Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Media

June 8, 2016

Suit Up Saturday – Minnesota’s Furry Club night gives a Q&A for the Furclub Survey.

by Patch O'Furr

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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 cons. This builds on the growth of cons, and takes things farther. It’s more ambitious than events that happen once, house parties, or informal meets. Those can stay inner-focused for friends who already know each other. This brings partnership with new kinds of venues, and new supportive interest in the kind of events they host. 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 crossover to other scenes. It makes subculture thrive. It’s a movement!

See the list of parties at The Furclub survey.  Any party that gives a Q&A will get a featured article. Featured here is a new event in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s yet another one inspired by Frolic in San Francisco, the seed for many new ones across the USA. Organizer Rachel introduces the party:

Suit Up Saturday (2016)

____________________  

My name is Rachel, that’s my real name and furry name too. I’ve been a furry for about 15 years now, and I recently moved back to Minnesota from San Francisco, where I lived for 10 years and went to college. When in San Francisco I frequently went to FROLIC, which is run by some friends of mine, and I began to miss it.

While Minnesota has an amazing team running all the PG, all ages events (mnfurs.org, and DRAKE in particular)… There was nothing serving the adult, kink or 18+ community.  Up until that point, any kinky or adult events were held in private homes or we would loosely organize a bar event. Even so, events were sporadic and lightly attended, as there wasn’t even a good way for kinky furs to even connect with each other in this state.

At my current job I do club promotions and events occasionally, so I had a few contacts. I picked a bar that most reminded me of the STUD in San Francisco (where Frolic happens every month), a bar called the EagleBolt here in Minneapolis. I spoke with the owner and manager and they allowed us to throw a trial basis party on January 31st. If that went well, they would be willing to host us every 5th saturday, or more.

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June 7, 2016

Special Feature, by Charles V DeVet – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

UnknownSpecial Feature, by Charles V. DeVet.
NYC, Avon Books, June 1975, paperback 95¢ (176 pages)

Special Feature is a terrible s-f novel about terrible characters. It is hard to tell which are the more unlikable, the humans or the cat-people. But taken as a noir thriller in which the reader is gradually brought to sympathize with some seriously flawed characters, or as a funky “how many things can you find wrong with this s-f scenario?” quiz, Special Feature is an unusual and fascinating page-turner.

Pentizel, a cat-women from the banned planet Paarae, has stolen a spaceship and flown to Earth. Due to the icy climate of Paarae, she chooses St. Paul, Minnesota in winter in which to secretly hide.

Although her goal is pointedly kept mysterious (except for being given away in the cover blurb), she is immediately identified as arrogant, cruel, and contemptuous of humanity:

“Once inside her room [in a slum hotel], she locked the door, drew in a deep breath and let it out. Her whole body relaxed with the expelled breath. A world lay within her eager grasp, a world in which to lose herself. And a billion decadent weaklings to be maneuvered in any way that suited her.” (p. 8)

Unknown to Pentizel, St. Paul is completely covered by surveillance cameras, in seemingly every street and almost every room of every building. Howard Benidt, manager of TV station RBC, sees the cat-woman’s assault and stealing of a pedestrian’s clothes, and her checking into the flophouse in disguise. Benidt decides to make a “Special Feature” out of this alien invasion of Earth, to boost his channel’s ratings and his own prestige among its management:

“The room was getting warm. Benidt took off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. ‘Now I want a top-grade build-up on this. Play up strong the potentiality of violence: assault, murder, blood. Make it good. Start cutting in immediately — on whatever program’s running on the channel now – with tantalizers. Don’t tell them exactly what the feature will be. Let them use their imagination. Build up their curiosity – and impatience – for the start of the biggest, live thrill show in the annals of video.” (p. 15)

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June 6, 2016

Zootopia: “A Call For Balance” – guest post by Alex Reynard.

by Patch O'Furr

Zootopia’s Blu-ray/DVD release is June 7, 2016.

Zootopia_Lionheart_and_Judy_pose

Dogpatch Press welcomes Furry fanfic writer Alex Reynard.  See also Inquisitr.com: “Is Zootopia a modern version of Animal Farm?”  

ZOOTOPIA has been out for a while now.  In that time, I cannot count how many times I’ve seen it called “propaganda”.

Left-wing propaganda, right-wing propaganda, commie propaganda, gender propaganda, race propaganda.

It’s ridiculous. And it’s unfair to what the movie actually is.

I’m gonna assume that we, being furries, have all seen the film a kazillion times by now. If not, then this is me HONKING THE SPOILER HORN. TOOT TOOT. I want to start this with a synopsis, so I can talk about how the themes of this cute animated children’s film are really really important.

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June 2, 2016

Frameline Film Fest features two furry documentaries – furs invited to a red carpet event.

by Patch O'Furr

Frameline-1-212x300Wear YOUR best carpet!

  • FURSONAS – Sunday, June 19, 9:15 PM (86 min.)  Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, San Francisco.  “Through a furry fray of intimate dramas and dilemmas, the fascinating individuals and universal longings of furries—or folks who don anthropomorphic body suits for role-play—come into snuggly view.” Tickets here.
  • FURRIES – Monday, June 20, 9:15 PM (33 min.) Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, San Francisco. Info here: “Furries looks beyond the fur to discover the importance of identity, creativity, and the community’s people.”  Tickets here for the ONLY IN SAN FRANCISCO shorts program: “From dancing leather daddies and celebrated drag kings and queens to the imaginatively sexy and romantic and a trip to a Furry convention, this batch of shorts truly embodies the “only in San Francisco” spirit.”

Screen Shot 2016-05-17 at 12.24.39 AM“I can’t believe it – we’re right next to Michael Moore’s latest on Google Play,” said Fursonas director Dominic Rodriguez.  “It finally got real for me when I realized you could watch it on planes.”

I checked the “documentary” category, and there it was, the second most popular movie. Since mid-May, it’s still on the front page.  That’s quite a step up from all the years when Dominic was working on just another student project made for passion.  He said the crew still felt like students even when they were accepted to the Slamdance fest, where a distributor picked up the movie.

There’s more greatness to come.  And the public is loving it as much as furries who praise it. (Not all, since it is polarizing in some ways – but man, it is special to read outsider opinions like this.)

“…a tender and nuanced meditation on a community that’s still trying to find itself… a noteworthy achievement for having the skill and will to let the narrative breathe.” – Criterioncast.com

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June 2, 2016

Mouse Mission, by Prudence Breitrose – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

51Nw6dacHlL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Mouse Mission, by Prudence Breitrose. Illustrated by Stephanie Yue.
NYC, Disney•Hyperion, October 2015, hardcover $16.99 (266 pages), Kindle $9.99.

Mouse Mission is The Mousenet, Book 3; the conclusion of the trilogy that began with Mousenet and Mousemobile (both 2013). To repeat the events in the first two books, 10/11-year-old Megan Miller learns that the mice of the world are as intelligent as humans, but are too small and fragile to create a civilization. They’re isolated in small groups; and they can’t be heard by humans unless they scream all the time. The mice learn that Megan’s uncle, Fred Barnes, is an electronic tinkerer who has invented a miniature computer just for his own amusement, but which would be ideal for mice to communicate with each other throughout the world; and with humans.

In the first two books, Megan and Uncle Fred become part of the Humans Who Know about the Mouse Nation, and the mice figure out how the five humans can mass-produce the Thumbtop computers, supposedly as toy keychains but actually for the mice to use. Megan’s uncle and step-dad, Fred Barnes and Jake Fisher, create their home-run Planet Mouse factory in Cleveland, ostensibly to manufacture only a tiny number of miniature computer toys, but actually with a secret assembly line of seven hundred mice making Thumbtops for mice all around the world.

One of the Humans Who Know is Megan’s mother Susan Fisher, who is an environmental activist. Breitrose unfortunately allowed Mousemobile to become very preachy about the danger of Climate Change, which the five Humans Who Know and all the mice are very passionate about. The message of Mouse Mission, Saving the Rainforest, is fortunately integrated into the plot much better.

Susan Fisher’s current environmental campaign is saving the rainforest that covers the fictional island-nation of Marisco in the Indian Ocean (a pastiche of Madagascar).

“This was one of the last forests on that part of the planet that was still completely wild, and it had been kept that way by the government of Marisco until recently, when a group of generals seized power. A month ago, mice had found a document on the generals’ computers – a document that revealed their plan to sell the rights to the forest to Loggocorp, a huge international timber company.” (p. 16)

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June 1, 2016

Zen: Meditations of an Egotistical Duck, by Phicil – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

5193RSt5quL._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_Zen: Meditations d’Un Canard Égoiste (Zen: Meditations of an Egotistical Duck), by Phicil
Paris, Éditions Carabas, November 2015; hardcover €16,00 (80 pages).

Google’s automatic translator says that “un canard égoiste” is “a selfish duck”, but in this case “egotistical” is a better translation than “selfish”. Jean Plumo sees everything as revolving around himself, but he’s not particularly selfish once the needs and desires of others are brought to his attention.

The Patten-Nakashima conspiracy to get you to read French funny-animal bandes dessinées that aren’t likely to be published in English has probably let you down this time.

Jean Plumo, a mallard office-worker in a funny-animal world, is fed up with not only being yelled at by an unsympathetic boss, but at not getting the respect he feels that he’s due from his fellow deskmates. When he sees a copy of Bronzage (“Tanning”) magazine on his boss’ desk with an article about a luxurious vacation retreat to study zen meditation all day (implied under the sun; a good way to get a tan), he decides to sign up for it.

It’s not what he expects.

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May 30, 2016

Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den, by Aimee Carter – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

51EIKDGiLnL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den, by Aimée Carter
NYC, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, February 2016, hardcover $16.99 (307 pages), Kindle $6.99.

Besides furry fiction, there is a category of children’s fantasy about human children learning that they can talk with animals, and that the animals have civilizations of their own. The best of these include the Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis, in which human children discover a large fantasy dimension. Average examples include the recent Secrets of Bearhaven, Book One, by K. E. Rocha, where 11-year-old Spencer Plain learns that his parents can talk with bears and they have helped the bears establish a secret bear society hidden within our own. And then there is Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den, by Aimée Carter.

Simon is 12 years old and miserable. He’s picked upon by school bullies and he has no friends. He shares a cramped NYC apartment with his scarred Uncle Darryl. Nobody will tell him why Uncle Darryl is horribly scarred, or why his father is dead, or why his mother has been gone for a year on a zoological assignment – she sends him frequent “I love you” postcards from all over the country that don’t really tell him anything.

Or why he can suddenly talk with animals. He doesn’t tell anyone about this because Uncle Darryl apparently hates animals, even though a mouse he names Felix has become his best friend, and he could prove that he can talk with pigeons easily enough.

Then a one-eyed golden eagle tells him he’s in terrible danger, and his mother suddenly reappears, and Simon discovers that his mother and Uncle Darryl have been hiding the secret that they can not only talk with animals, too, but can change into them, but there’s no time to explain anything because they have to escape RIGHT NOW from an army of rats who want to kill them, and he’s really a hidden prince of all birds, but not the crown prince because he has an older twin brother that nobody told him about, and …

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May 27, 2016

“Shut Up, You’re Weird Too” from furries around the world – NEWSDUMP (5-27-16)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. 

Canada’s CBC Radio – “‘Fursonas’ unzips the complex world of furry fandom.” Interview with Dominic Rodriguez (Video the Wolf), director of the movie.

Criterioncast.com reviews Fursonas.  Joshua Brunsting calls it: “…a tender and nuanced meditation on a community that’s still trying to find itself… a noteworthy achievement for having the skill and will to let the narrative breathe.”

Furries Love Zootopia. On Uproxx, they smartly highlighted part of an interview with Video to point this out.

“Brisbane ‘furries’ find community and acceptance inside animal suits.”  ABC News in Australia covers a “haven for the shy and socially awkward”.

Mexican news interview with Paco Panda (Tip: Fred Patten.)  Translated from Spanish. Paco el Panda is identified as an artist in Guadalajara.

aqui_me_voy_a_quedar_by_pandapaco-d8cxaxa

San Francisco Bay Area Furries get one of the best Furry News articles ever.  How the furry community rallied when Zarafa Giraffe lost his head. Don’t miss our articles that mention it here and here already… it’s too good not to link again.

Bay Area Furs are very photogenic.  “Photo Du Jour: Furries Like Taking Tourist Pics Too.”

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May 24, 2016

Light: A Tale of the Magical Creatures of Zudukii, by T.S. McNally – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

51RBL+HsboL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Light: A Tale of the Magical Creatures of Zudukii, by T. S. McNally. Revised First Edition.
Syracuse, NY, Bounding Boomer Books, February 2015; trade paperback $9.99 (158 pages), Kindle $4.99.

Back in May 2015, I reviewed Light, by T. S. McNally. My review was generally positive, but I did have several complaints:

“Light is more or less worth reading, but this is one of those books where you have to grit your teeth and plow through leaden prose and grammatical errors on almost every page. There are no spelling errors, but was the novel proofread otherwise? There are plenty of obvious missing and double words, like “‘Brudder! You have my toffee?’ his [Garoo’s] young brother [a fawn] inquired as he leaning forward.” (p. 24), or “You were always were pretty bright.” (p. 31). Fangstro is constantly called a wolf; a canine. Wolves are canids, but are they canines? I can’t read the word “canine” without thinking of dogs.”

Since Light is published by print-on-demand technology, McNally has produced a Revised First Edition that corrects many of these mistakes. The date has not been changed, but the original first edition was 151 pages; this revision is 158 pages. The passage that I quoted on pages 136-137 is now on page 143. The specific errors that I pointed out have been fixed; but Garoo still has an unusually prehensile tail for a kangaroo, and the wolves are called canines, not canids.

Since most of the errors that I complained about are gone, here is my review again with those complaints gone.

“Magical creatures” are the operative words here. I usually divide anthropomorphic fiction into either furry or funny-animal fiction, depending upon whether the anthro animals show some semblance of reality as to species, or whether they are “animal-headed humans”. In Light, though, the inhabitants of Zudukii are totally, blatantly fantastic. It is rare when two characters, say a brother and sister, are the same species, and all are basically humans. A bear has an otter sister, who has a kangaroo boyfriend.

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May 23, 2016

Transmission Lost, by Stefan C. Mazzara – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Pup Matthias

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

51W5eAogqHL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Transmission Lost, by Stefan C. Mazzara.
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, September 2015, trade paperback $14.50 (unpaged [474 pages]), Kindle $6.99.

Transmission Lost is categorized as science fiction, not furry fiction. Its plot is very stereotyped, but one that a furry fan can enjoy. A human spaceman befriends an animal-like member of an alien civilization and brings peace and friendship to both cultures.

Jack Squier is a 26-year-old civilian cargo pilot with Stellar Horizons (“You have it, we’ll ship it! Lightspeed guaranteed!”) in the far future. The UN Navy, which seems to be part of a large interstellar human civilization (does UN still stand for “United Nations”?), is fighting against the alien feline Ascendancy, a.k.a. the Ailians. The UN Navy, due to running low on transport ships after ten years of war, contracts with Stellar Horizons in NYC to deliver combat supplies to the front. The route that SH gives to Jack cuts briefly through Ailian-controlled space, but he’s assured that he doesn’t have anything to worry about.

“‘The Star’s Eye is the largest cargo ship we have that still carries a one-man crew. Relax, Jack, you’re only gonna be in Ailian space for two realspace stops. The rest of it’s hyperspace until you get to the Antaeus sector. By then you’ll be well within friendly territory. Don’t worry about it. Besides, you hate working with other people, remember? Consider this a blessing.’” (p. [3])

The enemy is the Ascendancy, an alien interstellar empire somewhere around the Outer Milky Way worlds.

“First contact had been been made [when Jack had been sixteen years old] with the Ascendancy, an empire spanning several galaxies inhabited by the feline race of the Ailians. Looking as a cross between a ten-foot-tall human and Bengal tiger, the Ailians were strong, ruthless, and extremely protective of their territory. And as it just so happened, humanity had unknowingly begun to encroach upon that territory. Thus humanity had entered into war with the Ascendency, just as determined to expand their borders and claim much-needed resources as the Ailians were to retain them and take over human territory for their own.” (pgs. [3-4])

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