February 9, 2015

History of mascots, Dawgtown movie, Government-issue furries – Newsdump (2/09/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Story tips are always welcome. First, a little site news…

Nominate Dogpatch Press for an Ursa Major Award, and get fuzzy hugs! I love furries so much, blogging about them is it’s own reward. But I love shinies too, so can the highly attractive readers of this site nominate it for an award? Please go to the Ursa Majors site and submit a Best Magazine nomination. These hugs are worth it. (OK, they’re worth nothing because I hug everyone for free. They’re just priceless.)

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Animation and media

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“99 Percent Invisible” radio show presents a thrilling history of mascots.

From Episode 151 – La Mascotte:

“Furry, larger-than-life, foam-headed mascots may seem standard-issue for sports teams now, but this is only a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of professional sports.”

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February 5, 2015

Furry history gold – 25 years of conventions. Newsdump (2/5/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Nominate Dogpatch Press for an Ursa Major Award – get fuzzy hugs! I love furries so much, blogging about them is it’s own reward. But I love shinies too, so can the highly attractive readers of this site nominate it for an award? Please submit a Best Magazine nomination at the Ursa Majors site. These hugs are worth it. OK, they’re worth nothing because I hug everyone for free. (They’re just priceless.)

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Fandom News

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25 Years of Furry Conventions, presented by Sable and Mink – furry history gold.

In 1989, ConFurence Zero brought 65 original furries to Costa Mesa, California. The organizers have lots to tell you. Reddit has more comments, and there’s a good one about the “first iconic fursuits” in the video at 47:00. It shows Hilda The Bambioid salaciously played in “leather lingerie” by Robert Hill. In 1989, little did they know where this would lead… “There were TWO fur-suits there: Hilda in performance, as you see in the footage here, and the un-named bobcat who showed up later at the dance.”

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January 20, 2015

Baby squirrels smell like maple syrup – Post FurCon Newsdump (1/20/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Site news:

Super linty hugs for everyone, especially if you send Dogpatch Press from the Ursa Majors recommended list to the Award nominations (now open!) For the next few weeks, my posting will be sparse due to time demands. Meanwhile, enjoy uninterrupted content from Fred Patten. His History of Furry Publishing is packed with amazing info. (It wore out my eyes to lay out tons of cool cover art from early zines and books.) You might also catch a few of my back-dated Flayrah articles reposted via @dogpatchpress.

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In the Media

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Some nice coverage of #FC2015 from the San Jose Business Journal http://t.co/NbQiBJ6MQu and San Jose Mercury! http://t.co/so2NA9bUOg
— Further Confusion (@furcon) January 19, 2015

More FurCon coverage: “Furries descend on Silicon Valley, modeling eccentricity for a staid tech culture.” Read the rest of this entry »

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January 17, 2015

The Furry Future: Fred Patten’s book announcement for Further Confusion 2015

by Patch O'Furr

Late, but not too late… sorry Fred! A busy week got in the way of posting this before the con. There’s time to check it out at the con now.

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this announcement:

The Furry Future; 19 Possible Prognostications, edited by Fred Patten and published by FurPlanet Productions, is scheduled for release at the Further Confusion 2015 convention, in San Jose, California, on January 15-19, 2015. It will be on sale through the online FurPlanet catalogue thereafter.

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January 14, 2015

On Jan 15, the Ursa Major Awards nominations open for 2014’s best furry works.

by Patch O'Furr

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

For fans of anthropomorphic/furry fiction: 2014 has rolled over to 2015! Are you ready?

If you’re wondering what you may have missed in 2014, go to the Ursa Major Awards website.

The 2014 Recommended Anthropomorphics Reading List has just been closed out. It contains all of the works first published or released during the January–December 2014 calendar year that have been recommended by furry fans, in eleven categories:

Motion Picture
Dramatic Short Works or Series
Novels
Short Fiction
Other Literary Works
Graphic Novels
Comic Strips
Magazines
Websites
Published Illustrations
Games

Recommendations for 2015 are now being taken, although the first compilation of 2015 recommendations will not be published for several weeks.

The 2014 Ursa Major Awards nominations open on January 15, 2015, and are open through the end of February. Go to the UMA website to nominate your choices for the Best Anthropomorphics of 2014 in the above eleven categories. Voting for the Awards is open from March 15 through April 15, 2015 on the UMA website. Nominations and voting are open to all. Instructions are on the UMA website.

Voting for the 2014 Ursa Major Awards will open on March 15, 2015 and close on April 15. Go to the UMA website to nominate and to vote. The presentations of the 2014 Ursa Major Awards will be made at Morphicon 2015, in Columbus, Ohio on April 30-May 3, 2015.

– Fred Patten

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January 7, 2015

Happy Furry New Year! A look back and what’s coming soon from Patch and Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Furry New Year from Spottacus, Majik, Maczyn, Dakota, Bakr, Cassie, Stormy, Relaxing Dragon, Cyclone, Scoob, Chairo, Trail Horse, Zarafa, Kalu, Patch, and all the Bay Area Furries. (Pic by Amenophis.) At the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the crowd was super excited to hang out with us before the fireworks.

It was a great year, and it’s a huge honor to host Fred Patten’s articles.

The blog got active in May 2014. It’s had around 3 posts and a few thousand views per week. (All relative to focus of topics, for a small niche of fans.)

The top article of 2014 was about November’s “Wild Things” party (NSFW), with 7,000 views. The second was about John Waters and furries. Third was about a photo art gallery show. It’s interesting that these three involved local, live events in San Francisco. Fourth top article was Talking with the directors of College Humor’s “Furry Force” – associated with a many-millions-viewed Youtube animation that I submitted to the Ursa Majors recommended anthropomorphics list.

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January 6, 2015

Paved with good intentions – Furry Newsdump (1/5/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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In the Media

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You Can’t Get Inside – a profile of the furry community from within.

Michael Arthur writes at The Hooded Utilitarian. “Profiles written in good faith by outsiders are thin on the ground. Accurate ones do not exist. Do not feel discouraged. If you really “got it” like we get it, you’d be one of us.”

The article doesn’t just verbalize getting it, it IS that. Great essay! (When I read it, I was glad it supports criticism I’d already written about the Buzzfeed article, below.)

Arthur writes about being “Zapped with that funny feeling” that is Furry… it reminds me of something from a while back, in the same post where I mentioned that President Obama hung out with a furry. “The furriest thing ever”. Here’s being zapped:

Hey! have some new art! Also, my childhood was awkward. By childhood, I mean yesterday 🙁 *whines* pic.twitter.com/qz4tKiZyuk
— Yucky McStooopidEars (@ElliotTheBunny) June 12, 2014

Photos, Furries, and Photos of Furries.

Flavorwire makes a small notice that positively shares the below article.

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January 5, 2015

Edmonton Oil Kings hockey hosts fursuiter race. “It’s looking hairy at ice level!”

by Patch O'Furr

On video: “Louis the Lion battles for racing supremacy in the first ever Frantic Furry 500!”

Sometimes I joke about my low interest in sports. (Sorry, Canadians!) I’d love it if the teams were all mascots, while one sports guy runs around for laughs.

I imagine mascots worry about being upstaged by fursuiters. But the furries showed they’re good sports to Louis.

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December 29, 2014

$3 million sale raises furry auction topic. Now that’s an expensive fursuit!

by Patch O'Furr

WWXX3eM

1D274907295233-today-cowardly-lion-141125-03.blocks_desktop_medium Wearing big rugs for animal role-playing takes a lot of devotion and money. annex-lahr-bert-wizard-of-oz-the_02 Bert-Lahr

In the above Anthrocon 2014 photo, 1,326 fursuiters broke the world record “Largest parade of people in fur suits,” set at Anthrocon in 2013.

For each fursuit in the photo, allow a generous but in-the-ballpark worth of $2,320.51. It makes the whole crowd worth exactly what someone paid for The Cowardly Lion costume from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, worn by Burt Lahr. On 11/25/14, the original Cowardly Lion sold for $3,077,000.

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