Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Society and culture

Furries get a look from popular German comic Erzaehlmirnix.

by Patch O'Furr

Want a change from intense American news?  German furry fan Stefan sends a tip (thanks!)  This is very nice to get, since otherwise it would be completely missed by American furs.  It’s from comic site “Erzaehlmirnix”.  It has 80,000 followers on Facebook and over 13,000 on Twitter – but likely no English-only followers for images that won’t translate easily. (Patch)

(Stefan:) A quite popular german comic site just made two furry-related comics in quick order.

First comic:comic1 Read the rest of this entry »

A Newcomer’s Guide To Furry Terms and Customs.

by Patch O'Furr

Here at Dogpatch Press, we get an awful lot of confused outsiders asking, “what’s this all about?”  Here’s some definitions to help. If you have family or friends who want to know more about your hobby, share this to help them understand.

220px-down_the_rabbit_holeAnthropomorphic: Mixing animals with human characteristics. Think of cartoons, Aesop’s Fables, werewolves, and much more. 

Furry: Anthropomorphic media and its fans. They often (but not always) role-play an animal character. A reptile one is a Scaly.

The fandom: Furry subculture. It’s different from others because it doesn’t follow specific media like Star Trek. Furry is it’s own thing.

Fursona: The character representing a furry’s self.

Fursuit: The costume that brings a fursona to life, and can fulfill a wish to transform.

Furmeets and Cons (Conventions): Organized gatherings that include fursuiting, art, creative writing, parties and more. Cons are usually held at hotels once a year. Meets can be casual and regular and held at houses, public social places, or special ones in the woods.

Weres, Otherkin, Bronies, and Planties: These fandoms are sometimes lumped in with furries, but they aren’t the same. Weres (AKA Therians) take a fursona literally. Otherkin feel like a different species or entity in their body. Bronies are adults who love My Little Pony. Planties are the anthro-botanical fandom.

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FUTURE FURSUITING: furry’s most original creations and the rise of tech-enabled smart suits.

by Patch O'Furr

The most original creations of furry fandom.

Here’s a fun feature about the future.  But first, let me make a bold claim about fursuiting.

Male-Peacock-displayingMascots and costuming have been around forever. But furries are doing something new. They don’t just play with generic icons from myths and media. They add original fursonas and custom craft for everyone. It makes a subculture with personal expression beyond anything else.

Of course, many furs don’t have (or want) fursuits.  But the ones who do make a photogenic face of fandom. Other groups do art and writing like this one, but I don’t think anyone else does costuming in such a specialized and devoted way.  So there’s nothing wrong with the way the fursuiters stand out.  Everything else is imagination – they bring it to life and help to define the tactile name of “furry”.  And the quality is developing beyond anything you can buy commercially.  Some dedicated makers now have careers by fans, for fans, leading a Furry Economy with an exciting future.  Look forward to amazing things.

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Fandom grows in Southeast Asia – could it bring culture clash with Islam and authoritarianism?

by Patch O'Furr

By Patch O’Furr and Fred Patten, furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Remember the amazing story about Syrian refugee kids at VancouFur?  They were freshly arrived in Canada from a conservative arabic country, and housed in the same hotel with the furries. At first there were warnings and high caution about the situation.  Then the kids went wild about how cool it was. Remember that happened when you read the culture clash topic below!

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Interview with #FurryBookMonth Creator Huskyteer

by Pup Matthias

fbm-logo-800Through out the month of October you may have been seeing a special hashtag around twitter of people talking about Furry books more then usual. That is because we are in our first official Furry Book Month. A way to both celebrate the Furry writer community as well as promote just how diverse the community has gotten. You would be amazed how some people still only view the fandom with only three publishers: Sofawolf, Furplanet, and Rabbit Valley. But we have expanded to around eight with newcomers like Thurston Howl Publications, Goal Publications, and Weasel Press; bringing with them new voices and new stories with the same fluffiness or scales or feathers we love.

The Furry we have to thank for getting this event off the ground is Husykteer, a well-known and active member in the writer community since 2010. She began by posting stories on SoFurry, but by 2012 got published in both Roar 4 and Heat 9. Since then she has continued to put out quality work.

So far, I’ve had short stories and poems published in a number of anthologies; most recently Gods with Fur, Claw the Way to Victory and Inhuman Acts. My short story ‘The Analogue Cat’, which appeared in The Furry Future, won the 2015 Ursa Major and Cóyotl awards for short fiction.

I’d love to get some books out there with my name, and mine alone, on the cover! A novella, Peace & Love, should be coming out from FurPlanet soon.

But how did the idea of Furry Book Month come about? Anyone who has been around the FWG forums knows that the writer community, while growing, is still under appreciated in many aspects. So there has been a growing want to promote the community more to get people to check out their work.

In 2015, Furry Writers’ Guild member Rechan challenged the FWG forum to read a furry book, or several, during October. This grew into the idea of promoting books in the wider furry community during October 2016.

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SITE UPDATE – The first fursuiter, and Otaku Trucker: Furry Road.

by Patch O'Furr

You might see less posting here for a week – I’m busy writing for a book. That’s Furries Among Us (part 2) from Thurston Howl Publishing. (The Ursa Major Award went to Howl’s first book of essays about the fandom, so they made a new “nonfiction” award.)

My chapter is “The Furclub movement – independent furry night life is thriving!” Furry dance parties happen around the world, so if you see new dances start anywhere, please send info for the list.  (To San Francisco furs, I can’t say anything now, but expect some good news soon.)

It’s Furry Book Month, so check out some more of the fandom’s awesome creativity. Flayrah finally started approving new posts about that. Their slowness might have to do with a big rise in great reader comments here.  And so does this…

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A welcome new category for the Ursa Major Awards: Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction.

by Patch O'Furr

WHY DON’T FURRIES RECOGNIZE GOOD JOURNALISM?

 

This topic has come up before: “Bay Area Furs find out why there should be a Furry award for Best Journalism(see some good articles within) – and – “VICE looks back on the Midwest Furfest attack, earning kudos for thoughtful journalism.”

The simplistic answer is – back around 2001, this little fan group was mistreated by Vanity Fair, MTV and CSI.  Forevermore, “The Media” was a thing to hate.

But it’s not so simple. In a chicken-or-egg way, “The Media” deserves some credit for creating furries. (It’s a FANdom!)  That usually means fiction media, but there’s much more than that. There’s the “science” part of science fiction; transhumanism, animals and nature, and anything about growing a self-defined subculture. There’s info coming from the Anthropomorphic Research Project.  A top selling nonfiction book (from Thurston Howl publishers) is the fandom-essay collection Furries Among Us.

Nonfiction is a big deal in fandom for anthropomorphic animals.

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A brief history of who ruined furry.

by Patch O'Furr

fritz-the-cat-movie-poster-1972-1010196225Many people are to blame for ruining furry. This list isn’t comprehensive, and some of the jerks on it caused multiple problems at the same time.

1960’s – 1970’s:  Artists ruined furry.

Underground comic artists made a plan to stigmatize fans of funny-animal comics by putting adult stuff in ones like Robert Crumb’s Fritz The Cat and Reed Waller’s Omaha The Cat Dancer.  It worked well enough to keep fans from openly using the “furry” name until the 1980’s.

1985-1988: “Skunkfuckers” ruined furry.

It was just starting to be OK to be furry in public. Then some bad apples got us kicked out of respectable science fiction fandom.  Look at these 1980’s convention room party flyers from Lance Rund and Sy – this is the kind of thing that made furries get isolated apart from other fans, with our own private shame-cons.

furpy3

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Return of the Wild Things – San Francisco’s unique adult furry fetish party, November 2016.

by Patch O'Furr

citadelIt’s another event from the WILD THINGS crew – producers of sexy, gutsy, creative happenings for boundary-breaking expression.  There may be no other formal events in the world like this!

With their previous events, Dogpatch Press asked: is furry a “sex” thing?  NO, but there’s overlap… nothing wrong with that.  There are all kinds of other hobbies like that.  If you read the naughty history of their events, don’t overlook the tags:  BDSM, cat box cake, controversy, fetish, furries, kink, murrsuits, petplay, porn, sex… Wild Things!  

Now here’s the new one everyone’s been waiting for. (NSFW poster below.)

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October 2016 is Furry Book Month!

by Patch O'Furr

Huskyteer of the Furry Writers’ Guild sends a super cool announcement for fandom book lovers.  Furry Book Month is an initiative to promote anthropomorphic literature. Please give some love to the authors and publishers of the fandom – not just established ones you know, but also newer ones like Thurston Howl and Weasel Press.  Learn more in Fred Patten’s recent article, The State of Furry Publishing.

fbm

Furry Book Month logo by Ultrafox

October 2016 is Furry Book Month!

This October, we’re raising the profile of anthropomorphic literature and bringing it to a wider audience.

The Furry Writers’ Guild has joined forces with some of our fandom’s great authors and publishers.  They will offer special deals during the month, from free shipping and discount codes to free books.

Even if you don’t read furry fiction yet, try the special offers for a furry book in October.

Already a reader? Give a book to a friend, try a new author, or write a book review!  Reviews on Amazon and Goodreads can be short, and really help authors. Got lots to say? Submit a review to Flayrah, Dogpatch Press, or Claw & Quill.

What will you do this Furry Book Month? Please spread the word on social media using #FurryBookMonth!

Visit furrywritersguild.com/furry-book-month/ for the list of offers.

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