November has been a bit strange as people prepare for the first Midwest Furfest since the closure due to the COVID pandemic. However, in spite of the anxieties, there have been some interesting stories of good natured ribbing that have escaped furry orbit into the mainstream world.

Today we go over two of these events that happened this month from a Human Resource debacle and a fuselage scribble.

Well, they aren’t human. The first “real” trailer for DreamWorks’ Trolls has just been released.

The Hollywood Reporter announced on May 13 that Wizart Animation in Moscow (business office) and Voronezh (animation studio) is producing The Snow Queen 3 for release in late 2016. Presumably this is in Russia, and it’ll come to the U.S. in 2017. Also presumably the cast will include Orm the troll and Gerda’s pet ermine Luta, since they were so popular in The Snow Queen and The Snow Queen 2: The Snow King.

The same Hollywood Reporter article announces that Wizart is pre-selling its own Sheep and Wolves featuring anthro wolves and sheep – it’s titled Volkii I Ovtsi (wolves and sheep), in Russian. Here’s the the English language for Sheep and Wolves.

The article continues, "Wizart will also be […] offering pre-sales for Urfin and His Wooden Soldiers (by Melnitsa Animation)."

During World War II, Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson determined that she wanted to create something that would help to make people happy — which, needless to say, was in short supply at the time. But all accounts she succeeded wonderfully. For more than 60 years after they debuted in the London Evening News her creations, the Moomin Trolls, have delighted audience the world over — entertaining children with their colorful adventures, and adults with their sly commentaries on society and family life. Now to celebrate the late Tove Jansson’s 100 birthday Drawn & Quarterly have brought together more than 400 pages of her full-color work in a new hard-bound slip-covered collection, the Moomin Deluxe Anniversary Edition. Find out more at D & Q’s preview web site for the book.

image c. 2014 Drawn & Quarterly

A stop-motion feature coming from Laika in Portland in September 2014. I dunno; they look more like really ugly men wearing cardboard boxes to me. But, just in case, here’s their first trailer, from Animation Scoop and Cartoon Brew (which also has the movie poster).

Jay P. Fosgitt is a commercial and comic-book artist — among other projects he was the illustrator of Old McMonster’s Haunted Farm (written by Brent Erwin), which we made note of here previously. Now one of Jay’s latest projects (as writer and illustrator) is a full-color comic called Bodie Troll. “Jay’s creator-owned, all-ages comic set in the mythic village of Hagadorn and featuring a grumpy little troll named Bodie. While he aspires to be big and scary, he’s actually cute and cuddly, which confounds his attempts every time.” It’s available now from Red 5 Comics. Check out Jay’s web site to find out more about this and other projects, as well as his commission rates.

image c. 2013 Jay P. Fosgitt

The Snow Queen, written in 1845 by Hans Christian Andersen, did not have any anthropomorphic characters in it. Hollywood; excuse me, Moscow; has corrected this omission. Not in the 1957 Soyuzmultfilm feature, which was a faithful enough adaptation of Andersen’s tale but with a talking raven, but in the new Wizart Animation 80-minute CGI feature, directed by Maxim Sveshnikov and Vlad Barbe, coming in Russia in December.

The story has been modernized and expanded for today's audiences, with a non-human troll added as a major character (for comedy relief); and Gerda has been given a pet ermine, who is not very anthropomorphic but is smarter than the average ermine. [Animation Magazine]

Cult comic MS PAINT ADVENTURES has INTRODUCED a feline troll – NEPETA LEIJON – in the latest arc of Homestuck.

Nepeta is depicted as a FURRY LIFESTYLER on steroids:

You prowl the wilderness for GREAT BEASTS, and stalk them and take them down with nothing but your SHARP CLAWS AND TEETH! You take them back to your cave and EAT THEM, and from time to time, WEAR THEIR PELTS FOR FUN.

The San Antonio Express-News has posted a follow-up to their original story about Wolfie Blackheart, a 18-year-old tail-wearing "werewolf" who wants to be a taxidermist.

Wolfie gained attention after the media heard how she removed a dead dog's head to boil and preserve it, as she has done with the heads of several other animals.

The new article talks more about the involvement of 4chan regulars, who tracked Wolfie down after seeing a picture of the severed head.

Placed under investigation by Animal Care Services and the San Antonio Police, Wolfie was ultimately cleared, as "the dog was already deceased at the time of the beheading."

I went on YouTube today, it happens sometimes. It is a good place to go find some easy entertainment of some idiot sticking fireworks in his trousers or something. So there I was having a laugh at all these videos when I see a certain video of the most recent exploits at Anthrocon.

I laugh, I enjoy the video, I go to leave a comment. Already many furs had left their opinions on how awesome it is; the comments all positive and cheery! But all of a sudden they exploded! Where there were happy furs they were replaced with angry, screaming furs! All shouting nasty comments at the 'dirty mundanes'...

I took a double take and I wondered what could have triggered such uproar, I had to squint to see it but I found it...

"Furfags"

Wow, look at this, I'm in print! This is different to my usual stomping grounds of YouTube; the traditional methods for the venting of my spleen over things that make me angry enough to blow snot out of my eyeballs has been changed to some sort of text-based medium. How shall I manage I wonder? Well let's leave that up to you, the humble reader of this, The Furtean Times. Of course, to the delight of some of my regular audience, I have to tone down my language for this particular session, as there could be people afraid of words they most likely hear a thousand times over at their local furmeets... or something.

Anywho, what's wrong now? Have I run out of things to get annoyed about? No, of course not, don't be silly. So long as the fandom exists there will always be things about it (either directly or not) that forcibly eject the cheap lager I happen to be drinking all over my copy of The Daily Mail. So now we find ourselves with the big question: What has pissed Ember off so much now? Well despite my own personal views on the matter, I am going to do what a lot of people have been crying out for me to do, and I am going to have a little talk about furry haters.

We all know of Wikipedia and its various offshoots, the most relevant to furrydom being the directory WikiFur. Many furries of note are described there, some in almost encyclopaedic detail that the Oxford collators would be proud of.

But it would not be long before this would mocked in all its glory, for the Internet is a place that is strange and has laws unknown to man and furry alike...

Yes, I am referring to Encyclopædia Dramatica, hereafter referred to as ED.

This site looks like Wikipedia and imitates every facet of the Wiki empire, from a section on famous YouTubers, sarcastic contributions about music subcultures to, yes, furries. And it is to the subculture of furries that I will refer to in this particular article.