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Welcome to Roz Gibson, furry artist and animator in Southern California. Roz was guest of honor at Confurence and created the Jack Salem comic character that first appeared in Rowrbrazzle in 1987. This is Roz’s furry graphic novel review part 5 of 6 on the way. Read in order as they post: 1) Myre 2) Angelic Book 1  3) Marney the Fox 4) Shanda the Panda  5) Cinderfrost 6) Tim’rous Beastie. See Roz’s tag for the rest. Roz is a community access guest and contents are hers.

Cinderfrost (volumes 1 and 2) 

Story and art by Demicoeur. 

Of everything reviewed here, this is the type of book people think of when you mention ‘furry comic:’ slick digital art with a distinct manga influence, and lots (and lots) of dick. Along with cock, more dick, and one naked chick. Artist Demicoeur has an extremely successful Patreon, which has been serializing Cinderfrost for years, along with other stories that are outright pornography (or ‘erotica.’ Choose your label). 

Cinderfrost starts out as a generic furry slice-of-life college story, but quickly morphs into something like the X-Men. For (so far) unexplained reasons, when certain young people survive a near-death experience with a natural force (fire, lightning, cold, etc.) they are transformed into “hell-touched” with a fancy design on their right arm and power over the element that nearly killed them. These hell-touched are outlawed and subject to immediate arrest and execution. The protagonist, Frost, is a deer student with power the power of ice. His frenemy is the wolf Cinder, a fellow student who has a secret crush on him. Cinder is also hell-touched, with power over electricity after being hit by lightning. They both hide the fact they’re hell-touched by wearing long sleeves, although I have to wonder what happens when the weather gets hot, or why the government simply doesn’t order mass screenings by looking at everyone’s bare arms. 

The story arc in the first book does not center on them being hell-touched, but instead on a standard boy-meets-boy, boy-loses-boy, boy-gets-boy and sex ensues. The humping starts early, when Frost has sex with a pastel-colored unicorn named Ciel. It turns out Ciel is a bit of an asshole—he can only be seen by virgins, and spends his time finding hot male virgins, having sex with them, then vanishing after the ultimate one-night-stand. Frost becomes obsessed with finding Ciel again, and enlists the aid of Cinder, who is a virgin and can still see Ciel.  

The story arc of volume 2 concentrates more on Ciel, who is still up to his old tricks, although he’s shown to be more of a tragic figure who is constantly alone and has to live in a crummy abandoned building  because he can’t exactly hold a job or sign a lease if most adults can’t see him. His sole friend is a virgin female bartender. 

Cinder and Frost are busy humping and going to school, but on the way in one day they come across a house fire. The bartender reappears, not only hell-touched by fire but suddenly sporting huge DD knockers after being shown with a modest B cup earlier in the story. Frost has to reveal his powers to help her escape, which means he and Cinder must flee themselves or face arrest and execution. The third story arc has been slowly updating on FA (or more frequently on Patreon), and so far seems to be following the dual stories of Ciel’s origin and Frost getting hooked up with other hell-touched in hiding (a prerequisite for becoming hell-touched is apparently to be young and very good looking.) 

If you don’t have a problem with the action frequently pausing for gay sex, the story is engaging if not earth-shattering. The art is cleanly done and easy to follow, but the main attraction is the characters themselves. Demicoeur can draw some extremely cute furries, and it’s nice to see a book where the characters are easy on the eyes, instead of that deliberately ugly style I’ve been seeing in other comics.  

She’s definitely not as good with backgrounds as Alectorfencer, or even the Marney the Fox artist, but at least she tries, and the action doesn’t take place in that weird blank void I saw in Shanda the Panda #50.  Luckily this doesn’t suffer from the overly dark look of Myre, and the characters pop nicely from the scenery. Theres a few odd things about the art, particularly in the volume #2 fire scene. Frost and Cinder are shown leaving their place during the day, but the entire fire scene looks like it takes place at night. The firemen are shown fighting the fire barefoot, but wearing uniforms and helmets. Even if it’s standard for the furries here to go around barefoot, you’d still think firemen would wear boots while working a fire. 

So far there’s two hardcopy volumes available, with volume 3 updating online. This way, even if it takes years between print volumes, interest in the story remains high because there’s a steady trickle of new work. Rukis is using the same method with the Crimson Divine series, the first volume of which was printed 6 or 7 years ago. The only real nitpick I have with the book’s production is the use of matte paper instead of glossy for the interior, which makes it look on the cheap side.  But that’s a minor gripe, and if you’re looking for a story along with lots of dick, this would be the book to pick up. 

– Roz Gibson

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