Feed aggregator

<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p>I have to stay in my dorm room all day because the flu so I thought I&#39;d spend the day chating with you guys cuz you always put me in a good mood and make me feel better. </p> <p>If you want to RP I&#39;m ok with that too just send a PM so not to annoy others. Also my English is not great sorry.</p> </div><!-- SC_ON --> submitted by

Yesterday’s extra long post about Zootopia described complicated relationships between fans and marketers, and asked: are they intentionally winking at furries, but keeping it hidden?  According to Fred’s wisdom, the sensitivity is nothing new.  

Dear Patch;

Cartoon Brew’s article described the petition against fan pornography of Disney’s forthcoming Zootopia and the reaction to the subject.

What seems most interesting to me is the apparent assumption that furry fandom (and people in general) are just discovering the pornography of high-profile animated cartoon characters with Zootopia.  Doesn’t anyone remember the furry fan pornography of Warner Bros.’ Tiny Toon Adventures TV series in the early 1990s, with the series’ own emphasis on gags about Buster Bunny’s not wearing any pants? It faded away after the program went off the air. It’s discussed in Reading the Rabbit by Kevin Sandler, an anthology of articles about Warners’ cartoon characters from Rutgers University Press.

I said in a review at the time:

Fans will doubtlessly be most interested in the next-to-last essay, Bill Mikulak’s Fans versus Time Warner: Who Owns Looney Tunes? This cites the Hollywood Reporter’s November 1, 1995 story about Warner Bros.’s discovery on the Internet of fan-drawn pornographic cartoons featuring its characters, and follows it up. The essay is rather one-sided since Time Warner’s legal department had little to say publicly whereas Mikulak downloaded plenty of fannish comments. He also obtained copies of two of Time Warner’s cease-and-desist letters from the fans, and he quotes these to present WB’s official stance. Mikulak notes that the ‘appropriation’ of popular copyrighted characters by their fans for their own non-commercial, and often erotic use has a long tradition (he cites Star Trek fandom), and that WB’s charge that erotic depictions are a ‘perversion of [WB’s] innocent cartoon characters’ is belied by the obviously lusty nature of much of the humor and innuendos basic to such personalities as Pepé le Pew and Minerva Mink, which build upon an established public acceptance of exaggerated cartoon sexual humor going back to Tex Avery’s Red Hot Riding Hood (1943).

In demonstrating his point, Mikulak quotes from numerous fannish Internet open conversations. These require his defining for the academic record of such terms as ‘furvert’, ‘spooge’, ‘anthropomorphics’, ‘furries’, ‘FurryMUCK’ and ‘Drooling Babs Fanboy’. Furry fandom isn’t being discovered by only the sensationalistic tabloid media any more; this book is from Rutgers University Press.

Most of the most daring Internet pornography was by Karri Aronon, who lived in Turku, Finland, and assumed that he was safe from Warner Bros.’ lawyers there. I never heard the outcome of that — whether the lawyers finally shut him down; whether Aronen stopped on his own after he grew up; or whether everyone lost interest in porn of the Tiny Toon characters after WB ended the TV series.  I haven’t heard of Aronen since then.

Anyhow, furry fan pornography of popular animated funny animals certainly predates Zootopia.

Best wishes;

Fred

Illustration from Animal Superheroes, now on Indiegogo

It’s nice to know there are other economies as undervalued as the furry commission scene. I got a “Follow” from a startup company called Backerhack, which offers a really cool product: reviews, feedback, retweets, from Kickstarter “power backers.” Get your campaign reviewed by someone who’s got a lot of experience working with Kickstarter. Love it! Gigs for Kickstarter “experts.” Theoretically Indiegogo’s also on their list, but clearly they’re a distant second.

For future reference, on a platform that’s only run for four years, it’s pretty easy to be an expert :)

There’s a HUGE “buyer beware” thang happening here, of course. Theoretically there’s a review system for the experts, but in practice, the site’s saturated with providers. Most of the featured reviews are scandalously cheap: a good editor’s services in the real world are $25-50/hour, but most of the reviews and such are $5, $10…I listed mine at $65 for three hours, and it looks like that’s the highest pricetag on the platform for that kind of service :( It seems like the number of people that are interested in this service would never meet the demand…

Reviews this week: A quick look at fursona socks with Faux Paws, and a longer look at episode 6 of the “There She Is!!” series. Fun, fun!

  For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page New Projects Art

Animal Superheroes Posters (Ends: 3/11/2016)
Superheros reinterpreted as non-anthro animals. Weird little coffee shop art project.
This one’s got a very slow start, $0 in first 10 days, so probably a nonstarter.

Children’s Product

The Adventures of Sir Winston (Ends: 1/26/2016)
Two scotty dogs travel through time in space in this supercute kiddy book

My Bad Bad Dog (Ends: 2/9/2016)
Cute line-art children’s book about a very bad dog.

Clothing/Costumes

Faux Paws (Ends: 2/2/2016)
Cute abstractly animal-patterned socks to match your fox, wolf, or kitty alt-self!

LED Fursuit Accessories (Ends: 2/16/2016)
A small collection of LED harnesses and colors with a remote control.
May be an over-saturated market for this project? Not a lot of support.

Shirts are the Art We Walk In (Ends: 2/21/2016)
A beautiful nerdy lion tee, but with very little support looks like a nonstarter :(

Film/Animation

There She Is!! #6 (Ends: 2/11/2016)
Since 2003, this cat and rabbit have been making slow progress toward marriage equality. A fun anime-ish music video series. DVD coming soon!
I did NOT know they were up to episode 5.

…Causes

Ezoo: Tech Zoos Without Captivity (Ends: 2/9/2016): An impressive multimedia alternative to zoos, “cleverly” disguized as a so-so plushy kickstarter

…Coming soon?

Fur Vs Scale (Not Yet Launched): An anthro mammals vs reptiles fighting card game, going to Kickstarter February 16. Art by Tylthul.

Faux Paws
On Kickstarter through 02/02/16

Just a little callout for a cute project! Rick Hamilton has run at least one other Kickstarter that was cute and on topic for this blog: his cutiemark socks. “Faux Paws” are his latest project, cute little fursona-styled half-calf stockings. Each one has animal patterns up and down their length, in most cases a stylized color gradient resembling the paws of a wolf, fox, or cougar (these are, respectively, the paws of Walker, Fiona, and Chloe). Presumably they’ll want their paws back someday.

Oh, wait, update: Stretch goal #1, Derek the Drake, unlocked! Dragon-socks. With a stretch goal at every $1000, there’s an excellent chance that one of a dozen or so stretch species will make the cut and receive the ultimate immortality of being made into socks. On the shortlist, red and blue birds, pink kittens and puppies, bears (panda, polar, brown), bunnies, a few different dragons, and horses.

I don’t have a lot to say about this one, because it’s hard to write 200+ words about socks. Check ’em out! The kickstarter’s past goal and unlocking stretch goals already!

Follow @furstarter on twitter for the latest fur-friendly crowdfunding projects!

 

 

<!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p>Hello my fluffy, feathery(that&#39;s you Areler!), scaley and furry freinds! Today&#39;s conversation starter:</p> <blockquote> <p>&quot;What?! You never told ME!&quot;</p> </blockquote> </div><!-- SC_ON --> submitted by

Margaret Trauth is an illustrator (and dancer, of all things!) with a stark, often line-less style that relies heavily on color. (This is not at all a bad thing.) At her web site (“Egypt Urnash”) you’ll find not only examples of her illustrations (on prints, t-shirts, and other such goodies) but also full-color comics that she has worked on, including the adults-only title Five Glasses of Absinthe. Some of this is adults-only, some of it is not, but all of it is quite fanciful.

image c. 2016 by Margaret Trauth