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“I can see every part, nothing hides in the heart to hurt me.”
- Shirley Bassey, “Diamonds Are Forever”

I think I need to be clear if I am going to continue reviewing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; I do not watch this show for the plot.

I don’t mean I don’t find the various ponies sexually attractive, though that’s also true. I know, it surprised me too. I’m not much of a butt guy, for one thing (you poop with those, that’s not sexy), and I have a strict “two legs good, four legs bad” policy about cartoon animals, Nala from The Lion King being the only exception, of course (though I guess kangaroos could be problematic).

Not only is the plot of the show not altogether very interesting, plots in general aren’t very interesting. To bring this review’s song quote into the mix, plot is what Bond villains do; the interesting thing is what happens when a character such as Bond stumbles into this plot and starts shooting the villain’s henchmen in the face.

That’s why I watch this show; characters and gratuitous violence. Allow me to explain in this DVD’s episode breakdown.

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This story takes place on another world, among people who are not humans. The three peoplekinds live together in varied mixtures, with no history of war or racial strife. They work together and still have troubles to face.

All three books have this preface. The three peoplekinds are the tall dragonlike korvi (they are called dragons because of the similarity, though they have feathers instead of scales), the small weasel-like ferrin (they can ride on their korvi friends’ shoulders), and the green-skinned insect/humanlike aemet (with prominent antennae) who have the talent of making plants grow. Further descriptions are brought out in the stories.

“Remedy: A Story of Aligare”. North Charleston, SC, CreateSpace, February 2011
Trade paperback $13.00 (5 + 439 pages), Kindle $2.99.

“Ravel: A Story of Aligare”. North Charleston, SC, CreateSpace, December 2011
Trade paperback $4.00 (91 pages), Kindle 99¢.

“Render: A Story of Aligare”. North Charleston, SC, CreateSpace, May 2013
Trade paperback $13.00 (703 pages), Kindle $2.99.

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The Musical Russian Furry Foundation, led by Lozi Cheetah, has released a new compilation with work from 17 artists. Like its 2011 release, the music, totalling 602Mb, is free to download.

The DVD version (sold at Rusfurrence for 40-50 roubles, with Russian furry magazine ARFI) includes Yiff!, a piece of British musical theatre.

The collection focuses on the work of Eastern European artists - Ankor Wolf, Aspeel RaraAvis, Augustine Mayer, Blackwervolk, LexXxy Nickson, NaurEvan, Fox Avril, Neichet, Richard N. Diego, DJ ShadowWolker, Vasory88, Vatarius [Arxas Project], Veemie and Worgen [Pioneer Chris]), but includes Fox Amoore, GreatFox and JayB.

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GaymerX is the first gaming convention focused on LGBTQ themes for "gaymers", their allies, and geek culture. On August 3–4 GaymerX will bring contests, parties, panels and more to Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco's Japantown.

Panels at the con include Natural Allies: Furries and Gaymers, by Vulpinfox, and a bear drawing panel hosted by Grisser.

Founder and Director of Technology, Andrew Evans, told me:

Creating a safe space for queer geeks and their allies to come together, discuss their geekiness, hang out and feel safe is super important to the community. We felt like the gaming community wasn't doing enough to bring together queer geeks, which is why we're doing GaymerX and built out GaymerConnect. ["A service that allows you to find queer gamers and allies of every identity who play the same games you do."]

Update: Use code GX13FUR by July 26 for a $10 registration discount. [Latte]

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There are so many webcomics out there to read, I'd like to direct your attention to one of my favorites: The Abominable Charles Christopher, done in an ink-wash style by Montreal artist Karl Kerschl.

Charles is a silent protagonist, a kind of skew-eyed sasquatch... yeti... thing, neither quite man nor beast. At the start of the comic he stumbles his way through the woods, until the guardian of the forest gives him a quest to mystically weaken the encroaching human city and its hunters who threaten the local balance of nature.

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In this issue, we have two finales; that of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arc “Krang Wars” and the series finale for Hack/Slash, which is even called “Finale.” Then, we have Rainbow Dash in her entry to the My Little Pony: Micro-Series. So, I guess, thematically, Dash’s pet Tank is a tortoise, which is easily confused with a turtle – so that’s kind of like TMNT, right?

Who cares; I’ve never worried about connective theming before. Let’s get to the reviews.

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Earlier today, Pachi the Porcupine was revealed as the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games mascot, in front of thousands of children at the annual Kids CBC Day in Toronto. CBC featured the mascot in action on their Toronto evening news.

Of the six finalists, Pachi was also most-liked by the public, in the online voting contest that gathered over 33,000 votes, according to the official press release. The voting contest results contributed 10% to the final score, along with other criteria including "embodies the spirit and values of the competition" and "has 'strong kid appeal'".

Organizers received 4130 submissions for the mascot, which was narrowed down to 108 in review before selecting the six finalists.

The "Pachi Pals" – Grade 8 students Paige, Fiona, Michelle, and Jenny, from Markham, Ontario, part of the Greater Toronto Area – designed the porcupine as a class project.

Correction (July 20): 33,000 was the number of votes received for all six finalist designs, not just for the winning entry as I initially reported.

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This hefty, de luxe, full-color book is a translation from the French. L’histoire de Sonic The Hedgehog was published in May 2012. Les Éditions Pix’n Love are the corporate author; Marc Petronille and William Audureau are the editorial coordinators. Pix’n Love, founded in 2007 in Cergy, France, advertises themselves as “the world's leading publisher of books relating to the burgeoning and fascinating subject of the History of Video Games.”

The Sonic The Hedgehog video game was introduced by SEGA Entertainment in 1991. The feisty blue hedgehog was designed to be SEGA’s corporate mascot, and his popularity quickly justified that. This book was produced to celebrate his 20th anniversary (more or less).

UDON Entertainment Corp., January 2013, hardcover $49.99 (297 [+ 3] pages).

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Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, Furries of all ages, you are invited to join us and our circus family for the second year of Fangcon, the greatest convention in Furry Fandom.

Our convention circus circuit has us at a new location, the Holiday Inn in beautiful Knoxville, Tennessee! Start planning now and make those reservations for our Oct 31–Nov 4 long weekend. You need to get those front row seats now for the best viewing. You should also consider upgrading those memberships to our Sponsor and Super Sponsor levels. We will be adding perks as they come in and likely some secret ones too, to be given out at the con.

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These stories concern the sex and/or love lives of three female anthropomorphic thylacine clones. Only read if you’re of legal age and interested in a long review, et cetera.

The first story in this collection, “Dick and Jane", deals with the disillusionment and despair of Jane, who must learn to live with the fact that the love she putatively shares with a human man is something altogether more depressing.

“Jill’s Forty-Ninth" (which, for my money, felt to be treading the most well-worn formal path of erotic fiction), tracks Jill, one of Jane’s “sisters", who works a dull office job during the week, but gets dressed up at the weekend to invite sex and other pleasurable indulgences from wealthy men. The story concerns her attempt to negotiate an agreeable arrangement with one man in particular.

The final story, “Jasie’s New Start” is a more straight-forward and minimal affair about Jasie, who seeks out a childhood sweetheart in an attempt to escape from the reputation of her kind as superficial and oversexed, and kindle a new, more stable life. [Bad Dog Books, 2013, $2.99.]

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It's been seventeen and a half years since cartoonist Bill Watterson published the 3150th (and last) strip of Calvin and Hobbes, the comic about a six-year-old boy and his sardonic stuffed tiger.

Since then, film director Joel Allen Schroeder envisaged a documentary about Calvin and Hobbes, and in 2007 began filming interviews with fans. In 2009, Schroeder created a Kickstarter campaign to fund his project, which raised twice its initial goal of $12,000. A subsequent campaign raised $96,000. Now complete, the movie (Dear Mr. Watterson) has been picked up by a distributor and is scheduled to arrive in theatres November 15.

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Rabbit Valley Comics has expanded its digital product offering to include short stories by Graveyard Greg, digital versions of 2 The Ranting Gryphon's stand up comedy videos, as well as audio collections by JackRabbit and 2.

Rabbit Valley launched the digital items store this February, with novels by Alflor Aalto and Wolf and a host of comic books, including Spooo Presents titles, Circles, Fast Boyz Delivery Service, and The Royal Tale.

Two new Dragon's Hoard titles are also available: NomNoms #2 and Runt #2, featuring art from Dark Natasha, Enderis, Jace, NecroDrone, SalerthS, Sidian, and Skulldog.

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Editor Syler Husky has closed DailyFurBlog, which he used to highlight furry news and trivia. The site had been hosted on DailyFurBlog.com since April 2011, with 218 posts since July 2011.

In his concluding post, Sy said he was refocussing on his YouTube channel, Furry VideoShowdown, after DFB failed to gain traction.

We covered stories and educated many on the fandom, but sadly I can not handle the work load. I have worked with Jackson who did an amazing job, but sadly still the views still dropped and a “furry blog” did not work out. I must say this mostly stems on the process of many other furries making their own blogs elsewhere as well as DFB not hamming it up enough to attract others.

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Was Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat ever one of your favorite TV cartoons? It wasn’t one of mine, even in its original broadcast fifty-plus years ago – and there wasn’t much competition at the time.

Yet I am looking on this new theatrical feature more favorably. Thank Roscoe it hasn’t been given the CGI makeover that Yogi Bear got! Or Rocky & Bullwinkle, or the live-action makeover of George of the Jungle or Dudley Do-Right. (Can you imagine a live-action Top Cat played by Brendan Fraser?)

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A new resource for fursuit commissioners has been shared on Reddit's r/furry subreddit: a Google spreadsheet of makers maintained by open collaboration, to the surprise of the original sharer (who created it for personal use). The r/furry moderators have been asked to add it as a key resource on their sidebar.

Several fan-maintained lists exist to help find and review fursuit makers and commissioned artists. Earlier this year, an important Fur Affinity review account, fursuitmakerreviews, closed unexpectedly to the disappointment of many. As one Redditor explained:

… [it's] a bit of a long story (so I'm told). But basically involved a fursuit maker getting less than good marks and complaining to the admins, who promptly removed the "offending" account. They're trying to rebuild themselves on Tumblr.

Their new Tumblr account and a new, separate Fur Affinity account seem to be starting over from scratch, after losing much important data. It calls attention to the challenges they face. A list is a great resource, but a list isn't a system. Let's consider organizing a better system.