Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Documentary

Inflatable bunnies, street fairs, Furry Fuel – can we have it all together? Newsdump (4/24/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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Mainstream sightings

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Torimitsu

BBC’s “The Why Factor?” will air a Furry story.

“Why do we project our emotions onto animals?” gives a 4-minute clip.  Flayrah has air times for the 18-minute piece.

Growing community of ‘furries’ finds acceptance on campus.

USA Today does “not THOSE furries” apologism.

Meet the Club: The furries.

A 10-member club got a short notice in the student newspaper of Washtenaw Community College in Michigan.

San Francisco’s How Weird Street Fair is this weekend.

The promo vid flashes furries at 0:59, 1:17, and 1:25.  For several years, fur meets at this cool event have marked the start of street fair season in the SF Bay.  It’s the best occasion for my favorite thing, street fursuiting.

On the same day as the fair… Blow-Up: a gallery show of inflatable art.

Not a big news item, but I was taken by the pink bunnies. Artist Momoyo Torimitsu gives a down-to-earth statement on her site.

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International mascot Trip E. Collie – love and theft at FWA – Newsdump (4/16/15)

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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Huge French festival features San Francisco Bay Area furry and Good Boy, Trip E. Collie, as national poster dog!

FOURVIÈRE NIGHTS is a festival for theater, dance and music in Lyon, France – a center for French gastronomy and classic architecture. Look who’s on it now:

Trip Collie was very surprised when the festival picked him as their real-life mascot.  He’s on their website front page, and buildings all over France.  He says: “The festival has run for 70 years… runs June 2 – July 31. It has several hundred thousand attendees!”   For 2015, it’s featuring: “Björk to Ben Harper, to Iggy Pop, Joan Baez, Patti Smith, Robert Plant, the Chedid family, Christine & The Queens, Véronique Sanson, Bartabas and Florence Foresti.”

How did they decide to feature a furry from California?  I recognize Trip’s photo from Burning Man – they must be calling on the spirit of that festival.  And who can deny the adorable appeal of Hyena Girls’s suit making skills?  I can personally rate him as a 5-star cuddler.  You don’t get that by seeing pop stars from afar. Yay furries!  (And wow, that would be an amazing destination… Lyon had the best food I had in a visit to four parts of Europe.)

“What It’s Like to Attend a Furry Convention” – in Men’s Health magazine.

Researcher Debra Soh’s article was praised by furries who said“It’s a broken record at this point, “Thought they were weird, turned out to be awesome.”  Debra recently appeared on this blog with a supportive statement: “A Lesson Everyone Can Learn From Furries.”

Hip hop artist Killer Mike at Furry Weekend Atlanta.Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 4.01.19 AM

Killer Mike does music, acting, and “outspoken social activism” from a home base in Atlanta.  Apparently I’m lame because I didn’t know him before?  Now I do because he was tough enough to proudly hang with furries.  Nice.

Skypro Fursuits suffer vehicle and trailer theft at FWA.

Fans worried about loss of popular suits such as Telephone, but those were safe. Equipment was lost. April 12 update: “Car and trailer still missing and no word for the police. I dont think will ever be seeing our car again. :(“

Further Confusion 2015 covered by Science Fiction/San Francisco fanzine.

The writer reviews “one of my favorite conventions.” (PDF download, page 42.)

Furries: A Documentary – seeks funding on Kickstarter.

Production is complete and it’s just seeking post-production help.  It’s a great reason to check out what it will do with a modest goal of $2,500.

DJ contest: Furry is very close to winning, needs votes by April 17.
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Austrian TV and Lakeside Furries, Harper’s con story, Awesome Possum – Newsdump (2/25/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Ursa Major Awards nominations close on February 28.  Nominate Dogpatch Press – 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?  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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                  In the Media

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High traffic for $11,575 fursuit story.

Far flung places like German news sites are continuing to give notable high traffic for last week’s story of the record high fursuit price.

Austrian TV covers furries with a good 15 minute news piece.

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Early Furry Fan Photos – by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Greymuzzle Stickmaker (Rodford Edmiston Smith), an attendee and photographer of many World S-F Conventions and other s-f conventions of the 1980s through the 2000s, has been posting his photos on Flickr since late September.

Most are of interest to s-f fans, but some contain pictures of furry fans at bygone s-f conventions. (I’m in there, but never mind where – I don’t photograph well.)

A fox fursuiter (but the word “fursuit” didn’t exist yet) at the 1991 Worldcon in Chicago.  (link)

w91m003

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Furry Merry Christmas, media relations, RISK!, animal blessing… Newsdump (12/22/14)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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Around Furry fandom and in the media:

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A Furry Merry Christmas To One and All – from Tom Broadbent, documentary photographer.

Tom takes us to the Londonfurs annual Christmas party.  “Retro gaming was the theme and it was hosted at the Amber Bar in Moorgate.” (More about his art.)

London Furries Winter Ball Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows the FurFest chlorine story – but did you see Tommy Bruce’s documentary blog?

by Patch O'Furr

Midwest FurFest was hit by poisonous gas. I rushed out a short notice, and had tips sent in by friends like Mordi. Soon, the news was everywhere.

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“This Furry Life” podcast seeks storytelling contributors.

by Patch O'Furr

Flayrah reports Roo’s story:

Potoroo, host of the Fuzzy Notes podcast, is developing a new podcast that models itself after NPR’s This American Life with a focus on the stories of the furry fandom.

Roo’s blog has a call for producers/correspondents.  He wants to find a group “interested in telling stories about furry”, teach them what he knows about podcasting, hold idea meetings, divide each story between a correspondent and a producer, and be the group’s consultant to release one per month.

Interested contributors are asked to email him here:

  • Let me know what interests you about the project.
  • Let me know how much time you think you could devote in a month.
  • Tell me a few ideas you have for stories you’d like to pursue.
  • If you have already done some podcasting or writing, link me so I can see your work.

I told him it was a great idea, whose time has come.  I think story content can be more “furry” than music.  To be honest, furry talk podcasts I have heard seem unfocused with chat and filler, like “you have to know the hosts” to sustain interest.  Let’s hear some solid storytelling!

There are some excellent storytelling podcasts that have considered animating episodes using their audio.  It’s a smart way to piggyback new stuff on top of existing content.  They can take a popular story and turn it into a short film for Youtube.  Consider that for furry stories… a unique match of content and medium.  This idea REALLY needs to happen!

Potoroo was 2014 Guest of Honor at Wild Nights in Oklahoma.  See his bio there.

 

More coverage of San Francisco photo gallery show opening, “Furries & Despair”

by Patch O'Furr

Please help answer the question at the end of the story!

“Furries & Despair” happened on 11/7/14. It was super successful. It featured portraits of fursuiters from Further Confusion by Ron Lussier, and Bobby Pin’s urban decay photos from Detroit. The show was packed with people having fun in and out of costume. You don’t often see such energy at a gallery.

Courtesy of Bobby Pin:

Thank you again for everybody that came out and supported our work. We hope you guys had a great time. It was great seeing everyone.
BAMM did an amazing job filming the opening night. Please give them some love.
Check out the wonderful video they did for the Furries & Despair Show:

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Furries & Despair photography show – “An event people are going to love and talk about”

by Patch O'Furr

The show “Furries & Despair” features Ron Lussier’s fursuiter portraits, and Bobby Pin’s photos of Detroit.  The gallery opening is Friday, November 7 in San Francisco.  The press release has gone out, announcing a fursuit crawl to meet at the gallery.  This is an excellent event to support and have fun with the public!

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Bobby Pin tells me:

40 People already got tickets to our show through Eventbrite.  23 People are coming to the show through Facebook and 32 are maybes.  I think it’s gonna be an event people are going to love and talk about for awhile 😛

More about Ron’s portraits:

Here’s a press release to share as PDF:

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Animated Dawgtown news, cool pandas and creepy clowns. Furry Newsdump (10-22-14)

by Patch O'Furr

Here’s links, headlines and little bites of news to make your tail wag.  Story tips are always welcome.

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Movies and video

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maxNew updates from Dawgtown, animated movie featuring sympathetic fighting dogs.

It’s an ambitious, traditionally hand-drawn animated drama about captive dogs fighting for freedom.  It has voice acting by George Foreman, and the indie spirit of a Ralph Bakshi movie.  The  director was super cool about providing a great interview to this blog.  Storyboard progress is just posted, and he reports Getting close to half the film (40 min) complete.”  The new scene shows Max, the hero, lost on the dangerous streets of New York City.  

See a rough animatic of Dawgtown storyboards in motion. 

Here’s the next fursuit music video you were expecting.  NOA NEAL – FULL MOON PARTY.

Call it a modest trend. Here’s a “sexy video full of crazy Cosplayers, playful cheerleaders and a band of exuberant dancers.” It’s from Noa Neal, a Dutch-born, Belgian pop singer since 2003.  In 2009 she had a career boost from a talent show.  Since 2012, she’s known for presenting kid’s content on Euro TV.  In 2013 she moved to the US to write and record with a producer associated with Katy Perry, Carly Rae Jepsen & Miley Cyrus.  Her new single was recorded in London and produced in Finland.  It might not be an Ylvis-style novelty hit, (let’s hope fursuiters don’t have to hear another song yelled at them), but it’s fluffy, harmless fun.

 

noa

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