Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Opinion

January 13, 2015

Cast Away on the Letter A – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

Cast Away on the Letter A, by Fred. [Translated by Richard Kutner.]download (2)

NYC, Candlewick Press/TOON Books, September 2014, hardcover $16.95 (45 [+ 1] pages).

I have been waiting for over forty years for this book! In the 1960s and early ‘70s, before I concentrated upon Japanese comics and furry literature, I was an obsessive fan of French-language cartoon albums; bandes dessinées. I did not only buy those that came to Los Angeles; I mail-ordered them from Paris and from Brussels. I also got the three major weekly magazines; Spirou, Tintin, and Pilote.

In 1965, Pilote began serializing the work of a new cartoonist: Fred. There was nothing quite like it, but it was in the same surrealistic, psychedelic league as Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, The Kin-der Kids by Lyonel Feininger, and Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Fred became an instant star among the creators of French-language comics. His greatest work was the Philémon series, 15 volumes from 1972 to 1987. Other memorable works, short series or single albums, were (titles translated) The Little Circus; The Bottom of the Air is Fresh; Timoléon (three volumes); Okay, I’m Coming; Hmm; and The Story of the Crow in Tennis Shoes.

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January 12, 2015

FURRY GOOD IDEAS: Fursuit of the Year award and fashion show, and more.

by Patch O'Furr

One of the few search results for "fursuit fashion show."

One of the few search results for “fursuit fashion show.”

Read to bottom for Fred Patten’s informative comment that inspired this.  

In 2014, fun hobby blogging exposed me to many new ideas that could use more development.  This blog is for underexposed, underrated topics.  That’s subculture, and it’s about fan love.  I love sharing it!

Looking back at some articles about new ideas and opportunities, I think they could use a feature.  FURRY GOOD IDEAS joins previous special features here.  

I was going to call this “What Furry needs”.  But nobody really NEEDS these. This isn’t preaching what’s best for you.   It’s just observation from one enthusiastic fan, inspired by other fans.  It comes from a thriving subculture that ‘s expanding with a convention every weekend, somewhere in the world.  That makes a lot of room for ambitious proposals.  This is an attempt to highlight ideas with popular demand, appeal, or opportunity to make real.  Share yours too!

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January 9, 2015

The Guardian Herd: Starfire, by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez – Fred Patten’s book review.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

The Guardian Herd: Starfire, by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez. Illustrated by David McClellan; map.
NYC, HarperCollinsPublishers/Harper, September 2014, hardcover $16.99 (245 [+ 4] pages), Kindle $8.89.download

This is blurbed as, “The first book in a gripping new tween fantasy series about winged horses—perfect for fans of the Warriors, Survivors, and Guardians of Ga’Hoole series.” It reminds me more of older fantasies about magical horses, not officially but pretty obviously intended for horse-obsessed adolescent girls: The June 1988 The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West by Mary Stanton, and its May 1989 sequel, Piper at the Gate; or Meredith Ann Pierce’s Firebringer trilogy (Birth of the Firebringer, November 1985; Dark Moon, May 1992; The Son of Summer Stars, May 1996; and the collection The Firebringer Trilogy, June 2003). Now there is Jennifer Lynn Alvarez’s The Guardian Herd series. Amazon.com is already advertising the second book in the series, The Guardian Herd: Stormbound, to be published in April 2015.

The Guardian Herd: Starfire’s first obvious similarity is in having a large equine cast; in this case, of pegasi rather than unicorns or regular horses (called land horses here). The dramatis personae (this is too serious for just cast) lists 32 winged horses divided into five herds, led off by the newborn Starfire of the Sun Herd. This does not include Stormbound, the protagonist of the second book. There are over-stallions, lead mares, captains, medicine mares (a herd’s doctor), mated mares, single or widowed mares, yearlings, and foals; each individually named and described. If Alvarez intends to write a novel about each, she could go on forever.

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January 8, 2015

ROAR vol. 5 – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

roar ROAR vol. 5, edited by Buck C. Turner

Dallas, TX, Bad Dog Books/FurPlanet Productions, July 2014, trade paperback $19.95 (325 pages). 

ROAR vol. 5, the approximately-annual anthology of “literary” (non-erotic) anthropomorphic short fiction under the Bad Dog Books imprint, contains stories on the theme of Secrecy. Editor Buck C. Turner says in his Foreword:

“This volume features stories based around secrets, a theme which brought out amazing plot twists and tense revelations. Keeping secrets brings an inevitable tension to life, one which no one fully escapes. […] Secrets can give their holders power and pain as they must wrestle with the decisions on how – or if – to utilize the information they possess. This is the task these fourteen authors, the largest number I’ve accepted to a ROAR volume, have undertaken.” (p. 10)

Warning: this is a long review, to cover fourteen stories.

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January 6, 2015

Paved with good intentions – Furry Newsdump (1/5/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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In the Media

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You Can’t Get Inside – a profile of the furry community from within. furries

Michael Arthur writes at The Hooded Utilitarian.  “Profiles written in good faith by outsiders are thin on the ground.  Accurate ones do not exist.  Do not feel discouraged.  If you really “got it” like we get it, you’d be one of us.”

The article doesn’t just verbalize getting it, it IS that.  Great essay!  (When I read it, I was glad it supports criticism I’d already written about the Buzzfeed article, below.)

Arthur writes about being “Zapped with that funny feeling” that is Furry… it reminds me of something from a while back, in the same post where I mentioned that President Obama hung out with a furry.  “The furriest thing ever”. Here’s being zapped:

Photos, Furries, and Photos of Furries.

Flavorwire makes a small notice that positively shares the below article.

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December 30, 2014

Moth and Rust, by Eddie Drueding – Fred Patten’s book review.

by Patch O'Furr

sbibb-marcoverblogSubmitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Moth and Rust, by Eddie Drueding.
White Bear Lake, MN, Melange Books, August 2014, trade paperback $13.95 ([4] + 190 [+ 5] pages).

This is Arraborough Book 3, following the 2012 Book 1, The Unimaginable Road and the 2013 Book 2, The Darkness. It will be followed by Book 4, Revelation.

Eddie Drueding’s Arraborough series, featuring his idealistic anthropomorphized animal community and the mysterious and ominous forces that oppose it, moves on to its third annual volume. If you have read the first two, get it! If you haven’t, try The Unimaginable Road first. Arraborough is not for everyone.

The comments that I made on Book 2 are even more true for Book 3. There is a two-page “The Story So Far …” that is so brief as to be more confusing than enlightening. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with all the large cast. Drueding’s habit of writing in the present tense (the story begins abruptly, “Pimlico bends down, gathers Dovan’s dead body in his arms, and rises. They remain in that position for a long moment, the cat simply too stunned to move, stunned not least of all by the very weight of Dovan in his arms, a lightness he can only feel unfitting to being the only remaining testimony to all that Dovan had been in life.”) is offputting at first. The reader may still be caught in a “Wait a minute; WHAT!?” moment from the discovery of the ancient spaceship at the climax of Book 2. Even readers familiar with the story may want to  refresh their memories- it’s been a year since Book 2 was published. What animals, again, are Tust and Fespin?

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December 23, 2014

Theta, by Sasya Fox – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

Theta, by Sasya Fox

Mountain View, CA, Snowfox Press, August 2013, trade paperback $14.50 (395 [+ 1] pages), Kindle 99¢.

Theta is a formulaic but rip-roaring space opera. The titular protagonist is Jale Bercammon, the 36-year-old chief steward(ess) of the OCS Freeta, a luxury space liner in an interstellar civilization. She has served aboard the Freeta for almost twenty years, rising to the chief steward position and coming to think of her staff and the crew of the Freeta as her family. The first sign of trouble on this trip is their landing on the planet Brynton, in the midst of a violent civil war. Practically all Brynti civilians are desperate to book passage off-planet, and the Freeta is rapidly over-packed with upper-class refugees. One of them is the mysterious Miss Theta, an apparent almost-comatose adolescent who is brought aboard as a medical patient and booked into the finest stateroom on the ship. Captain Erin is personally instructed in Theta’s care, which includes giving her a prepared injection every four hours and:theta

Do NOT attempt to engage Theta in conversation.

Fine, until Jale learns that Theta is an almost-castrated male, and he is being given not medicine but Banerethin, which ship’s Doctor Jrmnia freaks out over because it is a drug so illegal that he could be executed for allowing it to be brought on board. Strangely, as the days pass, Theta becomes more rather than less coherent and amnesiac. He makes it impossible for Jale and her crewmates to ignore the order not to talk to him, but refuses to discuss who he is or what is happening to him.

Then the Freeta is captured by pirates. Their actions make it clear that they have chosen the Freeta because they learned on Brynton that it is carrying an incredibly valuable treasure, which none of the Freeta’s crew knows anything about. When the frustrated pirates cannot find any treasure, they kill a few passengers and crew, impress a few more as slaves – including Theta — and leave. When the crippled Freeta finally reaches its destination, several days overdue, it is besieged by authorities who investigate what happened in detail. Jale is given the job of telling what happened to Theta to his assigned recipient. His reaction is not anything like she expects:

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December 22, 2014

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 »

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December 17, 2014

Dinoverse series by Scott Ciencin – Fred Patten’s book review.

by Patch O'Furr

Here’s one for the scalies! Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.  This was originally written for Quentin Long’s Anthro Magazine.

9780375805448Dinoverse, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, March 1999, hardcover 0-679-88842-X $18.00 (282 [+ 8] pages).

Dinoverse: I Was a Teenage T. Rex, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, March 2000, paperback 0-679-88843-8 $4.99 (177 [+ 8] pages).

Dinoverse: The Teens Time Forgot, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, March 2000, paperback 0-679-88844-6 $4.99 (179 [+ 3] pages).

Dinoverse: Raptor Without a Cause, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, May 2000, paperback 0-679-88845-4 $4.99 (180 [+ 12] pages).

Dinoverse: Please Don’t Eat the Teacher!, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, July 2000, paperback 0-679-88846-2 $4.99 (194 [+ 12] pages).

Dinoverse: Beverly Hills Brontosaurus, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, September 2000, paperback 0-375-80595-8 $4.99 (173 [+ 11] pages).

Dinoverse: Dinosaurs Ate My Homework, by Scott Ciencin. Illustrated by Mike Fredericks.
NYC, Random House, November 2000, paperback 0-375-80596-6 $4.99 (192 [+ 8] pages).

If there is an expert in writing s-f Young Adult novels featuring dinosaurs, it is Scott Ciencin. He has written seven authorized Dinotopia novels, four authorized Godzilla novels, and four authorized Jurassic Park novels. (Not to mention a slew of Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, The Elven Ways, Forgotten Realms, Kim Possible, Star Trek, Transformers, Zorro, and other authorized Young Adult series novels.) But there is one series that is all his own creation: Dinoverse. Read the rest of this entry »

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December 10, 2014

“All the Single Furries” parody fursuit video provokes special awe

by Patch O'Furr

It’s the video they LOVE to hate.  They can’t tear their eyes away while they stare.  There must be some German word for that emotion – something that means spellbound horror. hell

I shared it without comment, shortly after it was posted on August 31.  Now, it wormed it’s way back to my attention. It’s attracting special antipathy, with Youtube likes outnumbered by double dislikes… but the nearly 90,000 views keep rising.  (In the lag for this to post, it’s risen by 10,000 a week.)
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