Jäger won last year's Fracas

Nominations for the Fandom's Favorite Fursuit Fracas have closed, with 326 fursuit characters proposed for the 2009 event - an 11% increase over 2008.^[1] Voting for the knockout tournament will begin once all nominees have been contacted for their permission.^[2]

Last year's event ended with a landslide victory by Nevermint's Jäger from One Fur All Studios, who attracted 319 votes in the last round to Greifer's 195 (Tilt Longtail/Jax). In 2007 — the first year in which the tournament was held — Frazzle (Rose Quoll/self-made) beat Sophie Cabra (MixedCandy) in a close 135-122 final.

Many now turn to full-time costume makers for their suits, with professional mascot builders MixedCandy and Arend Studios each responsible for twice the entries of any other individual builder.^[3] Still, the top five account for less than 40% of the total, and just over half the nominees were created by builders outside the top ten.

The logo for RBW 2009: "Good Vibrations"

RBW, the London-based furry convention famed for it's Thames boat party, has opened registration for the 2009 event.

Themed Good Vibrations, this year's convention takes us back nearly fifty years to the time of the 1960's for a "Rather Brilliant Weekend".

Registration prices have risen, with the lowest-priced ticket now costing £100, due to financial issues in the 2008 convention.

The Chained Wolf at work. Drawn by Runhurd.

For most of us, the furry fandom is something of a passtime. Sometimes, there might be some form of spiritual connection. But sometimes you can take it too far.

This was first brought to my attention by Ironwolf85, who chatted to me on FA, after reading some of the early chapters from my current book project, The Chained Wolf Presents: The History of Humanity – A Somewhat Mildly Amusing Guide to a Now Extinct Species – a full draft of which has been finished (quick plug there).

He sent me a message in which he included the following passage:

The furries you see in the furry community are usually just humans in a different skin, they press their desires, wants, and needs into the artistic creation because they feel the furry can do what they cannot. It is not so much that they are animals with human intelligence as humans in an animal’s skin.