Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Mainstream

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 25, 2015

The Guardian Herd: Stormbound, by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Guardian Herd: Stormbound, by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez. Illustrated by David McClellan; map.516KJ+W5H1L
NYC, HarperCollinsPublishers/Harper, April 2015, hardcover $16.99 ([xiii +] 299 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $8.89.

Well, this is a big surprise! The Guardian Herd: Starfire, the first book in this series, listed 32 flying and talking horses in five herds. Others were mentioned during the adventure of the colt Starfire’s maturing to the over-stallion of his own herd. The obvious assumption was that this first sequel in a promised long series would switch to another pegasus named Stormbound. Instead, The Guardian Herd: Stormbound continues directly from where the previous novel ended. Stormbound isn’t the name of a pegasus; it’s the title of the second adventure.

The Guardian Herd: Starfire ended with Starfire (a.k.a. Star), the first all-black (except for the white star on his forehead) stallion in four hundred years, reaching his first birthday without being killed, coming into his power from the Hundred Year Star; and leading his followers – mostly yearlings like himself, plus older pegasi dissatisfied with the leaderships of the existing herds – into a new River Herd. As The Guardian Herd: Stormbound opens a month later, Star is still looking for a permanent territory for his new herd, away from the five hostile older herds. He has declined to become an over-stallion and has entrusted the River Herd to the guidance of a council of six more experienced pegasi; although the council consider themselves more as advisors under his leadership.

Read the rest of this entry »

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June 22, 2015

Pride in Furry Mecca – Viral views for Zootopia – Crushing on foxes – Newsdump (6/22/15)

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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via chrisastro.com

From 2014, via chrisastro.com

On June 28, San Francisco Pride is going to be awesome for furries!

The Bay Area Furries are all ready to march in the parade.  Pride is the height of street fair season in “Furry Mecca”.  It’s one of the most loved activities for an active section of the community.  2014 was the first Furry appearance in the parade since 2005. They had attendance of 50+, and TV coverage with a million-strong audience.  RSVP’s are 25% stronger than last year, with days left to grow.  Two leaders got the event organized, despite unavailability of an important third from last year.

Califur visited by television naturalist Figgy Dobbs.

An Inside Look at the Furries in Their Natural Habitat!

Buzzfeed podcast covers furries (via earthfurst).

BuzzFeed’s Internet Explorer does “A Deep Dive Into Furries”.  It starts at 6:45.  I missed this in April.  It calls furries “the greatest mystery of the internet”.  As usual, Buzzfeed is a dubious source – it mentions FurryMate but overlooks their bots.  I won’t forgive them for spreading lies about the NJ FurBQ Hoax.

Read the rest of this entry »

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June 15, 2015

If there was a Museum of Furry, theatrical “Panto-Animals” would be a major exhibit.

by Patch O'Furr

IN THIS ARTICLE: Don’t miss the story of Charles Lauri, a famed “animal impersonator” who thrilled the stages of Victorian London, but is little known today. The story of his acting skill, uncovered from an 1893 magazine, could be an inspiration for fursuiters everywhere.

15038897804_834fc833e6_oMany people are familiar with a unique team costume for Halloween – the Pantomime horse, that takes two people to play it.  Like a tandem bike, it makes an interesting buddy situation.  This jogs a vague memory from when I was very young, of a 1960’s Flintstones cartoon with Fred and Barney in such a costume.  It may have been a dinosaur, or a false memory, but the silly situation must have happened in old comedies to the point of cliche. TVtropes has it under Animal Anthropomorphism tropes.

If you (like me) had no idea what Pantomime meant until just now, let’s start to learn.  The old-fashioned costuming seems like a traditional kind of activity, more social than commercial.  I had an impression of something belonging to the age of door-to-door Christmas caroling, that may be fading away.

Or is it?  In 2013, a Panto Horse race broke a Guinness World Record for most runners (42 teams.)  And, since this is a Furry blog, you know I’m connecting this topic to you and your thriving subculture.  (Imagine that race happening at a con! It would be an easy record to break.)  I’m happy to learn that such fun exists… check out The London Pantomime Horse Race:  a “fantastically silly”, “must-see event.”

This isn’t about Halloween, or silly races.  There’s much more to it.  The spark for this article was randomly running across 100-year-old photos of theatrical animal costumes.  They made me do a double-take – did some fursuiter have a time machine!?  They were incredibly well crafted, and made me very curious.  I wondered why they were made so well, and for what purpose?  They were fursuits- many generations before there was such a thing as Furries!  I thought the topic had a lot of potential.

Read the rest of this entry »

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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 10, 2015

Fight the Beigists! Furries defend the National Fun Reserve.

by Patch O'Furr

Furry militia (pic: Beastcub).

Beige is the opposite of colorful.  Beigists are enemies of fun:

  1. A dull, dogmatic, unoriginal person who uses stale language and platitudes, and disregards the eccentric, daring, decadent, or unusual; a humorless bourgeois.
  2. One who lacks charm, joie de vivre, blitheness, or self-expression. A bland, banal person.

There’s nothing wrong with being average.  The problem is the “-ism”.  These walking wet blankets want life to be as exciting as a smooth jazz concert. They usually exist in spongelike complacency, consuming safe and supervised expression that’s pre-approved by the mainstream.  But from time to time, certain things make them sniff disapprovingly, like outrageous outfits and spiky music, or being within 6 blocks of a furry convention.  They’re mild-mannered, well-meaning cousins of puritans who think culture is full of immorality, and fun and sinful things should be stamped out.

Screen Shot 2015-05-12 at 5.47.28 AMPuritans live in a black-and-white-world, where people are evil and need control for their own good.  Everything’s a slippery slope, and they’re the only ones with boots planted in the rock of convictions.  They’re convinced that comics cause Satanism, rap and horror movies cause violence, porn and video games degrade women, and children are perpetually being corrupted.  (For no reason, furries are worse than that with Ass Cancer on top.)  They’re often old, but sometimes they’re Body Snatchers disguised as young people.  They may even have blue hair and edgy beliefs, that allow no offense anywhere in their hypersensitive, insecure world. They have more than a little in common with the Taliban.

In extreme times, puritanical dictators gain power by offering safety to passive crowds.  They shovel books into bonfires while the crowds stand around warming their hands.  In moderate times, they just spread disapproval while control-freaks make War on Fun.  These fascists and Beigists fit together.  If fascists are toxic waste that destroys life, Beigists are sponges that suck the fun out of it.  If one sounds like a punch in the face, the other is an insidious whining noise.  What I’m saying is, it makes me slightly miffed when boring people judge others unfairly.  There isn’t a master race, and being comfortable isn’t a reason for superiority either.

War on Fun isn’t my term – it’s been around for a while:

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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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 26, 2015

Anniversary of the New Jersey FurBQ Hoax – this bullshit cost $185,000.

by Patch O'Furr

Update: read to bottom for new details of the $185,000 cost!

Remember this sad thing? On May 26, 2012, the final New Jersey FurBQ was held for nearly 200 attendees.  It ended seven years of a party loved by a community of friends.  But it didn’t just die – it was killed with controversy and nasty headlines.  The truth was buried under biased and false reporting.

It’s a tale of intolerance and ridicule. Misinformation and dishonesty. Exploiting and scapegoating.  Shaming and moralizing against “offenses” like having fun and serving alcohol to adults over 21.  A fake sex scandal, that provoked our own anti-sex hysteria. Beneath it all, dirty town politics.

They said they had photos of two costumers doing “simulated” public sex. Everyone freaked out and pointed at each other – but it was a wild rumor. The accusations failed burden of proof.  Accusers are responsible to give evidence, but they failed to produce photos or even names, when harm made it critical to be fair.   I say if it happened, we’d at least know names.  If you’re a furry, you know how rumors go. Sure, evidence could have been held for confidentiality – but there’s no credibility for that. Photos didn’t just fail to exist – there were extra allegations of lying, a money incentive, and an unreasonable rush to judgement that was too perfectly provoked. It’s way past time to call it a HOAX. This may be the first headline to do it. (I found support from this DJ who was there.)
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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