Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: On the scene

July 6, 2015

San Francisco Pride, gay marriage, and historic happenings in Furry Mecca.

by Patch O'Furr

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Billet Sheltie – pic by Eric Campbell.

Gay marriage just became legal across the USA.  Even if you have no plan to get one, it’s a big deal.  People of a few generations ago thought we’d have flying cars before this happened.  The writer of “Furry Force” says:

In San Francisco, the news hit right at “gay christmas”.  The city was getting ready for Pride, “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

It was already going to be one whopper of a party. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry fresh off the presses, Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco became a rainbow-colored, joyous celebration for the ages.

The whole country was involved. The Chief of Police called it “the largest Pride celebration ever.”  Being mainstream was a big topic. On a subcultural level, the excitement spread among “the world’s greatest concentration of furries per square mile.” Furries were in the parade in 2005, returning in 2014 and 2015.

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Pic by Vincent

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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 18, 2015

A complaint: Furry fan publishing is overlooked – by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

I feel like complaining, and I’m not sure who to complain to.

It’s about the review of the recent FurCon in Science Fiction/San Francisco #161, (PDF), Spring 2015, “Furries in the Fog: Further Confusion 2015” by Christopher Erickson, reprinted in the DP newsdump of April 16. It’s a typical review today of a furry convention for the general public, both accurate and highly favorable. But Erickson said, “I was also able to see all of the dealer room. There was a lot for sale. There were numerous artists to choose from. There were also dealers selling ears and tails. There was a stand with puppets. One stand was selling custom collar tags and license plate covers. Others were selling artisan crafted soaps and lotions. I purchased a few pieces of badge art from one dealer that featured various fandoms.”

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June 12, 2015

Disney goes Full Furry, and All The Drama – Newsdump (6/12/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Zootopia: Disney goes full furry, and this stuff is going to explode in 2016.  

How excited are you for the next furriest movie ever? “Anthropomorphic” isn’t quite an everyday household word, and it’s use in this trailer spells out an open secret.  Before they made this, they did market research up the wazoo about us. Of course, it’s still a regular Disney movie, but they KNOW.

I watched the trailer when it had less than 300 views – while I write it’s over 1,300,000. The first comments on it said “furries”, and a lot of the top comments on it still say “furries”. There’s no way they didn’t anticipate that.

My reaction: Furry is the opposite of exclusive to me, but this cool thing makes me fear a deluge of commercially shallow influence.  I’m scared, hold me! … NAHH, it will be awesome. I can’t wait for the day this movie comes out, with all the fursuit meets there will be to see it. Fan participation is a big deal. I’ll bet we’ll see tons of actual furries on the news because of this.

Queerty‘s article about sex at Califur has important message between the lines. (Via Greenreaper:) Read the rest of this entry »

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June 8, 2015

Fursuiting from Minnesota to Moscow, and sentient beast fables – Newsdump (6/8/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Reporters went to the MNfurs picnic.

“Call of the wild: Local Furries say they are misunderstood.”

A Minnesota newspaper has a standard-issue “meet the furries” article.  The last Newsdump (5/28/15) reported that MNFurs have been growing with an active community, a registered nonprofit, and a new convention (Furry Migration.)  Their activity caught the notice of their local newspaper, and reporters went to their picnic.  The article includes these standard features: 1) All-fursuiter gallery 2) Apologetic sex denial 3) Weirdos aren’t so bad!  We see it over and over, but it was very well received, and it’s OK if the news readers haven’t seen it before.  There’s also a wedding, frisbee and hugs… The more of that, the better.  MNfurs discuss the article on their forum.

International mascot Trip E. Collie goes to France.

An April Newsdump shared Trip’s surprising experience of seeing his fursuit photo advertising a large international festival in France.  Trip went there to meet the organizers, and possibly sit down with them for a bowl of kibble.  Good boy!

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Animation and books

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Mort(e), by Robert Repino, gets a great review about “Sentient beast” fables. Read the rest of this entry »

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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

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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 28, 2015

There’s furries in Peru too, sad mascot documentary, Furrycon article – Newsdump (5/28/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Documentary: The Anti Mascot.

Lou Seal is the one Giants fans love.

Lou Seal is the one Giants fans love.

The story of the San Francisco Giants’ Crazy Crab, the most outrageous mascot of them all. The 1984 San Francisco Giants were dreadful. But the team’s ill-conceived “Crazy Crab” mascot endured worse.

Shared by Excelsior30 on FurAffinity … a cautionary tale of how anthropomorphic costuming could make you a magnet for abuse. Professional performer Wayne Doba documents his experiences with water balloons full of pee, and back injuries from a “macho” attack by players from a rival team.  (Get happier with Hulu’s mascot documentary series, Behind the Mask, that had an Emmy nomination for Outstanding New Approaches in Sports Programming.)

MNFurs becomes a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit.

News announcement. On FurAffinity, Aerak shares what it means to him: now the organization can officially host charitable activities like hospital fursuiting to brighten people’s days. MNFurs have a lot to be proud of:

In a matter of six years, with only the word-of-mouth advertising, MNFurs has gone from a small group of close friends and associates with a weekly meeting number of less then a dozen people to 40 to 60 people in the same room every other Saturday night. At the same time, we went from 20 to over 200 people on our mailing list.

Their growing presence in the world of fluffy stuff is bringing Furry Migration, “Minnesota’s first furry convention having its second year on August 28-30, 2015.”

Furrycon in Rochester gets a great media spokeskitty, Zeigler Jaguar. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 25, 2015

Scale’s paintings push the limits of furry art, with surprising mainstream crossover.

by Patch O'Furr

(NSFW – nude paintings below!)

In “Furry Good Ideas“, Scale commented on my suggestion about starting a Furry art gallery: 

scaleNot sure if the times are ripe for a dedicated furry art gallery, but for what it’s worth I’m having some success entering furry paintings in local art shows… I’m also making a bet that a market niche for paintings actually exists within the the fandom and that a decent number of fans would like to own furry art which can be displayed alongside other kinds of art. The results are very encouraging so far.

The article was meant to encourage feedback like this, revealing a cool new story. Nice to meet you, Scale!

Scale does classical style anthropomorphic figure painting.  Public display of his work puts him in a favorite focus of this blog: crossover.  He isn’t just showing regular fantasy art to the public, either.  It’s both painterly, and super hot!  It’s the best of both worlds.  Look at the dragoness below… the attitude, the pose, the voluptuous sculpted butt… excuse me while I fan my face for a minute.

I’m happy to share this as a nice surprise to the chairman of Eurofurence.  He commented on my article about Biohazard’s crossover art stunt:Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 5.43.25 PM

We’re seeing a little subcultural eruption, from as far across the line of “low art” as you can get.  Scale’s art is pushing limits.  His cool, thoughtful style speaks of Old Master sensibility, but the hot-blooded subjects are a weird combination that makes sparks.  Isn’t that what art is for?  The way people respond to it brings interesting thoughts about art meaning:

The bunny painting was accepted in the show without any problem. I keep finding evidence that most non-furries don’t read a picture like that one as a sexy pinup… I suspect most people just see it as a parody of human nudes.

OK, it’s sexy to furry fans (5,000 on his popular FurAffinity account), but he thinks it doesn’t communicate like that to the “normal” public.  Is that a failure?  Would they show it if it doesn’t speak to them?  It has to work as simply good painting.  It’s an example for furry artists: don’t make good furry art – make good art. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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