Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: announcements

June 29, 2015

Exclusive: Nordguard game and Windfall novel coming out at Anthrocon, from Tempe O’Kun.

by Patch O'Furr

tempo321In November 2014, I shared news about the very active Furry author Tempe O’kun.  Public Radio interviewed him about his writing – and they treated Furry writing as just a genre, not a “weird news” item.  Even the romance kind!  That was refreshing, and I thought he did a great job representing it.  So do other furries, it seems, because he’s been honored as an award winning Furry Writers’ Guild member and a convention guest of honor.

Tempe got in touch to share exclusive news about upcoming projects.  His novel Windfall sounds like a unique genre-mixing delight, with cute furry romance and paranormal horror.  There’s also art from the Nordguard card game below.  They’re coming out at Anthrocon 2015.  If you can’t wait to see them in person on July 9-13, here’s a taste.  I asked Tempe to round out his news with personal chat about how his year has been – and if he had stories about making projects happen.  I asked: “Are you excited for Anthrocon, and what else do you plan to do there?”

Tempe responds:unnamed

My year has been great thus far! I was guest of honor at Camp Feral 2014, and I have been invited to GoH another con in the spring.

ThinkTank Games and I started work on what would become Nordguard: Tribes of the White Land expansion before the game’s core set even came out. Originally, we’d planned it as a series of smaller expansions (about the size of Magic booster packs), but eventually took the most interesting elements from each set and combined them into a 36-card pack. It shuffles directly into the main set and, just like the original, it’s a boxed set—no buying multiple packs to get the cards you want, like in a CCG. The highlights include two canon characters (Iyoto and Manny) who were mentioned in the first book, but haven’t been seen yet. It also has Team Fortress 2-style side-grades for every character. BlackTeagan also developed an entire new tribe—the Nituuyik, arctic lynxes—for the expansion, who will later appear in the books. So this is the first time the card game will have a direct influence on the graphic novels!

We’re also reprinting the core set. We’ve gotten some great feedback over the last two years and we’re pretty confident about the streamlining we’ve done for the second edition.

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June 26, 2015

Animation Show of Shows – Yiff vs. Murr – History of faux fur – Newsdump (6/25/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Media and Fandom News

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The Animation Show of Shows: There’s no better source for artistic animation, and they need support.Screen Shot 2015-06-25 at 3.33.32 PM

This touring show presents the best of the best in the world of short films, by the most talented directors.  It’s ordinarily only seen by invite at top movie studios (your Pixars and so forth), and at colleges, with special public access to those who hear through word of mouth.  You may not have heard of it, because it’s been a personal project funded by one amazing guy, Ron.  (He also runs Acme Filmworks, who directed a good couch gag for The Simpsons.)

Now, The Animation Show of Shows is appealing for support for their amazing art cause.

I don’t ordinarily post crowd funding (too much to cover!)  Leave that to awesome Furry journalist Corbeau at Furstarter.  (We need more “furry news” specialists.) This is just an exceptional cause. If you like animation, don’t miss it.

Through this show, I discovered the hilarious short, Flamingo Pride.  It shows what happens to the only heterosexual flamingo at the birds celebration.  It’s almost as fabulous as the San Francisco Bay Furries will be this weekend, in the SF Pride parade.

Knoxville, TN has furries in their Pride parade.  Draconis, Chair of Fangcon, reports: Read the rest of this entry »

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June 24, 2015

Pride brings excitement for Bay Area Furries, with 50% rise in attendance.

by Patch O'Furr

Following this week’s “Pride in Furry Mecca” item –

It was an incredible rush to march with dozens of fursuiters in the 2014 San Francisco Pride parade.  It was a good cause, but besides any message, the parade was full of music and cheering that made it pure fun.  On ordinary days, it was a main route of the city full of buses and cars, but that day it was blocked off to make a stage a mile and a half long, with crowds on BOTH sides.  It’s rare to get such audience (over a million) for jumping around and being furry.  The hot sun made me ease up to shady parts of the barrier, and ask watchers if they could spare a dog bowl of beer.

2014 was the first time the Bay Area Furries returned to march since 2005.  Excitement is building for the 2015 parade, on June 28.  There are 50% more RSVP’s than last year.  Friends and lurkers will probably increase it too, with likely attendance of over 70.  Everyone is expecting another amazing event.

A valued regular commenter gave skepticism about the idea of “furry pride”, because it’s just liking something, not an achievement.  I responded that it’s just one of many social groups supporting Pride (capital P), not a parade representing furries.

Here’s more info courtesy of the group organizers.  It’s script info that goes to TV announcers, to help them figure out what they’re looking at.  The parade requests one from every group.

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June 22, 2015

Pride in Furry Mecca – Viral views for Zootopia – Crushing on foxes – Newsdump (6/22/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Media and Fandom News

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via chrisastro.com

From 2014, via chrisastro.com

On June 28, San Francisco Pride is going to be awesome for furries!

The Bay Area Furries are all ready to march in the parade.  Pride is the height of street fair season in “Furry Mecca”.  It’s one of the most loved activities for an active section of the community.  2014 was the first Furry appearance in the parade since 2005. They had attendance of 50+, and TV coverage with a million-strong audience.  RSVP’s are 25% stronger than last year, with days left to grow.  Two leaders got the event organized, despite unavailability of an important third from last year.

Califur visited by television naturalist Figgy Dobbs.

An Inside Look at the Furries in Their Natural Habitat!

Buzzfeed podcast covers furries (via earthfurst).

BuzzFeed’s Internet Explorer does “A Deep Dive Into Furries”.  It starts at 6:45.  I missed this in April.  It calls furries “the greatest mystery of the internet”.  As usual, Buzzfeed is a dubious source – it mentions FurryMate but overlooks their bots.  I won’t forgive them for spreading lies about the NJ FurBQ Hoax.

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June 3, 2015

Great news on the West Coast: PAWcon promises to bring back a legendary experience.

by Patch O'Furr

800px-PacificAnthroWeekend2015

Pacific Anthro Weekend (PAW CON)

October 30th – November 1st, 2015

San Jose, California

 

It’s “Survival of the Furriest” this Halloween, with an end-of-the-world party to die for!  Pacanthro.org has details.  Follow their Twitter for updates.

Last year was their inaugural event.  It snuck in under the radar of many. About 200 furries showed up for low-key fun.  Fine-tuning of publicity and planning has brought great pawgress.  PAWcon is following in the pawprints of the other well-established Furry con in San Jose, Further Confusion.  (How many places are lucky enough to get two great cons?)  Now they’re stepping up to stage it at Fur Con’s original venue, the Doubletree.  Many people have missed the unique magic of that venue after outgrowing it.  Those who remember (or missed it) can have it again!

They have kings, queens, and suites open for booking:

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May 22, 2015

“Unbelievably cute:” True-Tail animation series, from Skynamic Studios.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Wallpaper_004

Back in August 2013, Rod O’Riley’s In-Fur-Nation brought us the first news of Skynamic Studios’ “True-Tail” Adobe Flash animation series in preproduction.  “A place where six unruly mercenaries must learn to work together … Or succumb to an ancient dark magic.”  The six are Caleb, a kitten squire; Brutus, a bear warrior-knight; Viktor, a fox thief; Melody, a rabbit bard; Doh-Li, a half-dragon, half-deer priestess; and Kanikus, an ancient phoenix wizard.  The art design is – unbelievably cute.

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May 21, 2015

Amazing BLFC report, Hug Permits, furries in national art shows. Newsdump (5/21/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Mainstream sightings and fandom news

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VICE parties hard at Fur-eh!

The article gets super friendly, and stays refreshingly non-judgemental.  It can be hard to broadly cover an event with immersion in a tight circle of friends, so it’s only a small slice of the experience.  Not all furries are way into parties.  Some feel like it ruins think-heavy sci-fi focus.  However, sci-fi cons with no parties are a world I don’t want to live in. You can make a furry con anything you want it to be.  When they do party, nobody does it better!

Impressions from Biggest Little Fur Con.

I confess to partying too hard to cover this with it’s own article. (Thanks Vox for a great vid!)

  • It’s really amusing to see someone get covered head to toe in shaving cream.  (It takes about 4 cans.)
  • Favorite shirt I saw: “I’M FAT – LET’S PARTY”
  • Thank-you’s for blogging? You might as well thank me for eating! Someone joked that it must take drugs to pound these out.  Nope.  Fursuiting is my drug.
  • Attendance of 2400+ makes BLFC the 6th largest con. (AKA “Biggest Medium Fur Con.”)  That’s impressive to build in 3 years. The subculture is rising!
  • With the future Dystopia theme, a lot of fan interaction means they succeeded. Many said it was the best use of a theme they had ever seen.  High praise.
  • More interaction I loved were the unofficial “Hug Permit” officers.  They were funny, engaging… and helpful with secret wing-man encouragement. (See “code 90944?”)  Come on… with 2400 adults together for a once a year celebration, how could that NOT happen? No judging. Further proof that “Hugs are the handshake of furries.”

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May 18, 2015

Disaster Dogs joins The Furclub Survey.

by Patch O'Furr

Furclubbing: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.”  It’s a New Thing that’s been spreading since the late 2000’s.  This kind of dance party is independent from conventions.  This builds on the growth of cons, and takes things farther.  It’s more established than events that happen once, house parties or informal meets.  Those can be inner-focused, or gather cliquish friends to only seek each other.   This brings partnership with venues that aren’t hotels, and new supportive interest in the kind of events they host and promote.  It crosses a line to public space.  A stranger may walk in off the street to discover their new favorite thing.  It encourages new blood, and crosses over to other scenes. It makes subculture thrive.

See the list of parties at The Furclub survey.  Any one that gives a Q&A will get a featured article. Organizer Ezo Kewn tells you about this new event:

Disaster Dogs (founded 2015)

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Current Founders: Ezo & The OG Disaster Dogs Crew.
Event Type: Club.
Styles Of Music: DJ’s, Rap, Rock Bands.
Crowd Size: 75-100.
Venue: The High Line, in Seattle WA.
Twitter: @Disasterdogs
Website: www.disasterdogs.net
Comments: Disaster Dogs has been around for years in the Seattle area throwing house parties and brewing beer, but this year we are branching out to provide a club outlet for the furry community in the Pacific Northwest.

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April 21, 2015

Does your fursona have a phone? Google has free, personal furry numbers for you.

by Patch O'Furr

Aggrobadger

(Hugs: Aggrobadger)

Want to set up a fur meet, or check out a new friend you found there?   But are you worried about stranger danger, or crank calls full of murrs and panting?

Give them a furry number.  If you have a google account (and your paws can dial phones), you can get a new number within minutes that rings through to your regular phone.  It’s useful for all kinds of reasons, including protecting your fursona with a memorable personal code.

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April 15, 2015

Interview in Splitsider, and CollegeHumor’s message. Last day to vote for the Ursa Majors!

by Patch O'Furr

splitsider-logoLast week I interviewed Furry Force writer Adam Conover.  The story was covered by Sydney Parker, writing for comedy industry magazine Splitsider. They interviewed me – but I didn’t tell them to call me a “popular furry blogger!”  (Is that like being a cool trekkie gardener – an amazing ren-fair knitter – or a fabulous metalhead stamp-collector?)

How the Furry Community Embraced CollegeHumor’s Furry-Lampooning ‘Furry Force’.

 

CollegeHumor followed up with a message:  “Thanks so much for your support and for the great post/interview with Adam!”  They shared a video to encourage you to vote for Furry Force to get an Ursa Major:

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