Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Month: November, 2016

My weird plush commissions: Guest post by Amy Brown of Jumbo Jibbles.

by Patch O'Furr

jumbo-jibbles-giant-carrot-body-pillow-gift-idea-for-her-590x646(Patch O’Furr:) Furries love plush like a fat kid loves cake. My friends do, anyways. That’s how I met Amy Brown, a non-furry crafter who specializes in plush objects on Etsy. I heard that she enjoyed commissions for fursuit props.  It makes me happy when furries make friends like that!  Amy mentioned weirder commissions, and that made me invite her to tell some juicy stories.  (Mmm… carrot juice for everybunny).

Christmas is coming. Need gifts for furry friends who already have every Zootopia tie-in on earth? Commission Amy for props!

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Furry YouTube, and Previously on “Culturally F’d”.

by Arrkay

Hey there! Arrkay here from Culturally F’d with a special guest post. I want to open right away with a new T-Shirt design poll, closing on Sunday Nov. 29:

Culturally F’d giving some Sh**ts away

SHIRTS that is! Sign up to our newsletter to enter into a draw for the winning design. Here’s what Rusty has to say about it:

Vote here: https://goo.gl/forms/9NJxjVg11GUq7lqy2

Subscribe to Culturally F’ds newsletter at www.culturallyfd.com to enter the draw to win. If the shirts end up in a tie, then both will end up going to print.

Previously on Culturally F’d

Over on my channel, we discuss how we define our community and how a fur might describe it themselves in: Hobby, Lifestyle, Fandom: Defining Furry.

Bandit from The Raccoon’s Den came onto F’d to discuss how he got started, what it takes to become a YouTuber and conquering social anxiety.

Still bummed out about the US Election? Maybe these 19 unlikely cartoon candidates will cheer you up:

A regular YouTube feature – call for submissions

Do you have a YouTube channel?  Right here on Dogpatch Press, we’re looking to fill in a new monthly guest post.  It will feature all the current and best YouTube videos that furries are producing. The primary goal is to expose more YouTube creators from our fandom to more furries. The secondary goal is to create a video creator network to encourage more collaboration between Furries on the video platform. Please message me (Arrkay at culturally.fd@gmail.com) if you have a channel you want us to include or at least investigate. We are looking for YouTube channels that are up to date and posting new content regularly.

Here are some fine channels that you should subscribe to in the mean time:

Betsy Lee – An animator with an ongoing fantasy series “No Evil”. A very impressive production for a small crew, the story reminds me very much of a dungeons and dragons role-play campaign. You may need to watch the back-log of episodes to figure out what’s going on with the cast of characters right now.

Blü – Blu The Dragon is an australian dancer/performer/choreographer, and does profanity infused vlogs about life and furries.

Culturally F’d – Hey that’s my channel! Every other week we discuss anthro animals in culture and mass media. Everything from cave paintings to what the furry fandom might look like tomorrow. The F’d stands for Furry. We also have regular “F’d Up Dates” with Rusty Shacklefur, a rabbit from the moon. I should also mention we have a Patreon and as of Dec 1 2016, a merch store!

EZ Wolf – Professional quality photography and videography. They are responsible for many music videos, dance videos and dramas starring fursuiters that have gone viral.

Furries in the Media – Aberguine carefully dissects instances where furries are represented in news reports or fiction, and grades them on Accuracy and Spirit.

Majira Strawberry – This fursuited vlogger is probably the most popular furry YouTuber with over 44,000 subscribers. Majira specializes in comedy skits, Q&A’s, and collaborating with other fursuiters in his area and at cons.

The Raccoon’s Den – The Docu-Dramadey of the fandom, Bandit and friends explore furry parties of California and dramatizes furry-life outside of the parties. They also have vlog style “Drakes Corner” videos and they produce a podcast “Pawesome”. Check out Patch’s article on them!

Furry.Today – Not a YouTuber, but a great resource for finding new fluffy videos from all sources.

The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

51icewnyell-_sx327_bo1204203200_The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, November 2016, trade paperback $16.00 (384 pages).

Several years ago I had a review published on Flayrah of The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson. It wasn’t a new book then, being published by Baen Books in December 2000. It’s gone through several printings so it’s remained available (with a slightly modified cover), but I don’t know how many furry fans have sought it out.

Guess what! Baen Books has reprinted it again this November, as a large trade paperback with a new cover by Kurt Miller. My old review will become pertinent again. Here it is.

The Right to Arm Bears, by Gordon R. Dickson
Riverdale, NY, Baen Books, December 2000, paperback $6.99 (431 pages).

This “novel” collects Dickson’s three light space-opera adventures about humans, the bearlike Dilbians, and the jovial-but-sinister Hemnoids: Spatial Delivery, first published as a novel by Ace Books, November 1961, 123 pages; Spacepaw, first published as a novel by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, February 1969, 222 pages; and “The Law-Twister Shorty”, a novelette in The Many Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Ben Bova (E. P. Dutton, November 1971, pages 51-105).

Back-cover blurb: “Planet Dilbia is in a crucial location for both humans and their adversaries, the Hemnoids. Therefore making friends with the Dilbians and establishing a human presence there is of the utmost importance, which may be a problem, since the bearlike Dilbians stand some nine feet tall, and have a high regard for physical prowess. They’re not impressed by human technology, either. A real man, er, bear doesn’t need machines to do his work for him. But Dilbians are impressed by sharp thinking, and some have expressed a grudging admiration for the logical (and usually sneaky) mental maneuvers that the human “shorties” have used to get themselves out of desperate jams. Just maybe that old human craftiness will win over the Dilbians to the human side. If not, we lose a nexus, and the Dilbians will learn just how unbearable Hemnoids can be….”

These three adventures betray their Cold War time-period. The Humans (Americans) and the totalitarian Hemnoids (Soviets) are both expanding through the galaxy, trying to win over the unaligned planets like Dilbia to their spheres of influence. “‘We must influence Dilbians like that chap or the Hemnoids are going to get the inside track on this planet. And the Dilbian system, as I’m sure your hypno training didn’t omit to inform you, is absolutely necessary as a supply and reequipment stage for further expansion on any large scale beyond the Belt Stars. If the Hemnoids beat us out here, they’ve got the thin end of a wedge started that could eventually chop our heads off.’” (pgs. 6-7) The problem is that the Dilbians resemble nine-foot-tall lanky Kodiak bears, and while they prefer to stay neutral in the rivalry between those whom they call the Shorties and the Fatties, they naturally feel more akin to the eight-foot-tall Hemnoids:

“… John saw, a sort of enormous robed, Buddha-like parody of a human being. The Hemnoid was a good eight feet in height, enormously boned, and while not as tall as the Dilbians themselves, fantastically padded with heavy-gravity muscles.” (p. 5) Compared to the Dilbians and the Hemnoids, the humans look like puny weaklings. Also, humans smell bad to Dilbians. The Dilbians’ attitude to the humans is one of friendly but condescending superiority.

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Furries get a look from popular German comic Erzaehlmirnix.

by Patch O'Furr

Want a change from intense American news?  German furry fan Stefan sends a tip (thanks!)  This is very nice to get, since otherwise it would be completely missed by American furs.  It’s from comic site “Erzaehlmirnix”.  It has 80,000 followers on Facebook and over 13,000 on Twitter – but likely no English-only followers for images that won’t translate easily. (Patch)

(Stefan:) A quite popular german comic site just made two furry-related comics in quick order.

First comic:comic1 Read the rest of this entry »

War of the Third Demon, Part 1: Parents of a Savior by Casey Thomas Lehman – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

61dsiewbbslWar of the Third Demon, Part 1: Parents of a Savior, by Casey Thomas Lehman.
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, July 2016, trade paperback $7.99 (288 pages), Kindle $2.99.

I’m not sure quite what to say about this book. The cover, which appears to be by crayon, gives an idea of its quality. The title is taken from the cover; the title page says Part 1 is Raising a Savior. The Copyright Notice, usually on the back of the title page in small type, is two pages in boldface leading with “1. Monetary gain directly from fanfiction or fanart is STRICTLY PROHIBITED unless you have received permission and verification from the authors!!!” There are five such rules. The Dedication is three pages ranging from to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the creators of Dungeons and Dragons®, down through Hayao Miyazaki and James Cameron to his mother. There are 11 pages of Glossaries at the end explaining the Japanese, draconic, and science-fictional terminology used in this book.

The principal characters are dragons. Here is the main villain:

“A monstrous dragon had just awoken, opening his four sunken eyes, allowing their red glow to illuminate a small area front of him and his six-goat like horns respectively. His jagged, sword-like black scales made a scraping sound as his legs dragged against the purple-tiled floor. He rose to his six legs, letting his rapier-like claws click against his gray, embroiled, rune-encrusted bed. He stretched, letting his saggy, dark-red underbelly stretch like an aged balloon as his six thin, bonelike, pale, sickly green wings spread menacingly. He finished by letting his pitchfork-like tail-blade slam against the colossal ruby roman-style pillars of his chambers – the demon dragon, also known as Rayburn.” (p. 11)

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A Newcomer’s Guide To Furry Terms and Customs.

by Patch O'Furr

Here at Dogpatch Press, we get an awful lot of confused outsiders asking, “what’s this all about?”  Here’s some definitions to help. If you have family or friends who want to know more about your hobby, share this to help them understand.

220px-down_the_rabbit_holeAnthropomorphic: Mixing animals with human characteristics. Think of cartoons, Aesop’s Fables, werewolves, and much more. 

Furry: Anthropomorphic media and its fans. They often (but not always) role-play an animal character. A reptile one is a Scaly.

The fandom: Furry subculture. It’s different from others because it doesn’t follow specific media like Star Trek. Furry is it’s own thing.

Fursona: The character representing a furry’s self.

Fursuit: The costume that brings a fursona to life, and can fulfill a wish to transform.

Furmeets and Cons (Conventions): Organized gatherings that include fursuiting, art, creative writing, parties and more. Cons are usually held at hotels once a year. Meets can be casual and regular and held at houses, public social places, or special ones in the woods.

Weres, Otherkin, Bronies, and Planties: These fandoms are sometimes lumped in with furries, but they aren’t the same. Weres (AKA Therians) take a fursona literally. Otherkin feel like a different species or entity in their body. Bronies are adults who love My Little Pony. Planties are the anthro-botanical fandom.

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The Art of Trolls, by Jerry Schmitz – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

61-xqtq3zl-_sy455_bo1204203200_The Art of Trolls, by Jerry Schmitz. Foreword by Anna Kendrick.
Petaluma, CA, Cameron + Company, October 2016, hardcover $45.00 (160 pages).

Trolls is a 92-minute 3D computer-animated musical comedy fantasy feature film from DreamWorks Animation, released on November 4th, 2016. The Art of Trolls is a coffee-table, full-color art book describing that film, and its making, in detail. Jerry Schmitz, the book’s author, is a Hollywood PR, marketing, brand management, and awards consultant veteran who has written several other The Art of animation books before. The foreword is by Anna Kendrick, the voice actress of Princess Poppy, one of the film’s two stars.

From a furry viewpoint, Trolls and this book are dubious subjects. No anthropomorphic animals appear in either. Yet the trolls aren’t human, either. If you consider humans to be a species of animals, then trolls qualify as anthros. Anyway, here it is. You decide if it is of interest to you.

The Art of Trolls is a de luxe art book about the film and its making, with detailed visual samples and background information. For those interested in the film, this book is worth getting for the names of all the characters alone. The rejected preliminary designs of the main characters will be fascinating, also.

The popular troll dolls as a merchandising phenomenon were created by Danish woodcutter and fisherman Thomas Dam in 1959, when he could not afford to buy a Christmas gift for his young daughter Lila. She showed the wooden dolls to her friends in Gjøl, Denmark; they all wanted troll dolls; Dam realized their potential; and he and his family created the Dam Things company to mass-produce them in plastic. Troll dolls became one of the biggest toy fads in the U.S. from 1963 to 1965, and have never stopped selling well. DreamWorks Animation licensed the rights to feature them in a movie in 2013. Here it is.

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Conventional Wisdom, by Arthur Drooker – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer

cw_cover_scConventional Wisdom, by Arthur Drooker. Foreword by James Wollcott.
NYC, Glitterati Inc., August 2016, hardcover $50.00 (191 [+ 1] pages).

This is a de luxe coffee-table art book of photographs by Arthur Drooker, an award-winning documentary and fine-art photographer/author whose work has been exhibited since 1980, and whose studies have been called “visual poetry”. For ConventionalWisdom, Drooker spent three years up to 2015 visiting “quirky” conventions throughout the U.S. “held by some unusual interest groups”. Each convention has about twenty pages devoted to it.

Drooker claims in his Introduction that a Convention Industry Council study shows that there are 1.8 million conventions, conferences, meetings, and trade shows in the U.S. every year. This book presents some of the most photographically exotic of these. As you have doubtlessly guessed, furry fandom is one of these unusual interest groups. So are the Bronies. Each is covered by Drooker; Anthrocon at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, and Bronycon at the Baltimore Convention Center. Each convention has an introduction of about four pages by Drooker.

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FUTURE FURSUITING: furry’s most original creations and the rise of tech-enabled smart suits.

by Patch O'Furr

The most original creations of furry fandom.

Here’s a fun feature about the future.  But first, let me make a bold claim about fursuiting.

Male-Peacock-displayingMascots and costuming have been around forever. But furries are doing something new. They don’t just play with generic icons from myths and media. They add original fursonas and custom craft for everyone. It makes a subculture with personal expression beyond anything else.

Of course, many furs don’t have (or want) fursuits.  But the ones who do make a photogenic face of fandom. Other groups do art and writing like this one, but I don’t think anyone else does costuming in such a specialized and devoted way.  So there’s nothing wrong with the way the fursuiters stand out.  Everything else is imagination – they bring it to life and help to define the tactile name of “furry”.  And the quality is developing beyond anything you can buy commercially.  Some dedicated makers now have careers by fans, for fans, leading a Furry Economy with an exciting future.  Look forward to amazing things.

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