Opinion | Dogpatch Press

April 9, 2015

Legacy of the Claw, by C. R. Grey – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Legacy of the Claw, by C. R. Grey. Illustrations by Jim Madsen. Map by Kayley LeFaiver.
NYC, Disney•Hyperion, October 2014, hardcover $16.99 (295 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $9.99.

Legacy of the Claw is Book 1 of the Animas series, described by reviewers as like a combination of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. In the Kingdom of Aldermere, all humans are magically bonded to an animal from birth. A human is known by the animal that he is bonded with; Animas Cat, Animas Horse, and so on. People travel with their life-bonded Animas padding, hopping, or flying with them; Longfoot the hare, Dillweed the badger, etc. “Civilized” people – farmers, townsfolk – have domestic or small forest animal companions.

Bailey Walker, 12 years old, has just graduated from his local school and been accepted by Fairmount Academy, the most prestigious institute of higher learning in Aldermere. He is enthusiastic about going there, and scared because he will be traveling alone. Bailey is an orphan, adopted as a foundling baby by the Walker farmers; and although they have been loving foster parents, they could never get Bailey to bond with an Animas. Bailey hopes that the teachers at Fairmount can help him find his Animas, but he is equally scared that not having an Animas will be grounds for expulsion, or will make him a freak and a social outcast during his adolescent years.

Bailey, like Harry Potter, travels to Fairmount on an impressive fantasy train:

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April 6, 2015

Vermont town selectively bans fursuiters: Prejudice complaint and update.

by Patch O'Furr

Public fursuiting with the Vermont Furs.

The Vermont Furs have an active online presence including Facebook and Twitter. I see many positive events such as BBQ’s, bowling, camping, and a walk to benefit Cystic Fibrosis patients. They look like a fantastic group- the kind that makes me love everything about furries. But their activities are being harmed by treatment they feel is unfair.

Fursuiters kicked out of Mardi Gras event in Burlington, Vermont – but not others dressed in masks.

Why were they being singled out, the furries wanted to know, when the streets were teeming with other strangely dressed revelers?

“It’s just different,” was the response, Owens said.

A thoughtful and well-written article in the independent alt-weekly Seven Days recently covered the February 28 incident, and following talks with the city. The given reason was a lack of performer permits – (to be clear, none of them were busking or asking for money) – and child safety concerns.

For evidence, there was mention of a bad incident with a costumed “Elmo” Sesame Street character in New York’s Times Square. I googled the incident as suggested, but it didn’t mention children- only a panhandling offense. At the Seven Days article, I commented that it was quite a stretch to pick one sensationalized headline from hundreds of miles away, for a “think of the children” argument about people who weren’t hurting anybody.

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April 4, 2015

The Godson’s Triumph, by M. C. A. Hogarth – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Godson’s Triumph, by M. C. A. Hogarth. Illustrations; map by the author.
St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, June 2014, trade paperback $17.95 (viii + 227 pages), Kindle $5.99.

Besides being the sequel to Flight of the Godkin Griffin (reviewed on Flayrah on 14 June 2012), this is The Godkindred Saga, Book 2. Collect ‘em all; they are very good reading.

Flight of the Godkin Griffin introduced Mistress Commander Angharad Godkin, a middle-aged griffin (but totally unlike traditional griffins) and her furry world. Angharad is a military commander in the army of her semi-divine sovereign, the Godson, ruler of the greatest (but unofficial) empire this world has ever known. She is also distantly related to the Godson. She expects to retire after a grueling career of conquest. Instead, she is appointed as the new provincial governor of recently-conquered Shraeven. To quote from my review:

“In just the first two pages, Hogarth establishes that this is another world (with three moons), that Angharad can fly (her wings were injured in the battle for Glendallia; also, “A warm breeze presages spring and sweeps my fine hair off my shoulders, tickling my wings.” – Angharad wears a backless blouse with breeches), that the creatures of this world can interbreed and do not look like each other, and that the royal court is REALLY anxious for the politically inexperienced Angharad to take command of the large province of Shraeven (until recently an independent kingdom) as soon as possible. She is promised all the additional troops she wants, a new support staff, an almost unlimited expense account – but she, personally, has to be the new Governor. Angharad suspects that the “newly pacified province” is in fact a hellhole, and that she is expected to fail – but who wants her, personally, to be a scapegoat?”

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March 31, 2015

Community > Commodity, and the value of WTF. Part 3 about the FurAffinity sale to IMVU.

by Patch O'Furr

A series of three articles:

The conclusion brings it all back to commercialization. I’ve reported this for a while: Measuring the Furry Economy. – Mainstream advertising: “More and more, Furries are being hinted at in marketing media!” – And the recent $11,575 record fursuit sale and $17,500 top price. Also try: Furry, not an obscure little fandom any more. I often say that the thriving growth of this subculture is built on WTF weirdness that can’t be digested by the mainstream. Will that stay true?

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3) Community > Commodity, and the value of WTF.

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You could write a whole book about a subculture’s place in the larger culture. (There’s a “Furry coffee table book” waiting to be written.) Here’s a very loose topic about it, with a point:

Commercialization makes some furries fear losing what they love. But the normals-scaring, freedom-raising, limit-pushing, WTF part of it may save the rest. The more fringe it is – the more it holds Furry back from acceptance, but keeps it strongly independent. More notice could be a win-win.

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March 28, 2015

Blue Horizon: The Captain’s Journal, Book 1, by Ted R. Blasingame – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Blue Horizon: The Captain’s Journal, Book 1, by Ted R. Blasingame. Revised edition.
Raleigh, NC, Lulu.com, April 2014 trade paperback $18.99 (391 pages).

My clearest memory of mail-ordering the one-volume compendium of all Blue Horizon stories back in 2003 is receiving a massive “telephone book” tome that was almost too large and heavy to lift. And it was in small type, too! Now Ted Blasingame is revising and expanding the stories, and is wisely dividing them into four more-easily held volumes. He is also omitting the illustrations by Eileen Blasingame & Steve Carter that, while pretty, were amateurish and added unnecessarily to the older version.

The earlier edition, first written between 1996 and 2003 and published together in December 2003, included only 31 stories. It listed Ted Blasingame, Eileen Blasingame, and Steve Carter as co-authors. Now Ted Blasingame is the main author, with assistance by the other two. He gives a more complete history in his Introduction. Blue Horizon was an exciting fannish project of the three and their readers, starting online in 1996 and printed in 2003. It went on until 2009, but the newer stories were not printed, and everyone gradually moved on to other interests. Now, Blasingame has gone back to revise the entire series, rewriting the earlier stories and adding those from 2004 to 2009, for a new total of 45 stories.

These are the voyages of the interstellar freighter SS Blue Horizon PA1261. Book 1 contains the first 11 stories: “Drug Running”, “Unexpected Partners”, “Out of the Frying Pan” (by Steve Carter), “Vexed of Kin” (by Steve Carter), “A Little Liberation”, “Recruitment” (by Steve Carter), “Lost, Distant World”, “Dragon, Wolf & Tiger”, “Vixen’s Nightmare”, “The Blood of Aris”, and “Blue Horizon Down” (by Steve Carter). Although each story is distinct, they flow from one to the next, so the book is more like a novel than a collection of short stories.

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March 27, 2015

FurAffinity’s new ownership makes a turning point. Should fans fear commercialization?

by Patch O'Furr

(Via Greenreaper):

From 2008. Anthrocon has grown to generate $7 million in 2014.

A comment from 8Chan:

The furry community is loaded with cash compared to other niche internet communities and it’s been exploding in popularity over the last decade. Nowadays it’s becoming more apparent with kickstarter and patreon making the figures public and internet companies are starting to move in on their turf to get a cut before it really goes mainstream.

And for those doubting that it’s about to enter the mainstream just wait until “Zootopia” from Disney comes out in 2016. Even Marvel giving prominent roles to a furry character in their recent major Hollywood movie would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, people who study the furry phenomenon are expecting it to explode soon. Universities and marketing groups are preforming surveys and studies on the fandom, this is considered a legitimate field of study.

A series of three articles:

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March 26, 2015

Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife – comic review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife (Book 5), by Rick Griffin
North Charleston, SC, CreateSpace, November 2014, trade paperback $13.95 (52 pages).

Does Book 5 have a real title page? After five volumes!? (Gasp! Choke!)

Yes, Book 5 has a real title page! However – well, my reviews of the first four books have all recommended that unless you have them all, you should start with an earlier volume to get to know the cast. That is particularly true of Book 5. It begins with the dogs and cats of Babylon Gardens “imaginating” their own version of Guys and Dolls by Loesser, Swerling & Burrows. If you’re familiar with the Broadway musical and with Peanut, Grape, Tarot, Max, Sabrina, and the other housepets of Housepets!, fine. If not, Book 5 is a really confusing one to start with.

Fortunately, practically all readers of Dogpatch Press already follow Housepets! regularly – don’t you? Housepets! is an online Monday-Wednesday-Friday comic strip that began on June 2, 2008. It has won the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip for every year since 2009. The four previous collections are Housepets! Are Naked All the Time, Housepets! Hope They Don’t Get Eaten, Housepets! Can Be Real Ladykillers, and Housepets! Are Gonna Sniff Everybody; all previously reviewed on Flayrah. Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife (Book 5) starts with the online strip from June 6, 2012 and ends with that from June 3, 2013. These are the story-arcs #56, “Let’s Imaginate Guys and Dolls” to #69, “The King and I”, plus one-off gag strips between those.

Housepets! is the story of the dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, and other pets of Babylon Gardens, a typical residential suburban neighborhood – in an alternate universe. The animals are larger than in our universe (but not human-sized), can talk, are usually bipedal, and address their human owners as “Mom” and “Dad”. Their status is somewhere between pets and children. Points established over the years are that humans can bequeath their belongings to their pets, who do not need a human guardian; human storekeepers are not allowed to sell catnip to cats; human police forces have an auxiliary of Police Dogs who are not all police dogs; the pets comment sardonically on how they can go naked in public but their human “parents” can’t; and – lots of other stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

March 25, 2015

The Labyrinth, by Catherynne M. Valente – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Labyrinth, by Catherynne M. Valente. Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer.
Germantown, MD, Prime Books, April 2006, hardcover $29.95 (181 [+1] pages).

The introduction and blurbs emphasize this slim novel’s surrealism. Publishers Weekly reviewed it as, “…a female Theseus details the bizarre landscape of the Minotaur’s maze and its unique flora and fauna. […] Readers who luxuriate in the telling of a tale and savor phrases where every word has significance will enjoy the challenge of this fantasy. Others may find its maze of language an impenetrable mystery.”

You can put me among those who find its maze of language an impenetrable mystery. The jacket-flap blurb is, “A lyrical anti-quest through a conscious maze without center, borders, or escape–a dark pilgrim’s progress through a landscape of vicious Angels, plague houses, crocodile-prophets, tragic chess-sets, and the mind of an unraveling woman, driven on by the mocking guide who seeks to destroy as much as save.” The book’s murky cover by Aurélien Police fits it wonderfully. Can you tell what this is about?

But The Labyrinth is undeniably richly anthropomorphic. The nameless (or manynamed) narrator wanders through a maze filled with Doors. Each opens into a different dimension that threatens to sidetrack her from the Labyrinth’s end. And many are inhabited by an anthropomorphic animal.

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March 23, 2015

A small story about being sexually assaulted in fursuit.

by Patch O'Furr

Or should I say “manhandled?” Nah… Dogpiled. That’s more like it.

This story is no reason for alarm. It’s just a P.S.A. to say “hey guys, look out for each other!”

With this story, I’m assuming:

You’re a furry, or at least you don’t hate them. (It’s in-group stuff.)
You don’t hate hearing about adult activity, with a disclaimer that it’s a special sub-interest that doesn’t define furries.

The fur was flying at a party that was very loud, crowded and gay. Muffled music was coming through my fursuit head. I was bouncing around and giving hugs to everyone, from “just friends” all the way to grinding if they wanted. People know I’m into that (in the right time and place,) even if they come up behind me and I can’t tell who it is. Basically, “if you see my fursuit, that’s my consent.”

A guy shoved up in the darkness, and I thought he was a regular. He started pawing my junk, and his friend crowded in and yanked my belt off. She got rough because I had suspenders on it holding up my tail. That’s when I got surprised and flustered, because furries aren’t aggressive. Even when there’s “instant consent” with ones I can’t see, they’re respectful, but this was rough handling by outsiders.

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March 19, 2015

Ribbit – animated movie review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Ribbit, directed by Chuck Powers. 88 minutes. September 4, 2014.

This CGI animated feature was released theatrically in Malaysia, in Malay, on September 4, 2014. But I saw it at my sister’s on On Demand TV in English on January 16, 2015.

It is not the worst movie that I have ever seen, but it comes close.

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Category: Opinion

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

A series of three articles:

___________________________

3) Community > Commodity, and the value of WTF.

___________________________

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

A series of three articles:

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr

by Patch O'Furr