Normally, a television station reports on the news, not become its top story. The Baltimore Sun and WJZ-TV 13 are reporting that a 25-year-old man from Elkridge, Howard County, Maryland wearing a full-body animal suit (claimed to be a "grey hedgehog onesie" by the station's security guard to WJZ-TV), combat boots and a surgical mask over his face was shot by police at the parking lot of Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned WBFF, Baltimore's Fox 45.

The incident occurred when the suspect first set fire to a car in the parking lot of WBFF with a burning gasoline-soaked rag in the gas tank and afterwards, entered the vestibule of WBFF. When approached by the station's on-duty security guard, he claimed to have information that needed to be shared with the station, and handed over a USB thumb drive containing a rambling manifesto about space and the government, as well as the end of the world, in a video file.

Tiki Paws have made a name for themselves crafting tropical-themed clothing, toys, and other accessories for dogs.  Yes, really — we’ve covered them before.  Well now the line has expanded! Tiki Paws have grown to include Geeky Paws — a new line of Halloween costumes for dogs, based around any number of fannish themes. Just the thing for when you’re out trick-or-treating and want a little friendly protection along. Check out their web site to see all the latest.

image c. 2015 Tiki Paws

More from MIPCOM. Aurore Damant is a former Gobelins student (if you don’t know who they are, every animation fan should!) who is now a professional character designer and art director. His latest project is called Zip Zip, produced in France by Go-N Productions. The premise is simple: A group of forest animals see that human civilization is encroaching on their habitat, and they figure if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And so they conspire to disguise themselves as regular domestic house pets using zip-up costumes. Easy, yes? The show has debuted in France and it’s currently looking for international buyers to distribute it. Mr. Damant has several screen shots up on his blog to see.

image c. 2014 Go-N

Ndbag is a boogeyman, but not the scary people-eating kind. No, he’d much rather eat one of your dirty socks — usually the left one. Ndbag the Boogeyman lives in the closet clothes hamper of a little girl named Mylene. He’s made friends with her favorite plushie: A panda named Pandaman. They get along so well that Ndbag created his very own panda costume which he calls Pandabag. The little blue boogeyman is also “frenemies” with ZK, a fluffy dryer goblin who much prefers clean socks and munching on lint. Are you getting all of this? It all comes from the mind of Austrian artist E.F. Gludovacz, and you can find out more in the first Ndbag the Boogeyman book as well as the regularly-updated web comic… all at the official web site.

image c. 2014 by E.F. Gludovacz

Andrews McMeel publishing presents Dragon Girl: The Secret Valley, a new trade paperback graphic novel written and illustrated by Jeff Weigel. “Eleven-year-old Alanna and her older brother Hamel are orphans and doing their best to take care of each other until one day Alanna stumbles upon a cave full of dragon eggs. When the eggs hatch with no mother dragon in sight, Alanna decides to take care of the babies herself, even creating a clever costume so that the babies think she, too, is a dragon. With their large appetites and accidental fire burps, Alanna learns that dragon babies are hard work! And when a mama dragon finally comes to claim the babies, Alanna’s costume is so convincing that she is swept along for the ride as they journey to Dragon Rock, a mysterious magnetic force that draws dragons of all shapes and sizes to a magical, untouched valley.” It’s available now, and over at Comic Book Resources they have more of the story.

image c. 2014 Andrews McMeel

TikiPaws.com is an on-line retail store that’s best known for their colorful Polynesian-themed clothes and toys — for pets. Yes. They also have Hawaiian-print dog collars, and they even sell supplies to help you actually teach your pet to surf! But moving beyond that, they also offer a line of pet-clothes for the comic book geek who wants to bring along a little 4-legged superhero to the next convention. How about that? Now you can anthropomorphize your own household companion!

image c. 2014 Tikipaws.com

Imagine if your fur-suit was not just a costume, but was actually a super-powered alien that molds itself around your body, giving you super powers too! Of course, it complicates matters when the leader of your super-hero team is also “frenemies” with the super-villain! That, in a nutshell, is the idea behind Zoodorables, a line of clothing, toys, and artwork created by Han L. Lee. The Zoodorables web site features the current products, as well as updates on a possible Zoodorables game and some animation in the works.

image c. 2014 by Han L. Lee

There have been one-piece pull-over pajama-style “animal costumes” for a while now — but this is the first time we’ve seen them advertised on kids’ TV! That’s just what Janimals did, advertising their “wearable stuffed animals” on the Hub Network. What’s more, they say they have sizes to fit “ages five to one-hundred-and-five!”. Check out the Janimals web site to see their full commercial and all of their available models.  As seen on TV!

image c. 2014 buyjanimals.com

Virtual Costumer magazine, published for members of The Silicon Web Costumers' Guild (SiW), has reviews of the fursuit-making manual Critter Costuming in its latest issue.

Phil asked me to review it. I don't make costumes, just wear them, so I put out a request to the Furry community for their reviews. I selected two to share, by Schrix and Kellan Meig’h.

Critter Costuming: Making Mascots and Fabricating Fursuits, by Adam Riggs (Nicodemus), is the first published book about fursuit making. You can buy it on Amazon.

On tour now is Imago Theatre's ZooZoo, a production chock full of anthropomorphic animal costumes.

ZooZoo is a 55-minute performance comprised of a series of short, silent theatre pieces, each from four to seven minutes in length. The cast of five play animals ranging from fireflies to hippos, in skits that include penguins playing musical chairs, and anteaters dressed as waiters. As the promotional video shows, there is quite a bit of audience interaction:

Having completed most of their tour already, the production appears in Ithaca, New York on Friday, April 12, and then moves on to Cleveland, Ohio (May 7-11) and St. Albert, Alberta (May 28-June 1).

… takes them to the dungeon, and does bad, bad things to them. If you thought VancouFur had an offensive theme, watch out! This one is truly NSFW, and best for those who appreciate wanton displays of licentious content.

The queer furry rapper's video, "Why the Boys All Love Me", follows an announcement for the making of a "nightmarish gay goth animal S&M" video at Halloween in San Francisco. It flaunts his mission to "put Satan back into hip-hop", and makes a sequel to a previous video featuring fursuiters. This time, Furry content is minimal, and indirectly limited to a few cameos and participation by dedicated furries who cross over between that group and others (such as the S&M fetish scene). Please consider it labeled that way up front, and view accordingly.

Following an unsuccessful campaign on Kickstarter (covered last month), Shota Ishiwatari has moved fundraising for Tailly, 'the tail that wags when you get excited', over to Indiegogo.

Tailly responds to the wearer's heartbeat, wagging fast when a raised heartbeat indicates high emotion and slowing with the pulse to a swing.

This time, the target amount is $50,000 – just over half the Kickstarter goal of £60,000 – which needs to be raised by March 7th, 2013 if the project is to be funded.

The Cartoon Brew has reported earlier on Warner Bros. making tests of live-action/CGI versions of Marvin the Martian and Hong Kong Phooey for “live-action” features featuring the cartoon stars. Now the CB has that test footage, thanks to director Alex Zamm.

While Marvin the Martian is borderline anthropomorphic (what else could he be?), Hong Kong Phooey, based on Hanna-Barbera’s 1974 TV cartoon, is undeniably anthropomorphic.

The Cartoon Brew says, “Quick! Check these out before they remove them from the internet…”, which presumably means that this may be considered too embarrassing to leave up for long, due to the literal toilet humor..

Shota Ishiwatari, who worked on prototypes of the necomimi brainwave-activated cat ears for Neurowear, has turned to Kickstarter to fund a new, independent project, Tailly.

Attached to a belt, Tailly responds to the wearer's heartbeat to produce a wagging motion when a raised heart rate indicates excitement, slowing to a swing as the heartbeat drops. The tail comes with a white furry cover as standard; black, brown and grey are available.

Update (29 Jan): The campaign failed, but it's been restarted on Indiegogo.