Monday, July 27 marks the 80th anniversary of the theatrical release of the animated short film "A Wild Hare", part of the Merry Melodies series of shorts produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions for the Warner Bros. film studio, which featured the debut of an at the time unnamed lapine (called a "wabbit" by his rhotacism afflicted co-star) who would soon be known as Bugs Bunny. This character would become somewhat popular over the last eight decades.

To celebrate the world's most famous bunny's birthday, the United States Postal Service has released a set of ten stamps featuring Bugs Bunny in multiple outfits he's worn in his over 168 starring roles in the original Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies 1930-1969 run; and that's not counting cameos there and starring roles in cartoons outside that run. Featured outfits include his barber's outfit from "Rabbit of Seville", his Tea-Totaller team uniform from "Baseball Bugs", his basketball team jersey for the Tune Squad from the movie Space Jam, and, in one of two featured drag get-ups, his disguise from often-cited-as-best-cartoon-EVER "What's Opera, Doc?". Ironically not featured is his standard outfit of au naturel except a pair of white gloves; disappointingly, neither is his fox fursuit from "Foxy by Proxy" .

Being a con's programming director may sound easy on paper. You take a bunch of panel submissions, and assign them to rooms. However, there are a bunch of logistics involved. Like the conflicting interests of the panelists, who want to attend other events themselves, or making sure there are no schedule overlaps by knowing which rooms are available, and when.

And now to that list of concerns we can add: Making sure that inviting a particular headliner won't cause interpersonal issues with other performing talent who'll be attending.

IndyFurCon, a furry convention that takes place in Indianapolis with a Hawaiian theme this year, found itself in the midst of a gnarly programming snafu last week when it began to announce its guests for this year's gathering.

In order to celebrate their tenth anniversary, there was a decision to try and bring back the special guests they'd honored in all their prior years of operation. Things have changed in that decade though, and one of the returning alumni, 2 Gryphon, was seen as being too controversial. This led not only to Internet outrage, but other performers to back out of their planned attendance.

"Augmented reality" mobile game and worldwide phenomenon Pokémon Go was released to the public July 6, 2016, meaning the game has just passed its first year anniversary. To celebrate, the game has released versions of series mascot Pikachu wearing a hat based on anime protagonist Ash Ketchum's into the wild (Ash hat versions of pre-evolved Pichu and evolution Raichu are also available).

The anniversary event featuring the hat-bedecked Pikachus is expected to run through July 24, and also features an "Anniversary Box" in the game shop, which six Incubators (allowing players to hatch eggs), six Max Revives (items that heal Pokémon "fainted" during the Gym battle portion of the game), 20 Ultra Balls (needed to capture Pokémon) and two Raid Passes (allowing players to participate in Raids). The box is 1200 Pokécoins (currency that can be bought for real money or earned by battling at gyms).

The final days of the event coincide with the first days of Pokemon Go Fest, an event scheduled to be held in Chicago, Illinois, USA's Grant Park starting July 22. According to the event website, attendance is already sold out.

At the time of release, the game, which allowed players to track down and capture Pokémon "in real life" using smart phones, was a major hit, though opinions were divided as to whether it was the best thing (outside of Zootopia) to happen in 2016 or just another strike against the year. At one point, U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton encouraged voters to "Pokémon Go to the polls"; she was not elected president. Players searching for elusive Pokémon managed to stumble across bodies so frequently that articles were written assuring people stumbling across dead bodies is normal.

Despite all this, Nintendo and Niantic have claimed over 750 million downloads of the game, with over 250 billion Pokémon caught, all over the world.

Photo credit Huskyteer via Twitter.

For 22 years, more than 5000 pages, and now 200 issues, Gold Digger has been written, drawn, colored, and lettered by one person: Fred Perry. Now Antarctic Press is celebrating the 200th issue of Gold Digger with the Gold Digger 200 Series Special. “Gina heads off on a dangerous expedition to a lost Mayan temple on Monster Island, and this one time, everyone’s available to come help out. For the first time, Gina embarks on an expedition with an army of experts to assist, and she’s going to need every one of them to help with what she faces!” Among the extras included in this issue is the location of a special web site where the previous 199 issues are available for free. Watch an interview with Fred Perry on YouTube discussing the issue, or you can pre-order it at Things From Another World. Everyone else can look for the issue in late April.

image c. 2013 by Fred Perry (of course)

Costuming-heavy clip show FursuitTV is holding a three-hour special today at 5PM EST (10PM GMT, 2PM PST, 11PM CET) to celebrate their fifth anniversary.

The show is to contain this year's best clips plus new material, and can be seen via direct stream or JustinTV. Watchers can discuss the show in real time on #FursuitTV (Anthrochat).

Fans of fur-heavy webcast FursuitTV are preparing for its 4th anniversary show, set to stream this Saturday at 10PM UTC (5PM EST) for up to three hours.

FursuitTV is created by Timduru with footage from ads, movies, media coverage, con videos and fan submissions. This month's edition will mix best-of clips from the past year's shows with all-new material.

Joining #FursuitTV on Anthrochat (web client) is recommended for the complete experience. The show normally lasts an hour and airs on the first Saturday of each month.