Historical debates
Movie review: 'Animal Crackers' (2017)
Posted by dronon on Fri 10 Apr 2020 - 23:46
Animal Crackers (trailer) is a 94-minute computer-animated children's movie. The brainchild of Scott Sava, it caught the early attention of furry fandom at least as far back as 2015. Concept animation showed a guy haphazardly munching on animal-shaped cookies that turned him into the animals. As time went on, Sava brought in financial backers, a co-director (Tony Bancroft, who'd worked on several Disney movies), and a co-writer (Dean Lorey). The finished product premiered at the Annecy Film Festival in 2017... and then vanished.
It turns out that Sava had made the mistake of not securing a distributor ahead of time. With very little bargaining power, it eventually got shown in China in 2018, and some other countries in 2019.
In memoriam: Fred Patten (1940-2018)
Posted by dronon on Sat 17 Nov 2018 - 10:05
Fred Patten was born in Los Angeles, California on December 11, 1940. By the time he was ten years old, he'd become interested in science fiction and had started to collect SF books and magazines. From 1958 to 1963 he attended UCLA, where he graduated with a master's degree in Library Science. During his university years, he discovered science fiction fandom, joined the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS), and started to write for fanzines.
In the 1970s, Fred became a partner in a bookstore in Long Beach, and also developed an interest in manga and anime from Japan. In 1977, along with Mark Merlino and others, Fred was one of the founding members of North America's first anime fan club, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. Partially through the C/FO, he and Mark expanded their mutual interest in animals in cartoons and science-fiction, which was a major step in the early evolution of furry fandom. A lot people aren't aware that in North America, both anime and furry fandoms share an originating root!
Season 6 teaser image shows 'Fortnite' just got a lot furrier
Posted by 2cross2affliction on Thu 27 Sep 2018 - 08:21
Season 6 of the popular "Battle Royale" shooter Fortnite is launching September 25, this Thursday, and for the second season in a row, the first teaser image released by Epic Games features a new character wearing an animal mask, in this case, a Deadmau5-esque DJ wearing a llama mask, after the Season 5 teaser featured a kabuki-inspired fox mask teaser.
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The next Season 6 teaser image featured a cowgirl (the "Wild West" type of cowgirl, not the furry type, unfortunately), but it wasn't until the third and final teaser image, that things got really furry with an apparent werewolf character featured, seen above.
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Update: The llama DJ is named DJ Yonder and is the tier 1 reward for the Season 6 Battle Pass; the werewolf is named Dire and is the tier 100 reward, and features further unlockable styles (he is unlocked as a human but most players will already have enough experience points reaching tier 100 to unlock his werewolf form when he is unlocked). Season 6 is also introducing Pets that players can carry on their back to the game; a dog, chameleon and baby dragon will all be unlockable in the pass.
Review: 'Monster Mind', the sexy Pokémon puzzle game
Posted by Rakuen Growlithe on Sat 16 Jun 2018 - 21:26Monster Mind is a puzzle-solving, Pokémon-themed, Flash game created by Argon Vile. It's available to play for free through Inkbunny or Fur Affinity [Edit: Now on Itch.io in faster HTML5 and Windows versions.]
One might be tempted to immediately dismiss it as just another pornographic game, however not only is it very well-executed but it also contains deeper questions about sex and sexuality than you might expect.
A puzzling start
The main puzzles—as well as the title—are based on the board game Master Mind. In the classic version, you have to guess the colour and position of each peg in a row of four, usually with six colours to choose from for each slot. After each guess, you are told how many pegs have the correct colour and how many are in the correct position. Over multiple guesses, you can determine the correct pattern.
2017 Ursa Major Awards vote is now open
Posted by dronon on Thu 1 Mar 2018 - 01:24
The 2017 Ursa Major Awards vote has been opened! Send them your e-mail address, and you can vote for any of the nominations in 12 categories. Voting closes on Saturday, March 31. Please pass on this annoucement if you're on a furry message forum or social media site!
The winners will be announced at FurDU 2018 (May 4-6). And if you have the time to vote, why not also suggest furry creations for the 2018 Recommended Anthropomorphics List?
This year's nominees are...
'Zootopia' fan comic, with themes around abortion, goes viral
Posted by 2cross2affliction on Sat 9 Dec 2017 - 22:42
Though it was originally published back in March, the Zootopia fan comic "I Will Survive", drawn and written by Deviant Art artist "Borba", has recently garnered a lot more attention out of nowhere, and not just for its artwork. The comic, which was already notorious among fans of Zootopia for its themes of abortion and spousal abuse, has come to the attention of the wider world, and it even caused a movie nearly two years old to momentarily pop up on Twitter's trending list earlier this week.
"The Squirrels"; world premiere of a new play
Posted by Fred on Thu 16 Nov 2017 - 20:55The La Jolla Playhouse, in La Jolla, California, a suburb of San Diego, will present the world premiere of a new play, “The Squirrels”, during its 2018-2019 season. The dates and casting have not been set yet.
“The Squirrels” by Robert Askins, directed by Christopher Ashley.
Winter is on its way, and the squirrels are restless. Mistrust is growing between the Grey Squirrels, who enjoy a rich cache of nuts, and the outcast, hungry Fox Squirrels. When a wily outsider ignites a savage war, the consequences are catastrophic. This epic play reveals the animal instincts driving us all.
The choice of species is fitting for the local given the squirrels in Southern California are primarily fox squirrels and gray squirrels.
An article on November 8 in the San Diego Union-Tribune says that Director Ashely calls the new work "playful and super-funny and unexpected in every possible way," and says that as with good sci-fi, the fantastical setup allows the piece "to explore our society with just enough remove that you can make bold, interesting statements. It’s squirrels in a tree, but you would recognize lots of things in this cultural moment."
Ashley noted that the costumes were not going to look like 'Disneyland', but they will convey an essential ‘squirrel-ness,’ to coin a term.
Tickets to the Playhouse’s 2018-2019 season are available only via subscription at the moment: (858) 550-1010 or lajollaplayhouse.org.
Keep tuned in as more news will be added here when it is available. It will be interesting to see how much the play’s costuming looks like fursuits.
Retrospective review: 'The Wolf Man'
Posted by 2cross2affliction on Tue 3 Oct 2017 - 12:54
It's October, and that means Halloween.
To celebrate that fact, I'd like to offer a series of reviews on various werewolf movies.
Werewolves are the closest the worlds of furry and horror brush the closest to each other, though they may have more in common than they seem.
Both furry and horror deal with things of dual natures. Furry explores the line between what we mean when we say "human", and what we mean when we say "animal". The werewolf movie, more than any other sub-type of horror movie (or horror story), explores this same trope, and not just the difference between "wolf" and "man".
Our first stop in this tour of wolf-men is the obvious one, 1941's The Wolf Man, written by Curt Siodmak and starring Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lawrence "Larry" Talbot, a.k.a. the Wolf Man.
Do you think more furries in the mainstream will hurt or improve the image of the fandom to the public?
Posted by CassidyTheCivet on Tue 26 Sep 2017 - 19:29Robin Hood: Disney's Legacy Collection soundtrack review
Posted by InkyCrow on Fri 18 Aug 2017 - 21:26
Disney has been revisiting soundtracks to their classic films in recent years through what they are titling “The Legacy Collection” series. Each volume has contained a CD of the remastered original score along with a second disc of demos, outtakes and other curious rarities that enriches the listening experience. The series was kicked off in 2014 with its inaugural volume: The Lion King. Considering the Collection’s release schedule had been dormant for a couple of years it was with pleasant surprise that the series was unexpectedly revitalized earlier this month with its 13th volume: Robin Hood! Packaged in a small hardbound book with sleeves to house the CDs and generous pages of liner notes and art, this release is a winner in both content and presentation.