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Illustration from “CatTube Famous,” card game now on Kickstarter.

Warning, this ramble is focused on adult content, so consider avoiding the links depending on your context.

One of my focuses for the last year has been crowdfunding for projects that fall outside the Terms of Service. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing “real” written about crowdfunding for the vague spaces containing suggestive content, artistic nudes, non-adult with nudity, pornography depicting imaginary characters in imaginary acts, pornography depicting real individuals and real acts, and content that claims it’s more ethically sustainable than Big Porn (I believe this is POSSIBLE, but 1) the concept contains a world of moral judgments about pornography and exploitation that I don’t want to unpack, and 2) crowdfunding platforms contain and support user-created projects, and you can’t control that kind of material.) Instead, there are vague Terms of Service, or TOS that are never enforced, or are suddenly enforced halfway through a campaign.

So, one has to rely on precedent—see what’s been acceptable before, and what kind of light that sheds on the practice behind the policies at Kickstarter and Indiegogo. About six months ago I wrote an article on crowdfunding for adult projects, and while I’ve been updating it regularly, these are, like I said, recent and useful examples, worth pointing out.

• 3/2015: Soft Paws AB/DL Adult Diaper 
  A babyfur-themed adult diaper for ageplay. This one’s funding was cut two or three weeks into the campaign, but from what I’ve heard, the project manager did go through the steps of asking Kickstarter to review the project. It was still pulled. More than anything else, this underlines the fact that “offensive” is purely in the eyes of the audience, as this project has no actual sexual content and does not break kickstarter’s rules (https://www.kickstarter.com/rules/prohibited) – except, possibly, in that broad category of “offensive material”—which Kickstarter only realized after three weeks of fundraising.

• (Ongoing and currently funding) The Naked Pixel series 
  Gender discrimination creates so many subtle double standards. Take the concept of “art nude.” Personally, I feel that many of the pieces in the “Naked Pixel” collection cross the line from artistic nudity to soft core porn (particularly the artist’s “Jordanlehn” and “Mewes” collections. But in general, female nudity tends to be more safe, more likely to be classified as “artistic,” than male nudity (partly this is because the Patriarchy likes a good excuse to look at naked girls, partly because the difference between male artistic nudity and pornography has something of a binary component. If it points down, it’s probably artistic.) Which is why I think the next project is something of a game-changer, but Naked Pixel does show the generous space that artistic nude can occupy for the female form in Crowdfundingland.

• (Currently funding) 700,000 windows into History: The Bob Mizer Estate
  Bob Mizer’s name turns up in many discussions on censorship and obscenity. And discussions of male photography. He pioneered the field of posing-pouch photography, and sometimes even got rid of the pouch. His is a proud name in the evolution of beefcake, and to the best of my knowledge, 700,000 Windows is the first Kickstarter project that displays full frontal male nudity and still seems to be within what Kickstarter deems “artistic nudes.” The work has historical context, and it’s playful instead of erotic, although “erotic” is in the eye of the beholder. In the history of gay culture, a lot of homo-friendly imagery rests uneasily on the marble pillar of sports photography or hides itself in camp—when photographing or looking at nekked guys was deemed inappropriate by culture, the trick was to find ways of creating and consuming imagery that were appropriately cultural. It’s an interesting line, and Daniel Harris’s “Rise and Fall of Gay Culture”  informs a lot of my opinions here.

• 6/2015: SNAPSHOT
  This queer erotic thriller is unambiguously pornographic, at least in places, though it has a lot of plot inspired by Hitchcock. Waffling a bit on the terminology, director/creator Shine Louise Houston alternately calls this piece sex-positive pornography and “a love story that doesn’t shy away from portraying explicit sexuality.” In marketing, messaging is all about trying to have your cake and sell it too, so more power to her. In a recent long dialog with sex-positive maker and roboticist (!) Dr Kit Stubbs, Kit points out that the Indiegogo Terms of Use do actually have a restriction that I missed: “Do not post images or videos that are sexually explicit or post links to sites that contain sexually explicit material or show people or animals being hurt or degraded.” With almost 400 donors, SNAPSHOT might have been high enough in terms of publicity to get the kind of attention that would cause Indiegogo to need to enforce—or even read—its TOS, and the project creator communicated with Indiegogo—they live in the same town—to make sure the project fit within their framework, and didn’t link directly to explicit content. So, we have a clarification here to our understanding of Indiegogo’s rules: Make sure that you don’t link directly to sexually explicit imagery. Got it! Keep those splash pages…uh…landing pages…clean.

Most of this long ramble was inspired by my conversation with Kit, who is theirselves working on an exciting concept: a non-profit crowdfunding enterprise with a sex-positive philosophy. This concept is linked to her Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity, and you can read more about it on Kit’s Tumblr. I was very flattered that my own work on adult crowdfunding became a part of their presentation materials, and it sounds like I’ll be able to collaborate more with Kit on their project.

At any rate, “meeting” Dr Stubbs was a treat, and if you’re interested in this intersection, check out their work!

Reviews this week: “Furries in Space” tabletop RPG HC SVNT DRACONES expands their universe with their first supplement, and a gentle point-and-click game of exploration and foxes, “Foxtail.”

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

Gamera Vs Zine-Ra (Ends: 8/26/2015)
For the Kaiju fans, a 50th anniversary celebration of fan art and indie comic weirdness from the world of Gamera.

Children’s Product

Mission to Cataria (Ends: 9/3/2015)
Strange and almost collage-like sci-fi cat journey into space children’s book. If nothing else, skim the project page for the illustrations.

Comics/Graphic Novels

Rescue Cats #1 (Ends: 8/28/2015)
An action/superhero comic, but instead of crime-fighting costumed humans, the heros are empowered, non-anthro, cats. Hmm.

The Samurnauts: Curse of the Dreadnuts (Ends: 8/31/2015)
Quirky sci-fi fantasy martial arts monkey comic. You know, I can’t do this one justice, but you can get an idea of the plot on their web store.
“Monkey King” inspired comics are weirdly common on Kickstarter. Is this a Thing or just a thing?

Red Fox #2: Destiny’s Chewtoy (Ends: 8/31/2015)
This is *almost* a comic book version of UK furry puppet hit Mongrels. Grunge fox, offensive humor, yep :)

Nip and Tuck Redux (Ends: 9/1/2015)
Colorizing the Nip and Tuck webcomic.
This one falls into the “If you want to do this, just do it, don’t Kickstart it” bin for me.

The Pelted Universe (Ends: 9/18/2015)
Fundraising for MCA Hogarth‘s Pelted Alliance universe. This Kickstarter was almost entirely a low-goal “your character here” project and the goodies are mostly snapped up. Good product though!
Met the artist at Anthrocon and fell in love. She ran the “Business for Artists” panel and owns the furry/biz intersection. #bizcrush

Costumes/Clothes/Accessories

Buddy: The Dog Collar Reimagined (Ends: 9/2/2015)
I know it’s for dogs, but I WANT this collar! It’s black and sleek with an awesome color-shifting glowing rim.
Also my mate can track me on GoogleMaps and figure out where I am and how much exercise I’m getting during Furry Fiesta. So I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

Events

Weston Super Sonic 2016 (Ends: 8/29/2015)
A United Kingdom Sonic the Hedgehog convention in its third year, January 2016.
Past its somewhat low goal.

Film/Animation/Theater

Zipped and Pelted (Ends: 8/23/2015)
The Wulfden Theatre‘s absurdist take on the chlorine gas attack at Midwest Furfest and its aftermath, a play exploring identity, our relationship to animals, and other concepts the furry community does a good job of unpacking.
I have a lot of questions about this one and would like to unpack it in an article, but I don’t have a lot to go on yet. Digging for more information!

Pokémon: The Movie (Ends: 8/31/2015)
A gently tongue-in-cheek live-action British short film about Ash Ketchum, all grown up.
Is this the Sean of the Dead of the Pokémon world? THEY didn’t say it, but…Check out one of their videos.

Tabletop Games

Hc Svnt Dracones Extended (Ends: 8/26/2015)
More from the heavily-illustrated and intricate furry sci-fi game HC SVNT DRACONES, an expansion to the universe and core rules.
Way past goal! If you want to learn more about HSD check my article on their last successful kickstarter.

Kittens Mafia (Ends: 8/28/2015)
If you like Werewolf but don’t like slobbery canines, maybe this cats-only party game is for you!

CatTube Famous (Ends: 9/3/2015)
A card game about blasting out the most popular cat videos on CatTube. Great illustrations!

Ponyfinder: Forgotten Path (Ends: 9/4/2015)
Arcane lore and adventure from the dusty past of Everglow, the My Little Pony-inspired Pathfinder RPG setting.
Over goal! You know, I would never have guessed that the intersection of Dungeons and Dragons and Ponies would be this robust. This is probably why I’ve never been able to win the stock market.

Werewolf Tokens (Ends: 9/8/2015)
High quality, carved wooden tokens for your next game of Werewolf.

ROAN: Pony pulp adventure (Ends: 9/8/2015)
A tabletop rpg set in the pulp 40s, with ponies going to war and exploring strange mayan ruins.
If there isn’t an opportunity to fight against blond, blue-eyed ponies wearing Nightmare Moon’s cutiemark on a black armband, this product is seriously missing a beat. More info at RoanRPG.com.

Daemon (Ends: 9/14/2015)
Tabletop RPG v-e-r-y inspired by the “humans with externalized animal souls” ideas of Golden Compass. But with a dark and artistic Euro-Steampunk aesthetic.
I’m torn. This is a good idea and the pages look wonderful, but the language of the project page is quite strange.

Toys

Big Game Cat Toys (Ends: 8/26/2015)
Horrifying but cute toys for cats and cat owners. Antelope, but after the lion got to them.
Is there any point to seperating pet toys and human toys in this fandom?

Adult

Beasts, Wings and Warriors (Ends: 9/13/2015)
Male nude photography with a generous serving of costuming and make-up effects, including a faun and griffin.
Dings against this project: It’s quite pricy, with a calendar at $90 and book at $260. And I can’t tell where it is on the vague continuum of cosplay/art-nude/smut, it seems to trend towards cosplay more than the other two categories, but it’d be good to know.

…Just for fun

Star-Crossed (Ends: 8/25/2015): A sweet animated film about two strange and abstract alien scientists who look for the stars and find love. Pretty stuff.
Oni: A Card Game (Ends: 8/27/2015): A light, chaotic game about Japanese trickster spirits. Fun and cute.
Sparking Unicorn Poop (Ends: 8/31/2015): As a community, I think a glittering rainbow unicorn poop is very much in line with our sense of humor.

…Meh

Arthur Abridged (Ends: 8/30/2015): A trimmed and revoiced, adult humor version of the PBS children’s show Arthur. What surprises me is that “copyright law coming down on us like a ton of bricks” isn’t listed as a risk. I know Fair Use and this really isn’t it.
The Space Safarians (Ends: 9/2/2015): Sci-fi furry comic series not likely coming to a comic convention near you. If there was a furry kickstarter drinking game, I would be so drunk after the video.
Bucky O’Hare Reboot (Ends: 9/6/2015): This is very on-topic, so I couldn’t NOT mention it, but this reboot of the Bucky O’Hare sci-fi rabbit series and world is a $50K project with no reference to intellectual property, and possibly the worst project video in the history of project videos.

 What’s Corbeau Backing This Week?
While I’m really tempted to back the rainbow “Buddy” dog collar, I don’t think I’d get around to using it as a rave accessory at the next furry dance. Super-cute though. I did back the DRACONES supplement—I missed the first campaign, so glad I could support this one on their next go-around!

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I just finished reading Original Life and Better days, I was hoping one of you fuzzbutts could point me in the direction of a similar comic, especially anything that occasionally brings up some more serious topics. (I've already read Zoophobia)

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Hi everybody, and welcome to episode 90 of Furballd.  This episode we talk about… things… and stuff.  Honestly we were all very tired when we recorded this one and can’t really remember what we rambled on about.  But we do remember getting some cool emails from awesome listeners, and Killick talked about being a guest on the All Random All Podcast.

Also, you still have time to win a DVD of Krull.  All you need to do is send an email, or contact us on social media, and tell us what movie you’d like us to talk about next time.

Bye for now, but not forever.

The All Random All Podcast Youtube video on the furry fandom, with Killick as a guest.  Alternatively, you can listen to the pure audio version of the show on Stitcher.

 

Episode 90: Swing When You’re Sleepy - Hi everybody, and welcome to episode 90 of Furballd.  This episode we talk about... things... and stuff.  Honestly we were all very tired when we recorded this one and can't really remember what we rambled on about.

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We're back! We talk recent events, RVs, the GOP debate, Vegas, gay hairdresser powers, and more! Come see us at IFC! ep. 109 - Cosbypolitan - We're back! We talk recent events, RVs, the GOP debate, Vegas, gay hairdresser powers, and more!...

We're back! We talk recent events, RVs, the GOP debate, Vegas, gay hairdresser powers, and more! Come see us at IFC! ep. 109 - Cosbypolitan - We're back! We talk recent events, RVs, the GOP debate, Vegas, gay hairdresser powers, and more!...

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