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I'm terrible at introductions, but I felt the need to post this because of how much finding this subreddit has changed my mind about things, and somehow the idea of telling my story with the furry fandom seemed like a good idea. I honestly never thought I'd join a community like this, because every time I've tried I end up with fake friends and a cringe-fest on my hands, but then I found this place. What makes this special? Onto the story, skip to the TL;DR if you're not interested.

I've always been big into roleplaying and other creative and imaginative interests. I remember getting into Dungeons and Dragons but never having anyone to play it with, so I'd be stuck playing games on an old laptop. For reference, I'm 17 (and a half) now, and this was about 9 years ago that I got my hands on some D&D books.

Since I never had anyone to play the tabletop games with, it wasn't for another two years when I joined a MMO that had some forums with a roleplay section that I got to actually do any. My first ever roleplay was a dragon thing that was quite stupid thinking back on it, but I didn't think so at the time. I always identified more with non-human characters in movies or other media, probably just because there was more variety. I even fit into the cliche with the Robin Hood movie being one of my favorite childhood movies.

I never knew anything about a furry fandom until early 2010, two years after I started roleplaying, and when I heard about it, I didn't really think it was that strange. I was introduced to it by a few furries who seemed like pretty ordinary people and they showed me some SFW art and suggested we could roleplay it. We were on some forum run by some of these peoples' friends, so I felt safe. I was getting into gaming around this time and knew about Star Fox and Sonic the Hedgehog and those sort of things, so I didn't think it would be any different.

Well, then a little 'N' creeped in front of that SFW they were giving me, and things went south pretty quickly. I didn't really mind until their fetishes started coming up, then I started protesting. We sort of made some compromises and continued, and eventually moved to a site that I made, around June 2010.

They invited some of their other friends and we would all roleplay together, but they seemed to constantly want to push for more and more sexual things while I wanted to go for more story focused things, and this led to a lot of fighting. Since I was never introduced to any furry sites or anything, I just assumed that this was normal for furries and I just got used to it. I was definitely interested in the furry art style and in the variety it brings to character design, but I wasn't into the fetish art they kept trying to show me.

July 2012, everything ended when they decided to 'punish' me for not doing what they wanted. I had gotten into My Little Pony around this time, so I basically decided furries were evil and 'converted' to being a brony. I never lost my interest in furry stuff, I just decided to stay away from it. I joined a brony site, where I met someone there who was interested in roleplaying. We were good friends for a while, and about eight months into the friendship, furries were brought up in a conversation and I mentioned I had interest in them. Turns out he liked them too, so we started roleplaying that.

Now, we had always done NSFW roleplaying, but without as much forcing on fetishes onto me. He still tried to bring in things I didn't like, but I got used to it. The problems didn't turn up until November 2013 when he starts acting weird and outright putting things into the roleplays that I told him I didn't like beforehand. Just a couple days before Christmas I cut all communication with him after an argument, and nearly had a nervous breakdown.

With my parents starting to file for divorce not even a month later, and faced with the pressure of anxiety that had just been getting worse over the years, I needed the escapism of roleplay more than ever. I went around places like Tumblr and Livejournal and other forums, even going to SoFurry at one point, looking for people to roleplay with. To talk to. Anything. I couldn't cope with things without roleplay.

You'd think I'd just scratched the dandruff out of a yeti, because everywhere I'd look there were nothing but flakes. People I'd talk to would just disappear after a few days, or block me on Skype, or do anything to stay away from me. I felt useless, and I felt like an outsider. I didn't want normal roleplay, but I didn't want to be around furries, because all the people who hurt me were furries. And furries were the emotionally unstable freaks who make people eat diapers.

Fast forward to the next December, and I'm even more desperate. I hadn't made any friends who lasted over a few weeks, and all my time was spent feeling sorry for myself or playing video games alone. At one point, I briefly consider suicide, just for a moment. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The exact next moment, I told myself that that's the last time I'll ever think something like that. I told myself there's too much potential in me to waste like that, and that if I don't believe it, then I'll just have to prove it to myself.

It's been half a year since then, and I've been doing better progressively each month. I've figured out a lot of things about what I want to do in the future and how I can make that stuff a reality. I want to use my creativity to design video games hopefully in the future, and I want to make a Youtube channel as something that I can start right now. I have zero artistic talent other than photo manipulation and basic sound design, but that's not going to stop me.

Due to my interest in furries never having left me, and just being intensified due to my loneliness and absence from roleplaying, I decided that my video games would be have a cast entirely made of furry characters, and my Youtube channel would star myself in furry form. That's what initially led me to search this subreddit, because ordinarily, I never would have.

I was expecting a cringe-train, due to my previous experiences. I was also expecting to have to make an alternate account just to join here and talk about my channel and anything else furry related, but the first thing I saw when I searched 'furry' in Reddit was an unpopular opinions thread from six months ago, and I agreed with a lot of the points raised there. I was blown away by the fact there was rational discussions taking place.

I've been looking at this subreddit since earlier today, and I'm just amazed by the fact that there's people here who actually seem pleasant to be around. I decided that I wouldn't need to make an alternate account, because I'm not ashamed to be a part of this community.

TL;DR: I've always liked roleplaying. Got introduced into the fandom that way. Creepy furries gave me a bad impression of the fandom by forcing me to do creepy sex roleplaying. Later, found this subreddit, found out the creepy people don't represent the whole fandom. Yay.

End of story-time.

So, now for a bit about me... My fursona's a black raven named Zach, which is also my real name, since my fursona is exactly the same as myself just in furry form, and for that same reason he's bisexual.

I never really had a fursona before I came up with the idea for a Youtube channel, because I was never interested in roleplaying with them (I like making new characters for everything, because making characters is more fun than sticking with the same ones) and that was the only way I used to think of the fandom.

I know this is a huge post and it's my first post out here, and I'm not very familiar with the fandom outside browsing artwork of all types and talking with some of the less desirables of the fandom, but I hope it was maybe something positive for someone who needed to hear a story with a positive ending.

As I mentioned in my story, I don't have any friends, so if anybody out there is willing to put up with somebody who is an expert at making Reddit posts so long no one will read them, then I'd love to make some new friends. The best place to talk to me is on Skype, either just text or anything. I'll give out my username if you just PM me.

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And by we, I mean my buddy /u/MonoDragon and I! Today, we both graduated High school. Its been a long, tough ride, with all its ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade my experience with it for the world. I've done a lot of fantastic things during High school, built robots, made High-honors, changed my view on life and my personal beliefs about it, and received a ton of praise from my instructors for my work.

That's all well and good, but I think one thing worth mentioning is becoming a part of this community. While I've only been here for about 8 months now, I think I owe it to a lot of you for the support, and widened social spectrum I've gained just by being here. There are a lot of people I'd like to thank, my parents and instructors especially, but I couldn't call it a proper thank you without mentioning you. So, thank you, friends and acquaintances ;3!

I'm free now. Free, just like Ringgar always was is at heart. I'll be attending the University of Hartford in the fall and spring for the next four years to work on an Electrical Engineering degree. But what I also hope to do, is continue to make people around me smile, online, and in real life. They really deserve it. I look forward to an exciting and fulfilling lifetime, one that I would love to experience more than once if I could. I'm sure Mono would feel the same way.

So, here's to you, friends, friends yet to be, and fellow graduates of 2015. May our futures be bright, and may each and every one of us reach the happiness and serenity we all seek.

TL;DR Congrats Class of 2015!!

P.S: Found out there was a furry undercover at my school this whole time. What do ya' know!

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Feeling a little sketchy and a little rusty at the same time. Need some inspiration and gotta get drawing! So yep. Post them refs here, I'll pick a few to do some sketches :3
http://dogspots.deviantart.com/
*Oooooo, this blew up. I'll do what I can!

**Righto, think I'm done for a bit. May come back and do a few later, so feel free to post.
These are the ones I got:
http://imgur.com/a/OpGku

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Already an exciting year for comics, July is poised to be even more so as Emma Rios and Brandon Graham put on their curator hats for a brand new collaborative project for Image. Launching the sci-fi fantasy series 8house, Graham alongside Emma Rios will be bringing together a diverse range of artists, writers, and illustrators for their new anthology project, Island. At over a hundred pages an issue, and printed in an oversized European format, the new “comics magazine for comics” will feature a unique mixture comics work, illustrations, prose and fashion spreads.

Farrel Dalrymple

Graham has always displayed a fascinating mix of influences in his own comics from graffiti art, porn comics, and both European and Japanese styles, it’s fitting to see this approach applied to an entire anthology. Promising to be a ‘stack of comics within a comic’, it’s one of those rare projects, with a real sense of “something for everyone” about it. A generous grab-bag of ideas and concepts from, among others, Gael Bertrand, Lando, Amy Clare, Michael DeForge, Kate Craig, alongside Ludroe, Jose Domingo, Johnnie Christmas, Fil Barlow, Simon Roy, E.K. Weaver, Lin Visel, also with Malachi Ward, Matt Sheean, Will Kirkby, Helen Mair, Marian Churchland (whose work will be a part of the aforementioned 8house arclight) and previous collaborator Farel Dalrymple whose work has featured in the revived Image title Prophet. With such a large pool of creators involved it’s almost guaranteed to do just that as well as introducing fresh and interesting talent to even the most well-read comics fan.

Even from such a wide range of creators, with my particular interest in all things anthropomorphic I’m personally looking forward to seeing the story that Onta, known predominantly for his adult work within the furry fandom, has contributed to the series sixth issue. Having been a fan of Onta’s work for many years I’m eager to see his work being introduced to a wider audience. His art style is cute, sexy and strikingly playful and I anticipate his more cheeky and tender adult work will fit in perfectly with the likes of Graham’s Multiple Warheads work.

Emma Rios

Among some of the other highlights on offer is Graham himself in the much anticipated return to the world of Multiple Warheads, after a few years absence. This time in colour, it will once again feature the exploits of Sexica and her werewolf partner, Nikoli as they forge ever onwards into their strange world. Having been inspired by his work on Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time, Graham promises to delve even deeper into the pairs’ surroundings and explore the world beyond the viewpoints of the two central characters. Fellow curator Emma Rios, already a fan favourite from her ground breaking work on Kelly Sue DeConnik’s “Pretty Deadly” (also featured, contributing a prose piece no less!) is another story, that has piqued my interest. Featuring aspects of transhumanism and exploring the themes of identity and body image, ID is set around a group of individuals undergoing full body transplants and from the artwork previewed it looks gorgeous.

I managed to rope Brandon Graham into talking to Bleeding Cool about this special new project.

Emma Rios

Jason Karlson: Where there any creators or artists you had in mind right from the start when envisioning this project and starting to bring it together?

Brandon Graham: Yeah, certainly. One of the ways I stay excited about comics is digging around to find artists whose work excites me. On the book Prophet, I had a lot of fun digging up artists to present their work in the back. This feels like a much larger scale version of that.

There’s a lot of people making comics whose work I’m amazed by and just want to show other people- look at this amazing comic! There’s a couple creators in Island whose stuff I’ve followed for years but who haven’t really done much in Print. Like Lin Visel, whose online work is some of my favourite stuff, Effort comics and her Adult work on Slipshine.

JK: Will there be returning creators between issues?

BG: Yeah, I think that’s important. The idea is for every issue to have at least one returning story and one new story. So there’s both a reason to catch up on the next chapter of something and get something entirely new.

JK: What do you see as the risks in bringing together artists and writers so different from each other in the current marketplace?

BG: A big part of the creators whose work I’m putting in the book is that they gel together, there’s a feeling I’m aiming for. I feel like readers who like what I do or what Emma Rios or Farel Dalrymple do will like the other work in the book.

We’re even got work that influenced what I do into it. I managed to get a series from 1986 called Zooniverse that I first read when I was a kid. Fil Barlow, who made it is fixing up the pages for a new edition to run in Island. It’s one of my favourite comics ever made and a think it’ll be new to a vast majority of comic readers. As far as the current marketplace. I get this feeling that readers now are up for anything. Especially at Image. I keep joking that if I’m gonna try something stupid that right now at Image is the best place and time to do it.

Brandon Graham

JK: What drew you to the anthology format? They seem to be having somewhat of a renascence on kickstarter, but do you feel there is a lack of them on the shelves otherwise?

BG: It sounds dumb, but a lot of it for me is not thinking of it as an anthology. That invokes the idea of a bunch of 5 page stories, and that’s cool, but I want this to read more like a reader is getting a stack of full comics that are under one cover.

JK: Do you think anthologies like this play and important part in introducing readers to new creators, themes and artists they wouldn’t have previously known about or considered?

BG: Oh yeah, I think that’s a big part of my job here, to dig up interesting creators and see what they have to say. My high hopes are that it will help in the conversation about where comics can go. In the first issue I started a series of comics talking about how I think about comic storytelling. I like thinking about what you can do past basic storytelling. Also I’m really interested in seeing what happens when an Image book publishes a guy like Michael Deforge whose work is huge in the indie scene might not be known by a lot of Image readers.

JK: Island is billed as a mix of comics, illustrations and text pieces, do you think there is too much of a divide between the three, or an issue of what people commonly accept as “comics”.

BG: I think a lot of the divide might be the intent of the creators. I like the idea of letting some things not be comics. Not every great illustrator is going to do great panel to panel, and that’s ok. I still wanna see what they can do.There’s still storytelling in that. So far almost everything we’ve got in Island is made by a single creator. So when we bring in writers who don’t draw– like Kelly Sue in #1. I like seeing their prose work where there’s none of it being passed through another creator drawing it.

JK: You’re including the work of Onta, a furry artist whose work I love by the way, did it worry you at all about people’s possible knee-jerk reaction to “furry”? What drew you in particular to his work and are there any others you’d like to include in future issues of Islands?

BG: I’ve joked with Onta about how he’s done most of his work not only in furry comics but a lot of it gay furry porn, he’s not trying to get a job on X-men.

I think there’s a huge value in that. He’s doing the work about he’s most excited about -I have faith that readers will connect with that honestly and past that he’s just an amazing storyteller and illustrator. Yeah, there’s a lot of great work being done in that scene that you don’t often see on comic shelves.

Simon Low

JK: You’ve spoken previously about issues opening with pages of illustrations and about creators “doing what they like”, do you think too many comics are too rigid or structured in terms of themes and art currently?

BG: I think it’s a pretty great time for comics here in North America. That said, I think things could always be pushed farther or in different directions. I think a lot of great publishers and creators are moving in cool new directions. I love seeing what Image and Koyama and Nobrow and the like are putting out. It’s a vast art form with vast potential.

JK: What are you your feelings about returning to the world of multiple warheads after a few years of being away from it?

BG: Warheads is weird for me in that it started as a porn comic a million years ago. Returning to it feels like a way of rethinking how I feel about where I’m at with my work now as opposed to where I was when I started it. I got to work on the cartoon Adventure time this year (I co-wrote/boarded Jermaine with Jesse Moynihan), and it got me thinking differently about storytelling. They do a cool trick in that series where they often go off the main story to build on the outside world. I like the idea of allowing myself that same freedom in Warheads. But yeah, I also have a lot of other comics I wanna make for Island. Much to do.

There's something that's been bothering me for a few days now, and I was hoping some of you would listen.

So, I've been thinking. I knew next to nothing about my used-to-be best friend. I knew he liked Pokemon, dinosaurs, video games. That's about the extent of my knowledge of his interests. The other day I looked him up on Facebook and discovered that he's in college to be a physicist. Never would've guessed.

It's sort of the same story for the rest of the people I've called friends. I only knew them in school, only knew what they liked because of classes they were in or things I was told during lunch.

And to top it all off, the people I know the most about, I'll probably never meet in my lifetime. Youtubers, Redditors, gaming friends. All through the internet, and all too distant or famous.

I don't know a thing more than surface-level knowledge of the friends I've had, and the people nearest to my heart I'll never truly know. So make of my rant what you will, I just had to get it out of my system.

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