Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: On the scene

October 2, 2018

World Wild Fur Camp brings simply epic fun

by Patch O'Furr

World Wild Fur Camp – October 5-7, 2018

For Southwest Ohio (and everywhere) fandom

You know what’s an amazing drink? Blend watermelon chunks with tequila and lime. Nothing else! So fresh, so simple.

That’s what I brought to a visit at the fur house of Ratchet Fox, one of my closest neighbors.  Ratchet directs stage events at a bunch of fur cons, including BLFC. It has one of the fandom’s highest budgets for their eye-popping setup.  While I blended fresh fruit for the fabulous fox, he showed me videos of what they do with over a million dollars of equipment.

“One reason BLFC succeeds is the way they spare no expense on that main stage”, he told me. “Not every con understands how important that is.  Lots of furs go to party with their friends, and might not go to the dealer’s den or panels – but the main stage is the one thing that draws everyone.”

Huge and glitzy is one way to make magic. But sometimes you need a change of pace. Something laid back, less crazy, and more personal, where you don’t just have too-short drive-by meets with friends. And I love the idea of breaking out of the comfy but predictable hotel experience. (That’s why street fursuiting is my favorite thing.) How can it be more naturally furry?

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September 17, 2018

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Furflight! West Coast to Midwest Furfest – sign up by Sept. 21

by Patch O'Furr

Sign up to fly: https://canisvulpes.com/furflight/

Super organizer MikeFolf/Canis Vulpes got in touch to share his project of herding an airplane full of furries all the way to Midwest Furfest, taking the good vibes of the con much farther than one city. If you want to go, don’t sleep on this, the seats are filling fast!

He says:

FurFlight is a series of group flights on existing commercial aircraft that extends the convention experience to the journey. That reduces stress of travel there, and eliminates PCD on return, with a lot of friends along for the trip.

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September 10, 2018

Furries You Meet at Camp Tiny Paws (August 2018)

by Patch O'Furr

When you’re tiny, less is more. When you’re a real-life 4-legged guinea pig named Tiny, having a convention named for you is a big honor. And for a moderately sized community, a smaller con can bring outsized fun.

That’s the vibe I got from my trip to this 2nd-year convention in Danbury, Connecticut. It drew around 300 attendees. Where I am in the San Francisco Bay Area, “the world’s greatest concentration of furries per square mile” (wikifur) has casual monthly meets that bring hundreds. It can be too much to keep up with. Do you ever get that feeling? Try events where furries are less dense. It’s like a throwback to a fresher, younger fandom.

Organizers K’gra and Nobody bring lots of positive energy for that. It cuts through negativity of current events like a rainbow laserbeam. They laughed about me being a mild, laid-back California dog person, and said “I can’t believe you came all the way here for this!” I said, “I can’t believe you invited me!”

Being a Guest of Honor came with a duty to support the con. The panel I did on self-employment (and DIY power of fandom) was well attended.  Other well-known furry names gave support too. Meeting Uncle Kage and Boozy Badger made me appreciate them for bringing their mix of long experience and newer yet super vocal membership. And not just themselves, but their family and friends.

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August 23, 2018

One con, three predators – what this says about furry fandom

by Patch O'Furr

Want some scorekeeping about Dogpatch Press? The site is getting close to 1,000 stories in 4 years, with quadruple readership since 2017 and tons of positive news about fun and cool accomplishments furries keep doing.

Then there’s stories that expose hate and abuse from the fringes. People who don’t follow what the site does like to misrepresent it as nothing more than a source for “drama”, muckraking, “fake news” or angry mob “witch hunts”. These attacks often come from a vested interest in keeping things nice and quiet.

Here’s an example of such a story. (This one started before Dogpatch Press existed, so attacking the messenger is pointless.) This sheds light on the motivation of a former fandom celebrity who fell into disgrace:

(Links in here): Why doesn’t 2 Gryphon tell the truth about how his partner went to prison? Why does he attack abuse victims just like he Protests Too Hard against “SJW’s” and “witch hunts”? Why is he no longer welcome on convention stages?

An honest look at the links will find the answer. It’s complicity by a Quisling who doesn’t give a shit about this fandom. Complicity is a theme for this article, and solutions too.

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August 8, 2018

Wat ‘n Wolhaarstorie! – A South African Article on Furries – and a radio show.

by Duncan R. Piasecki

Submitted by guest Duncan R. Piasecki – don’t miss his articles The Forgotten History of the Furry Musical – and Talking Animal Films In South Africa (Part 1) and (Part 2.)

As some of you might know, South Afrifur happened quite recently, the biggest one yet. Unusually for furries from this part of the world, however, was the media coverage: the convention was featured in an article in the Afrikaans magazine Huisgenoot, in their July 26th issue. Of course, being Afrikaans (quite an obscure language outside of this country) means the readership potential is limited internationally, but it’s a pretty big deal for local furries: the magazine is one of the most popular in the country.

So, for all the international furries out there, I present to you a reproduction of the print article, and then my own translation. Please keep in mind that Afrikaans and I don’t agree (it was my worst subject in high school), I’m very far from fluent in it, so this was done with Google Translate, a dictionary, and my own extrapolation. The results might not be exactly accurate, but I feel they give the general idea if not the exact translation. As you will see, some things just don’t cross-translate.

But first, a new development: furries on the radio.

A couple of the people covered in the Afrikaans article went on to one of Pretoria’s biggest radio stations to talk about being a furry (it sounded like it was because of the article, in fact), and I thought the interview went quite well (if ticking off a few of the usual boxes of annoying “but it’s a fetish, right?” questions the media loves to ask). Quite weird, this sudden boost in interest, considering everyone’s ignored this community in this country before now.

Article: https://www.jacarandafm.com/shows/scenic-drive-rian/furries-take-over-scenic-drive/

Videos of the interview:

I ripped an audio recording of the whole interview. It comes to about 24 minutes and has quite a bit more than the videos (a lot is not in English). It can be found here: https://archive.org/details/jacaranda-fm-furries

Tweets:

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July 23, 2018

Fursuit photography from the urban jungle: Goku’s Furban Exploration.

by Patch O'Furr

Among the many hybrid species of furry subculture, one of its secret weapons is multi-talented artists – bright and devoted fans with a buffet of skills like making art, writing, and performing all at once. Even average fans bring many hobbies to such a wide-open interest. If you make a venn diagram for this, it’s plaid.

Start with photography and fursuiting. If you love it, after a little while, cute suits start blending together in the standard con-hotel backdrop. Each individual furry is a work of art, but the bigger the herd grows, the more it looks like a bewhiskered blob of technicolor barf. That just naturally comes with so much individualism.

Photos that are extra candid, specially staged, or use exciting locations stand out. It’s another reason why Street Fursuiting is my favorite thing. It made me ask: can suiting join the mix for those into street art or exploring abandoned places?

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July 16, 2018

The Good Furry Award, The Furry Book, and Joe Strike’s Furry Nation News from Anthrocon

by Patch O'Furr

Grubbs Grizzly of “Ask Papabear” has quite an established presence with many followers. Now he’s emerged from his cave to announce an award for other furries who demonstrate Outstanding Community Spirit.

Good furries are everywhere. But sometimes when fandom takes a look at itself and how it can be better, bad furries get attention. From circa-2000 Burned Furs, to Nazi Furs who have ruined furry conventions, troublemakers get more attention than they deserve. (None might be a fair amount.)

The Good Furry Award is coming to reward a fandom member each year for their community spirit. On top of benefit to one, the process of looking at nominees and their work is meant to promote much more conversation about good things that the vast majority of furries do for each other and outsiders alike.

The “Ask Papabear” website is now taking nominations for Good Furries: https://www.askpapabear.com/good-furry-award.html

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July 14, 2018

Tiny Paws Con is coming to Connecticut and I’m so excited to be there!

by Patch O'Furr

REGISTER NOW AND THROUGH THE WEEKEND!

 

I’ve enjoyed many kinds of furry conventions with different themes, size, and pacing.

There’s the small local relax-a-con near me, Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend (November 2018) – an underrated gem in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the party floor is one long open balcony and the whole con can be friends at the same time.  Then there’s the extravagance of Anthrocon, where it feels like a whole neighborhood of Pittsburgh gets in theme without being asked. The playful storefronts and sidewalk signs make it feel like Furry Christmas, and there’s nothing like it anywhere else I’ve been. When the fursuit parade fills the city street, and you’re there with thousands of ordinary citizens cheering for it, it’s one of the 7 Wonders of the Furry World. (Mine, anyways. Make your own list – that’s the beauty of what furries do.)

But I’ve always gone as an ordinary fan like any other. Tiny Paws changed that by inviting me to be a Guest of Honor. Wow! I don’t care whether they stuff 7 hotels like that thing in that other place (who needs elevator lines?) – it makes me wag my tail like a propeller.

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June 19, 2018

The 2018 San Francisco Pride parade, furries and parties – what’s happening and how to join!

by Patch O'Furr

Before you read about fun with the SF Bay Area Furries, remember why Pride matters. A local furry posted about being a target of an unprovoked homophobic attack this week with a photo of a black eye. He got a lot of support and hundreds of comments, but preferred to keep the post friends-only. And while there was one bad thing, expect hundreds of good things for everyone involved.

Now, here’s how to join us animals for one of our biggest events of the year. Let’s prowl and howl for an all-weekend rager!

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June 15, 2018

Meet Robert Hill: Artist, performer, and history’s first sexy fursuiter.

by Patch O'Furr

(Don’t miss the interview with Robert!)

Come my pelted pals, gather around… and look back to the distant, dusty past Before Furry Cons.  A time when seeing a sexy “fursuit crush” in public was as unimaginable as looking at them on a phone in your pocket. (A phone with the brightness dialed all the way down, of course.)

It was the 1980’s, when apparently everything was written by eye-blasting lasers with no dial-down button, so wear your raddest shades:

Let’s meet a pioneer. It’s not a label anyone chooses, but what else do you call the first fursuiter at the first furry convention? (ConFurence 0… actually a test before the first one). And they weren’t just a generic cute thing you could see at Disneyland, but a *look away kids!* pleather-clad dominatrix deer. Schwing!

Astonishing vintage VHS footage of this Bigfoot-like creature was unearthed by Changa Lion, archivist for the Prancing Skiltaire (the furry house run by the founders of ConFurence in Southern California.) When Changa posted Hilda’s 1989 con video to Youtube, it went viral outside of fandom (with over 75,000 views to date). Then he found an even earlier one that few have seen until now.

In a way, these are like the Declaration of Sex-Positive Furry Independence. (Obligatory disclaimer for subscribers to the squeaky-clean side of fandom: that’s just one kind of furry, not all of them.)

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