ground.

“A lot of the smash people drop out Saturday night and go to our parties at Further Confusion,” Darkwolf said. “Because furries know how to party.”

Next year, Bowman said, the event plans to upgrade to the largest venue they could find: the San Jose Convention Center.

“It’s like I’m going to a party and everyone’s my friend — I just haven’t met them yet,” Darkwolf said, describing her girlfriend’s convention experience.

Full suits can cost upward of thousands of dollars, some equipped with LED lights, special ventilation and speakers. “God forbid if you have to go to the bathroom,” Panke adds, which is why conventions such as Further Confusion have cooling stations where fursonas can be momentarily disengaged for much-needed air conditioning between dance sessions. For the above reasons many opt for partial suits such as ears, gloves and tails, but often the designs are custom.

Darkwolf, with a soft spot for the “oddball creatures” of the animal kingdom, attends conventions as an axolotl — an amphibious salamander — complete with wide-set blue eyes and external gills frilled with pink fur. She’s a frequent target from kids who want to share stories of their pet lizards or pose for impromptu photo-ops.

“I love to make the kids smile so much,” Darkwolf said. “I can’t help myself, it’s so adorable.”

As the meet-up winds down late into the night, members say goodbye, addressing each other by their fursonas and giving tight hugs. Bowman, who met his fiancee through the fandom, notes that many have found lifelong friendships through their characters and friends of friends.

“If there’s any misconception to make about the fandom, it’s that it’s a place to find sex as opposed to a place to find friends and a place to find love,” he said.

Dated February 12, here is an article in the 2016 Sex Issue of The Daily Californian, the student-run newspaper serving the University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community:
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/02/12/fursona/

The article includes words from Bay Area furries Jason Panke, Jeff Bowman, Alex Roviras, and Darkwolf.


“Come for the fur, stay for the hugs.”

This is the slogan we work out 20 minutes into a discussion with three self-described “furries” — members of the fandom known for their animal-inspired costumes (and huge conventions across the country) but are still waiting for a multifaceted portrayal in popular culture.

They’re in street clothes, chatting amiably here at a cafe just a short walk from the UC Berkeley campus, where Bay Area furries (alternatively, “furs”) gather on the first Tuesday of every month to share the latest in art and meet other furries. Many have found friendships and lifelong bonds amidst the furry, feathered and scaly “fursonas” that populate the community.

“Being a transplant from Chicago. I had no one to really hang out with,” said Jason Panke, a local furry at the gathering. “(Here) you get to do fun things, go downtown San Francisco and get on trolleys, everyone in fursuits, waving at people. … It brings happiness to a lot of people.”

The meetup serves as an essential in-person gathering for a community concentrated extensively online. Furries have flourished in online communities such as sofurry.net* and Tumblr and witnessed their growing numbers at annual conventions throughout the country.

The Berkeley cafe meetup has been going on for at least eight years. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, the community meets consistently for barbecues, bowling and Frolic — where once a month, they take over San Francisco’s Stud Bar with custom art and costumes.

The gatherings give furries a chance to trade “fursonas” — alter-egos used in the furry community that play off animal and human personality traits, often represented through art in social media profiles or in full costume. Jeff Bowman, a 2009 UC Berkeley graduate who’s organized the meetup for years, describes the fursona as an “open-source framework” for creative expression derived from games, myths and popular culture. Some furries inhabit multiple characters at a time.

Many furs encounter their first taste of the fandom online in fan-generated art and stories. Alex Roviras, another local there Tuesday, found his way to the fandom as a high schooler when he clicked on a wrong link that brought him to stories centered on human-like wolf characters. A long-time fan of “The Lion King” and the fierce Digimon Garurumon, Roviras was intrigued.

“I was like, this is not what I’m looking for, but I’m interested in writing too,” Roviras said. “I came across furry and looked at it and kind of went with it. Things just kind of clicked.”

Roviras recounted how quickly he was intrigued not only by the stories but the art. As he delved further into the fandom, the community became a place where many interests — art, writing, friendship and exploration — intersected. Roviras said that for people reconciling their own sexual identities with the confusing norms of high school — and the bullying that can come with them — the fandom offered a place of acceptance. This was true for Darkwolf, who added that her girlfriend, who is transgender, found solace in the community as she underwent her own transition.

“Coming across furries and how accepting and open that was allowed them to kind of accept themselves and become comfortable with themselves and their own sexuality,” Roviras said. “Or in my case I figured out, ‘Hey, I’m bisexual.’”

The fandom has long struggled with stereotypes that its members are a fringe group, mostly male, united by a desire for sex in costumes. A 2003 episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” ruffled feathers within the community when it portrayed a Las Vegas “Fur Con” as a spot for anonymous, fur-filled orgies. The depiction of “fur piles” or “cuddle pods,” Darkwolf said, was overblown.

“We’re not more sexual than the ‘Star Trek’ fandom or the ‘Star Wars’ fandom,” she said. “It’s just expression and being sexual are more accepted.”

The episode was Darkwolf’s first look at furries, then as a high schooler in Tucson, Arizona, reckoning with her own emerging identity with fur. Amid the episode’s spectacle of promiscuous furries, she saw in Gil Grissom, the lead detective, an attitude of acceptance.

“He said, ‘What’s wrong with your deeper animal instinct?’ and he always spoke about it in a positive way,” she said. “That’s what really kinda light-bulbed with me.”

In recent years, the fandom’s numbers have been growing in hotspots such as Seattle and Philadelphia at conventions such as Rainfurrest and their most popular, AnthroCon, which last year saw more than 6,000 in attendance.

There is no official, overarching organization dedicated to furs. Instead, annual traditions such as San Jose’s Further Confusion, hosted over four days every January, are organized by dedicated volunteers. Bowman, who works nearby as a software engineer at Google, is next year’s Further Confusion chairman.

This year’s Further Confusion featured dance competitions, a parade and a gauntlet of “Critterlympics.” Some people anticipated awkwardness this year when the convention shared its venue with a Super Smash Brothers tournament. But after the initial shock, Darkwolf said, the two groups found common ground.

“A lot of the smash people drop out Saturday night and go to our parties at Further Confusion,” Darkwolf said. “Because furries know how to party.”

Next year, Bowman said, the event plans to upgrade to the largest venue they could find: the San Jose Convention Center.

“It’s like I’m going to a party and everyone’s my friend — I just haven’t met them yet,” Darkwolf said, describing her girlfriend’s convention experience.

Full suits can cost upward of thousands of dollars, some equipped with LED lights, special ventilation and speakers. “God forbid if you have to go to the bathroom,” Panke adds, which is why conventions such as Further Confusion have cooling stations where fursonas can be momentarily disengaged for much-needed air conditioning between dance sessions. For the above reasons many opt for partial suits such as ears, gloves and tails, but often the designs are custom.

Darkwolf, with a soft spot for the “oddball creatures” of the animal kingdom, attends conventions as an axolotl — an amphibious salamander — complete with wide-set blue eyes and external gills frilled with pink fur. She’s a frequent target from kids who want to share stories of their pet lizards or pose for impromptu photo-ops.

“I love to make the kids smile so much,” Darkwolf said. “I can’t help myself, it’s so adorable.”

As the meet-up winds down late into the night, members say goodbye, addressing each other by their fursonas and giving tight hugs. Bowman, who met his fiancee through the fandom, notes that many have found lifelong friendships through their characters and friends of friends.

“If there’s any misconception to make about the fandom, it’s that it’s a place to find sex as opposed to a place to find friends and a place to find love,” he said.

Dated February 12, here in an article in The Signal, the official student newspaper of Georgia State University in Atlanta:
http://georgiastatesignal.com/the-fast-and-the-furry-ous-facts-and-misconceptions-about-furries/

The article looks at the history and perception of the furry fandom, and includes an interview with furry Wolf Genesis.


Things have changed a lot over the years. We’ve got faster computers, smarter phones and slightly more equality. These, of course, are changes people experience in day-to-day life.

Another, more subtle change society has experienced recently, is a change in meaning of the phrase “my fine, furry friend.” What used to be used to describe our pets can now be used to describe a subset of society that call themselves the Furry Fandom.

According to WikiFur, the Furry encyclopedia, the Furry Fandom is a group of people who appreciate “anthropomorphic animals in art, literature, cartoons, [and] pop culture…” Basically, this means they have an interest in animals with human attributes.

Very few people have had experience with Furries outside of television. Unfortunately, the media tends to portray Furries in an incredibly negative light. Natalie Tindall, Ph.D., a professor at Georgia State who has done research on the development of fandoms, said her first experience with Furries was on an episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

A man was killed in his fur suit. Tindall went on to say that Furry culture “tends to be very – at least from the media portrayals of it – it tends to be very sexualized.” This media portrayal has led many to believe that being a Furry is primarily a fetish, when in reality, it is a community

The beginnings of the furry fandom can be traced back to the post-World War II era, when cartoons about human-like animals shifted from an all-age focus to being primarily directed towards children.

According to WikiFur, these children then grew up with the desire to create similar characters for older age groups. In his autobiography, “Surprised by Joy,” author C.S. Lewis admits to developing his own fascination with anthropomorphic animals at a young age. Was C.S. Lewis a Furry? Who can say, but he did certainly like fawns.

The first open “Furry Party” at a notable convention was in 1986. Westercon, a science fiction convention held in Sacramento, was the first to showcase furry artwork and short stories at their 39th convention. The success of this party eventually led to the showcasing of furry fanfictions and fanart across California.

Since then, standalone Furry conventions have boomed in popularity, with more than 30 hosted across the country, the most popular being Anthrocon in Pennsylvania, which had more than 6,000 attendees last year.

One reason Furry Fandom has exploded is the rise of Internet and Wi-Fi, which allowed people to build a community with others who shared their interests in a safer environment.

Tindall believes this sense of community can offer members of the Furry Fandom a sense of escape from their daily lives.

“They have something. They have a sense of whimsy and a sense of fun and a sense of belonging, and they just want to enjoy it. and it’s pleasurable and in this time why wouldn’t you want to have some escapism,” Tindall said.

While Tindall may be right theoretically, she cannot give a clear insight into what it’s like to live as a Furry, so The Signal sat down with Jason*, 31, whose Fursona is called “Wolf Genesis.”

*Names in article withheld to protect the identity of those in this story.

What’s it like to be a Furry? Is it like being part of other fandoms?

J: “It’s like anything else, I suppose. Like any fandom, you’ll have the aspects you absolutely love about it, and other aspects not so much.”

Do you have a fur suit?

J: “I don’t have a fursuit, though I admit I want one. They do cost a pretty penny, though. Full body suits that can range at a thousand dollars and more, to partial suits – that is, handpaws, footpaws, tails, or headpieces – which are naturally less costly.”

How involved are you with Furry life?

J: “I am an artist. I draw furries. I do have a tail that I wear from time to time, and collect various things involving. . .wolves. I haven’t gone out of my way to join profile pages such as Facebook for furries, unless you count my art page. Otherwise, I do play a game that is a heavily text based role playing game.”

What drew you to the lifestyle?

J: “I honestly think there are a number of factors that come into play here. One being…[the] childhood cartoon shows I grew up with. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tailspin, Road Rovers, SWAT Kats, and Biker Mice From Mars, to name a few. Seeing so many characters given human style characteristics, voices, acting became a part of me in a sense, and reminders of those happy times of childhood play a huge part in my enjoyment of the fandom. Another thing is the artwork. People can create constantly unique combinations and hybrids of things, detail it in ways we couldn’t imagine before, and bring things to life that is basically candy for the eyes.”

Are there any myths you want to dispel about being a Furry?

J: “Definitely. Being a Furry does not necessarily mean I’m in love with animals or have any sort of zoophilia. Being a Furry ranges from simply having a fascination with anthropomorphic beings, to… well, yes the extreme sense of sexual attraction. But I would like to impress that the main difference in being a furry versus a zoophiliac, involving the fantasies on the extreme end, is consent. Being a furry does not equal being into bestiality. The second myth is it’s all sexual and fursuits. It’s really not. That is one sect that gets a lot of attention, but not really the fandom as a whole. Some furries, like myself, love the fandom because it can personify traits we’d like to see in ourselves, or traits from connections we have with animals, as some feel with spirit animals or spirit guides.”

Do you think Furries will ever be fully accepted?

J: “The furry fandom will make it to being accepted when facts make it out first. When the myths and assumptions are widely no longer accepted, when people see that we’re rather a harmless bunch. A little odd maybe but what fandom isn’t?”
Even though we have a long way to go until Furries are accepted in society, that’s not going to stop people like Jason from living their lives true to themselves. The Furry Fandom is still growing and evolving every day.

Hi there, Papabear.
 
I've been following and enjoying your column for some time now, and am nervous to finally be writing and asking for your thoughts.

I have these two friends who happen to suffer from bipolar disorder who are both very dear to me, especially the male friend, Eric. It's a long story, but Eric and I were coworkers who got along really well. He talked a lot and everyone else found him annoying; except for me. I developed a crush on him and eventually told him by dedicating a song, to which he said he returned my feelings, but he couldn't date because of his problems. (I now know he was scared.) Soon after, he spiraled into ever worsening depression, and I into out of control emotions and self-torment from the tease of "I like you but..." eventually his depression got so bad he quit and I tried to stay in contact. He took my calls and sometimes was like his old self, sweet and charming. I asked to hang out finally and he refused, saying he "needed to stay in his comfort zone." Despite wanting to help and support him, I can only take being there for someone (and I was, for every single bad thing that happened to him all summer.) and being pushed away for it as a reward. I was hurt and stopped calling, and to my deep hurt, he has not called me in two months. I've been rejected/betrayed many times...why is this one so much worse? I am wondering why I am having such a hard time getting over this, why despite my best efforts, I cannot get over this person who clearly does not care about me despite how loyal a friend I have been, always. I am a writer and that helps, but I feel like this torment might never end.
 
DarkHorse
 
* * *

Dear DarkHorse,
 
There is a saying that goes “Love has no reason.” We love people because we just love them, often even if we intellectually know they aren’t good for us. I am hoping, as I write this, that Eric is receiving some kind of treatment for his illness. He needs a combination of talk therapy and medications, most likely. If he is getting treatment, there is not much else you can do. He needs to get his bipolar problems in order first, and only then should other things (work, personal relationships) be fully addressed. If he is not getting treatment, perhaps you can help by making sure his family is aware he is not doing what needs to be done. Let them know that you care, as a friend, and are happy to help if they wish.

The bottom line is this: we can offer help to those who need it, but we can’t run their lives for them. Only they can do that. As for your feelings for Eric, don’t be so certain he doesn’t care about you. When you have bipolar disorder you suffer waves of emotions that can cloud up who you truly are inside and it is difficult to extricate yourself from the piles of sand and rubble that are burying you. Under all of that, he might care about you, but, again, he needs to stabilize his emotions before he can continue on that course.
​
You know, you are allowed to love someone, even if that person doesn’t love you back. Love often hurts, but it’s better to experience love than to be an emotionless robot. Know, too, that love is not a limited resource. You are allowed to love Eric, and you will find you will still have enough love in your heart for others, as well. Don’t limit yourself when it comes to your heart, and don’t obsess on one person. The more we love, the richer our lives become.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

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

The Case of the Cat Show Princess, by Cindy Vincent
Houston, TX, Whodunit Press, November 2011, trade paperback $9.97 (162 pages), Kindle $2.99.

The Case of the Crafty Christmas Crooks, by Cindy Vincent
Houston, TX, Whodunit Press, October 2013, trade paperback $9.97 (170 pages), Kindle $2.99.

The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues, by Cindy Vincent
Houston, TX, Whodunit Press, September 2014, trade paperback $9.97 (242 pages), Kindle $2.99.

The Case of the Clever Secret Code, by Cindy Vincent
Houston, TX, Whodunit Press, October 2015, trade paperback $10.97 (222 pages), Kindle $2.99.

“Cat cozy” adult mystery series in which talking cats actively detect crimes have become very popular, though arguably more with cat-fanciers and some mystery fans (others revile them) than with furry fans. The Midnight Louie series by Carole Nelson Douglas, the Mrs. Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown, and the Joe Grey series by Shirley Rousseau Murphy have made cat-detective fantasies both popular and respectable. Here, then, is one for the kiddies that should also be called to furry fans’ attention, especially since it is not obvious on the Amazon.com listings that these are juvenile rather than adult novels.

These four Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Capers by Cindy Vincent are attractive trade paperbacks published by Vincent’s own Whodunit Press, “A Division of Mysteries by Vincent, LLC”. They are talking-cat detective novels recommended for middle-grade readers, ages 8 to 12. Frankly, they are overly cute adventures mostly suitable for the younger end of that range, which is why I described them as for the kiddies rather than as for kids. As is typical with the most banal of this sub-sub-genre, all the cats can understand human language. In this series, they even regularly speak English as well, except when humans are listening.

“Of course, the humans aren’t exactly aware of our detective duties. Probably because us cats always switch to cat language whenever humans are around.” (The Case of the Clever Secret Code, p. 2)

All cats then “meow” intelligently together in feline, their secret language. Bogey reveals in The Case of the Clever Secret Code that he also knows the difference between written English, French, and Spanish. The cats work together to pull off the most blatant deeds that the humans never suspect are caused by cats. Ho, hum.

Buckley, the narrator, is a large black cat (a Maine Coon cat, which are traditionally dark; but I didn’t know were ever solid black until I saw photos of the real Buckley, owned by Cindy Vincent, on their website) who has been recently adopted from an animal shelter by cat lovers Abigail and Mike Abernathy and 12-year-old daughter Gracie. (“Dad” is supportive but almost ignored; he’s not even named until the third book.) They have a handful of rescued cats, one of whom is another black cat, the smaller but older Bogart. Bogey trains Buckley in detection and they set up the Buckley and Bogey Cat Detection Agency together — a detective agency for cats, not humans — using their human Mom and Dad’s home computer when they’re not looking. (A fine tradition in cat and dog fantasies going back to Elyse Cregar’s Feline Online and Beth Hilgartner’s Cats in Cyberspace, both 2001; though Hilgartner has pointed out in a 2015 edition that advances in computer technology and security since 2001 would make this difficult or impossible today.) Two other cats in the Abernathy home who always help Buckley and Bogey are Libby, usually called Lil Bits, and the ancient but almost supernaturally wise Miss Mokie. Bogey has an unlimited supply of cat treats for them all, especially Buckley.

In the first book, Buckley and Bogey receive an e-mail signed P.A. from “a cat in great danger” who will be at the local St. Gertrude Cat Show on the coming Saturday. Buckley and Bogey trick their humans into taking them there, and learn that P.A. is Princess Alexandra, a white Turkish Angora with a diamond collar and silken pillow owned by Count and Countess Von De Meenasnitzel of Austria. Despite the Princess’ luxurious lifestyle, the Count and Countess are cruel owners. The Princess is afraid for her life, and wants Buckley and Bogey to rescue her.

“I [Buckley] nodded to let her know I was listening. ‘The Count and Countess?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she sighed. ‘They’re mean to me all the time. They hit me if I don’t win a ribbon in the cat shows. They’re always threatening to do bad things if I don’t do what they say.’” (p. 56)

Do people who regularly exhibit their cats in cat shows habitually abuse them? Does anyone wonder about a Count and Countess coming from a country that has been a republic since 1919? To reveal a spoiler that will have been obvious to everyone all along, the Count and Countess are revealed by Buckley and Bogey to be international jewel thieves. The two cat detectives smuggle home Princess Alexandria, who is glad to give up her life of cold luxury for the warmth of the Abernathy’s cat-rescue home as just plain Lexie. This is not much of a spoiler since Lexie is shown with Buckley & Bogey on the covers of all four novels.

In the second book, Buckley experiences his first Christmas and learns all about Christmas trees, ornaments and presents, jingle bells, Santa Claus, Baby Jesus; and the true meaning of Christmas. The mystery is that someone has been entering houses in the Abernathy’s neighborhood and stealing all the Christmas loot:

“She [Officer Phoebe Smiley of the St. Gertrude Police Department] flipped a page in her notebook. ‘A crook – or – crooks broke into their house while they were out to the movies last night, which was Saturday night, of course. The crooks took everything. All the presents. They stole the wreath right off the front door, too. Mrs. Mitchell reports that they even took some of the Christmas cookies she’d made. Though oddly enough, they only stole the cookies shaped like stars. They left all the other shapes alone.’” (p. 8)

Although Buckley and Bogey are mystified until the climax, there are clues throughout the story that will let adult readers but maybe not the younger 8-to-12-year-olds guess early whodunit. The third book is about a mysterious wrapped package added on a foggy night to Mom Abernathy’s Abigail’s Antiques shop:

“Our Mom punched the alarm code into the alarm keypad by the back door. Then Officer Phoebe opened the door and we all went outside.

Straight into the thickest fog I’d ever seen.

Holy Catnip.

Our Mom opened the door to the truck and that’s when we heard it.

Baaaaaaaa-room! Baaaaaaaa-room!

I glanced back at Bogey. ‘What was that?’ I meowed.

Like I said, cats always switch back to cat language when humans are around.

Before Bogey could answer, our Mom asked, ‘Is that a foghorn?’

Officer Phoebe squinted and looked into the fog. ‘It sure sounds like it. But that’s weird. Last I knew, St. Gertrude didn’t have any foghorns. We’re nowhere near the ocean.’

Then we heard it again. Baaaaaaaa-room! Baaaaaaaa-room!

All of a sudden I shivered. If our town didn’t have any foghorns, then why were we hearing a foghorn now? Somebody was making that foghorn go.” (p. 36)

The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues is about two missing priceless jeweled cat statues, and a parade of characters, all with suspiciously alliterative names like Abe Abascal, Byron B. Bygones, Danby Daunton, and Evaline Esterbrook, or unconvincing names like Vera Glitter and Delilah Wonderfully (a wanna-be Cruella DeVil), mixed up with the mysterious package.

The fourth novel, The Case of the Clever Secret Code, is the least convincing of all – at least to adults, and probably to young readers as well. (Were we ever that naïve?) Steele Bronson, a Hollywood mega-star, comes to St. Gertrude and Abigail’s Antiques shop in his limousine, with all his entourage of makeup artists, stunt men, scriptwriters, and other assistants:

Then he stood up tall and looked at the reporter. ‘You might want to get this on film,’ he informed her.

Once the camera was on, he held his arms open wide and addressed the crowd. ‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen! I, Steele Bronson, have come here, into the very heart of America. Now I intend to make a movie about the very foundation of this great nation of ours. Yes, I plan to thrill audiences with a story about the very beginnings of these United States. It will be about the Revolutionary War and those brave persons who fought to make us independent. And I intend to film what will obviously become a blockbuster, right here in St. Gertrude.’” (pgs. 22-23)

Bogey gets a very bad feeling about all this – and so does the reader! Do real Hollywood movie stars ever talk like that? Do even eight-year-olds believe that this is the way that movies are made? That famous movie stars just decide to make a movie (that they will star in, of course) and announce it, without any preparation, or other actors, or a studio being involved? In this novel, Bogey and other cats are aware that this sounds fishy, but none of the humans seem to be. Holy Catnip!

According to the website’s advertising, the first three novels were planned together. It was only after they were successful (whatever that means since Vincent is publishing them herself) that the fourth novel was added. There will probably be more, then.

And so it goes. Bogey is acknowledgely modeled after Humphrey Bogart as P.I. Sam Spade in Warner Bros.’ famous movie of Dashiell Hammett’s mystery novel The Maltese Falcon. Buckley, despite being larger, is the wide-eyed apprentice who hero-worships his cynical-but-kindly mentor. I could do without Buckley constantly exclaiming both “Holy Catnip!” and “Holy Mackerel!”, including at the beginning and ending of each chapter; constantly almost putting his own eye out, tripping over his oversized, furry Maine Coon paws, or otherwise displaying his clumsiness (“‘I tried to put my paw to my forehead, to help me think better. But I ended up bonking myself in my whiskers.’” –The Case of the Crafty Christmas Crooks, p. 64); and to the blurbs’ calling each novel “their most complicated ever!” or “their most difficult yet!”. I’m not sure why both Bogey and Buckley share the last name of Bergdorf, despite being adoptive brothers. It’s common in pet fantasies for the pets to adopt the family name of their human Dad and Mom, but the two Bergdorfs belong to the human Abernathys. The “Berg” in Bergdorf has been theorized by some reviewers to be a reference to Ingrid Bergman in the movie Casablanca; another starring role of Humphrey Bogart’s tough-guy persona. Nobody has guessed whether “dorf” is also a reference, and if it is, I don’t recognize it, either. Cindy Vincent is an active Christian author (one of her other books is Cats are Part of His Kingdom, Too: 33 Daily Devotions to Show God’s Love); and the Buckley and Bogey books often show religious imagery. Their cover art is obviously by the same designer as the Mysteries by Vincent website; Cindy Vincent herself?

Holy Catfish! The Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Capers have some glowing reviews, but they all read like they were written by cat-lovers for whom no talking-cat book can be too cute. These are obviously fantasies written for young children who are not expected to believe that they are real. Yet major plot elements presented plausibly include cat show exhibitors who regularly abuse their pets, with none of the humans noticing anything wrong; the titled nobility in present-day Austria; the police being always clueless until the cats send them mystery e-mails explaining just how the criminals operate; and a town just being taken over by a major Hollywood star who decides on a whim (he says) to make it the location of his next big picture.

There are better anthropomorphic talking-animal fantasies for this age group, which I would put at closer to 6- to 10-years-old than 8-to-12s. Holy Mackerel!

–Fred Patten

• Buy The Case of the Cat Show Princess on Amazon
• Buy The Case of the Crafty Christmas Crooks on Amazon
• Buy The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues on Amazon
• Buy The Case of the Clever Secret Code on Amazon
• Learn more about Cindy Vincent on her website
• Learn more about Buckley and Bogey on their website

This week it's Savrin and Fuzz since Shiva is now in CRUNCH MODE for Fiesta. Prepare yourself for a NERD TSUNAMI. We talk about tons and tons of different stuff.. and get to emails .. eventually. And even then we tangent. Tangetcast, that's us. By the by, our coupon code 'knot' at Adam & Eve is good for the original 50% off one item and free continental shipping like it used to be until the 15th. We also have a Patreon- we love everyone who supports us. www.patreon.com/knotcast Episode 304 - VD Blues

Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Download MP3

Watch Video Discovered Media:

• Guardian article about furries
• Ted Cruz goes to weird anti-gay rally
• Blue (No Correlation to Fayroe, but Fayroes Childhood)
• Zootopia Macro
• Jasonafox’s Tweet on Movies this year
• You can now run Windows 95 in a web browser

News:

• A Whole Rabbit Brain Has Been Cryogenically Preserved
• Rainfurrest 2016 Canceled Loses Venue
• Cuddle Party discusses limits
• Face It, You’d Want To Play This Penis-Punching Video Game
• Naked man wearing Ronald Reagan mask peeps through window, terrifies neighbourhood
• Man Blames Evil Twin for Robberies

Emails:

• Jared – “Techy Thing – Transition from Audio to Video”
• Horsehead – “For the love of my grandparents, parents, and possible children or grandchildren..”
• Rumelis – “A Brief Question”
• Mellisa – “Ewww Dirty Paws :3”

FC-226 Sausage Ambush - Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Download MP3

Watch Video Discovered Media:

• Guardian article about furries
• Ted Cruz goes to weird anti-gay rally
• Blue (No Correlation to Fayroe, but Fayroes Childhood)
• Zootopia Macro
• Jasonafox’s Tweet on Movies this year
• You can now run Windows 95 in a web browser

News:

• A Whole Rabbit Brain Has Been Cryogenically Preserved
• Rainfurrest 2016 Canceled Loses Venue
• Cuddle Party discusses limits
• Face It, You’d Want To Play This Penis-Punching Video Game
• Naked man wearing Ronald Reagan mask peeps through window, terrifies neighbourhood
• Man Blames Evil Twin for Robberies

Emails:

• Jared – “Techy Thing – Transition from Audio to Video”
• Horsehead – “For the love of my grandparents, parents, and possible children or grandchildren..”
• Rumelis – “A Brief Question”
• Mellisa – “Ewww Dirty Paws :3”

FC-226 Sausage Ambush - Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Download MP3

Watch Video Discovered Media:

• Guardian article about furries
• Ted Cruz goes to weird anti-gay rally
• Blue (No Correlation to Fayroe, but Fayroes Childhood)
• Zootopia Macro
• Jasonafox’s Tweet on Movies this year
• You can now run Windows 95 in a web browser

News:

• A Whole Rabbit Brain Has Been Cryogenically Preserved
• Rainfurrest 2016 Canceled Loses Venue
• Cuddle Party discusses limits
• Face It, You’d Want To Play This Penis-Punching Video Game
• Naked man wearing Ronald Reagan mask peeps through window, terrifies neighbourhood
• Man Blames Evil Twin for Robberies

Emails:

• Jared – “Techy Thing – Transition from Audio to Video”
• Horsehead – “For the love of my grandparents, parents, and possible children or grandchildren..”
• Rumelis – “A Brief Question”
• Mellisa – “Ewww Dirty Paws :3”

[Live] Sausage Ambush - Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

Download MP3

Watch Video Discovered Media:

• Guardian article about furries
• Ted Cruz goes to weird anti-gay rally
• Blue (No Correlation to Fayroe, but Fayroes Childhood)
• Zootopia Macro
• Jasonafox’s Tweet on Movies this year
• You can now run Windows 95 in a web browser

News:

• A Whole Rabbit Brain Has Been Cryogenically Preserved
• Rainfurrest 2016 Canceled Loses Venue
• Cuddle Party discusses limits
• Face It, You’d Want To Play This Penis-Punching Video Game
• Naked man wearing Ronald Reagan mask peeps through window, terrifies neighbourhood
• Man Blames Evil Twin for Robberies

Emails:

• Jared – “Techy Thing – Transition from Audio to Video”
• Horsehead – “For the love of my grandparents, parents, and possible children or grandchildren..”
• Rumelis – “A Brief Question”
• Mellisa – “Ewww Dirty Paws :3”

FC-226 Sausage Ambush - Our special edition Thursday show! Lots of discussion on politics, culture and fandom. :3

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

Inhuman Acts; A Collection of Noir, edited by Ocean Tigrox.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, September 2015, trade paperback $19.95 (316 pages), Kindle $9.95.

According to the publisher, this is a horror anthology. “Explore thirteen anthropomorphic noir stories about betrayal, corruption and deceit from award-winning authors and up-and-coming writers. Pour your favourite whiskey and light up a cigarette as Stanley Rivets, PI shares with you his collection of case files from dim to dark to downright ugly.” (blurb)

Stanley Rivets, the stereotypical sable P.I. who tells these stories — “A sable in a long beige trench coat sits behind the desk, dark ears perking at the entrance of the newcomer. The wide brim of his fedora raises to see what visitor would stop by this late at night.” –p. vii. He wears his trench coat and fedora while sitting in his office? Well, maybe he’s just returned, exhausted, from a case — appears only in the very brief Foreword and Afterword. Too bad. It would have been nice to get a full story with him.

Rivets tells 13 stories; not cases of his own, but 13 that he’s heard of. Ocean Tigrox has started out with one of the best here; “Muskrat Blues” by Ianus Wolf. It’s specifically a pastiche of The Maltese Falcon, with Mike Harrison, a pig P.I., investigating the murder of his best friend, another P.I. – a muskrat; two prey animals in a grim & gritty city where the prey animals are usually at the bottom of the anthro-animal social pole. But Alex Richards didn’t take any guff, and neither does Harrison. Wolf packs a neat summary of Hammett’s novel (or Warner Bros.’s movie; take your pick) into a taut 25 pages of noir, with enough originality that even if you’re a fan of The Maltese Falcon, you’re not likely to guess whodunit. And enough presence of predator & prey animal traits to make this a satisfying furry story, too.

The “Fixer” (by Watts Martin) is a 43-year-old squirrel who has been “cleaning up” after criminals so the police won’t suspect anything, for the last twenty years. She’s ready to retire, but Jimmy Espinoza, a wolf minor drug lord, insists on hiring her for one last job. His cacomistle wife Marie had been at a wild party the previous night; the mink hostess, drunk, had gone for a nighttime swim and drowned; and Jimmy doesn’t want anyone to know that Marie had been there when it happened. Miss Fixer takes the job only because she and Marie used to be lesbian lovers. Of course, there’s a dark underside to the story involving doublecrosses, murders, and suicide. Martin’s writing is just right for a noir anthology and the plot is clever, although the talking-animal cast could have been humans just as well.

“Danger in the Lumo-Bay” by Mary E. Lowd is a clever futuristic s-f murder mystery, set in what would be a holodeck if this was Star Trek fiction. The defective lumo-bay in a Tri-Galactic Navy ship is being repaired. Captain Pierre Jacques (hairless sphinx cat), Dr. Waverly Keller (Irish setter), and chief engineer Jordan LeGuin (orange tabby cat) test it with a “Murder in the Morning” scenario that casts the male captain and the female doctor as two P.I.s investigating a Maltese Falcon case with lots of dead bodies. Then something goes wrong with the lumo-bay’s program. Who is the killer in “Murder in the Morning”? Are the captain and the doctor really safe? This is a mystery on two levels.

“River City Nights” by Tana Simensis is narrated by Dick – make that Richard; he doesn’t like to be called Dick – Calloway, a tiger cabbie who picks up the wrong fare. The writing is smooth, but the scenario just isn’t convincing. Sorry.

“Every Breath Closer” by Slip Wolf starts off with a grabber of a paragraph:

“I won’t lie and say the ten thousand I’d lost didn’t cross my mind when the police started to process the scene. Mostly, I was just numb as I watched the dead otter’s limbs twisted around themselves on the wet pavement, rain driving at the tarp that kept blowing off her, all the evidence at the scene finding a drain to go down. There was broken glass around Susan Britches’ body and a gaping, jagged grimace in the condo’s glass side, five stories up. I suspected the broken music award by the curb was used to break the window. In that condo, where Susan had paid me my retainer just days ago and begged me to quietly and discreetly find her missing daughter, was an explanation for Susan’s demise.” (p. 95)

Owen Spenhardy, the squirrel stereotypical hard-drinking, trenchcoat-wearing P.I., expects that he’s lost his client. Instead, he is hired by the daughter’s former teacher to continue the search for her. This story has a real reason for the cast to be anthropomorphic animals: you can stuff and mount animals after their deaths, which you can’t do with humans (unless you’re a mad taxidermist as in House of Wax). Doctor Aiden Engelhände, a fox artistic taxidermist, wants to have Bethany found in order to honor his best student by preserving her after her eventual natural death – he says. This is another well-written story that’s not too believable, but with an imaginative plot that’s undoubtedly furry.

“Ghosts” by Solus Lupus, featuring Helen, a cat, and Rosa, a coyote, is very short, very sad, and very memorable. I like it very much.

“A Blacker Dog” by Huskyteer is creepily eerie. Everyone in the world has an invisible companion, a black dog with glowing red eyes; a sort of canine guardian angel – for anime fans, make that a shinigami. Dobermans. Pomeranians. Chows. Chihuahuas. Poodles. Newfoundlands. Nobody can see them, except Jon Mazza, P.I. His black dog is Hunter, “a portly black Labrador in a trench coat and dark glasses”. Mazza is investigating someone who apparently can not only also see the black dogs, but can use his own to kill. Huskyteer enhances the eeriness by keeping it vague and contradictory as to whether either the people or the black dogs are anthropomorphic or not.

“Crimson on Copper” by Tony Greyfox could be an Isaac Asimov story with anthro animal characters. Detective Faraday, a laughing hyena cop (who isn’t laughing), is called to a sales room where three people have been extremely messily slaughtered, apparently by one of the automatons for sale – but automatons are made so they can’t kill. Faraday has to find either why the machine acted murderously against its programming, or who the real killer is – or both. Greyfox enhances the anthro aspect nicely: “I stepped over the blood cautiously, thankful that hyenas don’t have long tails like the fox who was busily trying to blot blood from his tail tip.” (p. 152)

“Vermin’s Vice” by T. S. McNally is interesting in switching back & forth between the two adversarial main characters, a mouse and a rat, for the narration. Unfortunately, both are stilted and not believable:

“I sat down behind the desk and placed my claws before me. ‘We provide a service here, and if I did not provide it, would society’s demand for it vanish? No. They’d go elsewhere to find their drink, their eye-candy, their thrills.’ I picked up one of the glasses of bourbon I had poured and slid my claw around the rim. ‘You see, my quaint little mouse, all creatures have their vices. That is why I founded the Vermin’s Vice.’

After a moment of silence I moved my paw away from the glass. ‘So, I suppose I must ask what vice brings you to the Vice?’

His somber face was unmoved by my pitch as he returned, ‘I don’t have a vice, I’m just here for work.’” (p. 184)

“Scorned” by K. C. Alpinus also has exaggerated and unconvincing writing, but a more interesting situation: Ivory T. Shadows, a super-sexy snow leopard, has been murdered. Preston, a crooked wolf, wants Maltese, a drunken tigress P.I., to find the real killer before the police frame him as an obvious suspect:

“‘Maltese, you’ve got to lay off the hooch, doesn’t sit well with the dames to see you so bent.’

The tigress grunted deep in her throat and turned her head to the side, dismissing Preston without opening her eyes. ‘Fade, shade. You’re making me lose my edge.’

Preston nodded to a scantily dressed waitress and asked for a glass of water. Once placed in his paws, the wolf hurled the icy liquid, thoroughly soaking Maltese.

‘I’m gonna chin ya!’ She yowled, jumping up and furiously shaking the water off her face.

‘Don’t go getting all evil on me.’ He smirked, passing her a napkin to dry herself with.” (p. 199)

“Bullet Tooth Claw” by Marshall L. Moseley, by contrast has a witty and believable style:

“I was at Tavern Law on 12th, the bar at which I spend so much money I get thank-you cards from the bartender’s Mom. It was three in the afternoon, too early for drinking, which is why I’d started at noon. Basset hounds have an advantage that way – we look droopy and have naturally red-rimmed eyes, so we can get away with being in the bag when most dogs can’t.” (p. 223)

Archie Bellclan, an Uplifted basset P.I., investigates when Simon Tanner, his friend, is murdered. “When your human dies, you’re supposed to do something about it.” The investigation is suitably noirish, and the Uplifted animals’ natural abilities are used intelligently. A winner.

“Guardian Angels” by Nicholas Hardin takes place in a funny-animal society controlled by its worst elements. The cops and political leaders are corrupt. The gangs kidnap the children of anyone who stands up to them and forcibly addict them to drugs. Only the Angels combat them; anonymous animals who have escaped them, banded together, and adopted pseudonyms like Sariel (male mink), Raphael (male cobra), Azriel (female wolf), and several others (unidentified) – all Biblical Angels of Destruction. But due to their gang brainwashing, they do not remember their past identities, and they seem to have more than mortal abilities. Have they become super-vigilantes? No matter; in this story, the Angels have become a serious enough menace to the gangs that they unite in hunting them down. The violence escalates explosively, and for once the Angels are on the defensive.

“Brooklyn Blackie and the Unappetizing Menu” by Bill Kieffer is another animal-P.I.-investigates-a-friend’s-death. And 34 other deaths. Everyone in the turtle’s Harlem apartment building is dead. Blackie, a wolf/dog hybrid P.I., is sure that the police are on a false trail and conducts his own investigation. This is another story that makes clever use of the animal natures of its cast. It has my candidate for the best line in the book: “My soul craved justice, but it would take bloodshed instead.”

13 stories. My favorites are “Muskrat Blues”, “Crimson on Copper”, “Bullet Tooth Claw”, and “Brooklyn Blackie”. Many are well-written but depressing; one has a surprise happy ending. A couple are very good; most are reasonably good; I’d only rate a couple as clunkers. The cover by Seylyn is appealing. Overall, Inhuman Acts is worth the cover price for fans of dark detective fiction.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• Buy on Furplanet

In case you have missed Harvey Beaks, it’s an animated TV series on Nickelodeon, created by C.H. Greenblatt (who also created the successful series Chowder). From Wikipedia: “The series focuses on Harvey Beaks, a young, friendly bird, and his two best friends, the rambunctious twins Fee and Foo. Together, the trio seek adventure and mischief in Littlebark Grove, a magical forest that they call home.” Now Papercutz (yea, the home of Geronimo Stilton) have announced the publication of a series of Harvey Beaks full-color graphic novels for young readers. “Harvey has a big head and an even bigger heart, which is why everyone in Bigbark Woods loves him! He may be a rule follower, but after Fee and Foo show him some amazing adventures, this bird might just spread his wings.” The first one, Harvey Beaks: Inside Joke, is available in hardcover and paperback this coming March.

image c. 2016 Papercutz

Hello Everyone!

This week we talk about Integrity. While much of what we say is, again, common sense, it is important to discuss the ethics of the furry community and how we, as a fandom, can be better to each other. Also, we answer the question of what it is like to live in a Pack House. 

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

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 005 Integrity - Ethics, morals, and being a better you