Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Midwest Furfest 2015 – More than 5,000 gather in Chicago. (Via Furrymedia.)
The International Business Times has tons of great fursuit photos. You may find a few more in a slideshow from the same Reuters photographer. Enjoy a con video from Vox Fox and a music video from Kiba Wolf.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Fred Patten’s birthday was December 11 – Happy 75th, Fred!
Read an interview with Fred about the founding of Furry fandom, by esteemed novelist Phil Geusz. Thanks Fred for bringing so much content that helps Dogpatch Press to put out Furry News every week day. Sorry that this went out too late to share Furplanet’s weekend birthday discount sale for Fred’s titles. But check them out:
“Accidental Guests of the Midwest Fur Fest” – outsider appreciation gets viral views.
This personal blog post got lots of love. The Healthy Not Nuts blog covers a husband and wife’s thoughts on recipes, diet, health and photography. It’s lovely when Furries add spice to the mundane! “…how can you not love these creatures that look so cute, cuddly and happy all of the time?” The post earned 267 comments. The writer shared an appreciation letter for the post, where he mentioned getting over 20,000 views.
Furries in Buzzfeed’s “The 50 Worst Things On The Internet In 2015.” (NSFW)
Use this archive link (so they get no incentive to publish unforgivable crap). Furries are in items 14, 20, 31, and 46. There’s also bonus bronies, puppy and pony players. Whether it’s love or hate, at least things are never boring…
Goodbye to Furnation.
Furnation was one of the first visible Web presences for Furry fandom. It helped many to discover their fursonas in the 1990’s. Reddit calls it “the end of an era.” Flayrah gave it a feature under it’s tag for collected coverage. Social network Furrtrax made a generous offer of free hosting to keep it online. I tried helping, but got the feeling that Furnation’s admin was too burnt out with health problems to devote an ounce of effort for community moderation. I also assume the build of the site might be antiquated and burdensome (perhaps technical, or with copyright for content built by individuals.) It’s influence lives on in places like FurPlanet (formed from Furnation Magazine), one of the 3 main Furry publishers.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer. Originally written for Quentin Long’s Anthro Magazine.
The Doorman, by Reinaldo Arenas. Translated from the Spanish by Dolores M. Koch.
NYC, Grove Weidenfeld, June 1991, hardcover 0-8021-1109-2 $17.95 (191 pages).
Reinaldo Arenas was a young Cuban novelist known for both novels of “magical realism” and a flamboyant homosexual life style. The Castro regime, notoriously anti-homosexual, imprisoned and tortured him, and finally exiled him as part of the Mariel boatlift of 1980. He wrote several critically-acclaimed novels, plays, and collections of poetry in New York during the 1980s. In 1987 he contracted AIDS and, giving in to worsening health, committed suicide in 1990.
The Doorman (El Portero) was published in 1987 but not translated into English until after his death. It was described as a semi-autobiographical surrealist fantasy; reviewers threw the terms “magical realism”, “sardonic Swiftian parable”, and “fabulist” around a lot. Juan, an idealistic young Cuban exile, ends up in New York City (just like Arenas). He eventually gets a position as a doorman at an exclusive luxury Manhattan apartment building. Juan is an overzealous idealist who appoints himself to be a friend of each of the tenants, with a mission to help them open a mystical “door to true happiness” (pg. 6). Alas, the tenants are all self-centered elitists who ignore him. But each tenant has a pet, and the pets listen to his message.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Friend of the community lost in mass shooting in San Bernardino CA. (Tip: Bosn Otter.)
The tragedy on December 2 is described as terrorism-related, and left 14 dead and 21 injured.
Bosn said Dan Kaufman was “a friend to the furry community… a friend to pretty much everybody he ever met.”
His Facebook account gave the impression that he had lots of friends through cons and the Ren Faires. It was hard to find direct Furry connections, although some of his last pics were from a comic con I went to 1 month ago (Comikaze Expo) where he cosplayed as a wolf.
A three part series:
1) The beginning of mascots and fursuiting.
2) Fursuiting crossover with pro sports.
3) The National Mascot Hall of Fame.
Mascot art, business, culture, and a Hall of Fame to celebrate it all.
Let’s peer into the strange, distant futureworld of 2017.
How much respect do mascots get? It’s kind of a stereotype that they deserve mocking and noogies from jocks. Some would say that enjoying mascots too much is like loving the sauce while ignoring the main course. They might consider it ridiculous to give sole focus for celebration of mascots.
Now there’s a whole institution for that. The Mascot Hall of Fame was founded by David Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic from 1978-1993. It’s been around since 2005 in online-only form. Now it’s getting a 25,000 square-foot building in Whiting, Indiana. (With the crowd capacity of this place, imagine a jock giving noogies to so many thousands of mascot lovers- his arms would fall off.) Read the rest of this entry »
Edmonton Oil Kings hockey halftime show, January 2015.
A three part series:
1) The beginning of mascots and fursuiting.
2) Fursuiting crossover with pro sports.
3) The National Mascot Hall of Fame.
Good examples of fursuiting crossover with pro sports.
I have to admit not knowing a lot about commercial mascotting. But here’s some quick comparison with the amateur hobby kind. At Amazing-Mascots.com, you can get a feel for how major teams and companies commission the pro makers.
Amazing Mascots is a company with a 15,000 foot warehouse, and a team of seasoned professionals boasting decades of mascotting and designing experience. They quote multiplied prices ($4000-12,000) compared to costume makers inside fandom.
Our own fursuit makers charge as little as $2000 and typically do it from a craft room at home. But their craft often beats the pros, doesn’t it? They do it for love as much as money. So value their skills and personal relationships with them, and give them love back.
On to the examples of how hobbyists are reaching the level of pros…
Wolf mascot for Moscow’s Dynamo hockey team – made in 2013 by Mixedcandy.
Even if the Dynamo NHL team was in the USA – I wouldn’t know anything about them. But I would know the work of Mixedcandy. There must be an interesting story about how they commissioned this and why. I wouldn’t expect a pro team to approach a hobby community just to save a couple grand! (Pic: LatinVixen on FurAffinity. More at the Dynamo Instagram page.)
The National Mascot Hall of Fame is coming in 2017. This mainstream event might deserve attention from furries. Will hobby costumers indirectly benefit from the millions of investment and hype?
Sci-fi costuming and mascots probably developed separately. But some fursuiting is showing up in pro sports. Anthrocon had the San Diego Chicken as Guest Of Honor. A mascot was a viral sensation of the 2015 Super Bowl. Can we look forward to more crossover? Is this part of mainstreaming furries, with stuff like Disney’s Zootopia?
A three part series:
1) The beginning of mascots and fursuiting.
2) Fursuiting crossover with pro sports.
3) The National Mascot Hall of Fame.
I have to admit that sports isn’t my thing. Ritualistically chasing a stuffed spheroid doesn’t set my curiosity on fire. Whenever I see a sportsball game, it seems quite possible, even unavoidable that one of the teams or the other is going to win. What’s the big deal?
However, even if the physical spectacle isn’t my thing, I can at least admire the ideals of positive team competition, and strength and bravery.
In ancient times, feats of strength were amazing. Muscle helped you to build shelter to protect you from hungry lions or the angry gods. Bravery in the hunt was amazing too. It was better to feed the tribe with antelope steaks than with bugs and berries.
But in modern times, you don’t need strength for that stuff. Use a forklift or order a pizza. Physical feats don’t impress me as much as they should.
Of course, I’ll take an invite to hang out with sports-loving friends if there’s beers and chatting. I have nothing against a good spectacle or playing outside. I just have different priorities.
I like creative and intellectual pursuits that help us evolve beyond the stone age, or even the silicon age – towards whatever comes next. (Like maybe a Mad Max future, where the most popular sport is watching cyborgs with chainsaw arms do gladiator battle.)
Mascots are fun and creative. I like their designs and how they act. Let’s talk about what they mean and where they came from. Plug your brain into the matrix, and let me take you back to the Pre-Furry Past… and beyond the horizon of time, to the incomprehensibly distant futureworld of 2017.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Let’s have a poll.
What is the worst anthropomorphic movie of the 2011 to 2020 decade? Theatrical or on DVD? Animation or live-action?
Let me start off by listing my choices for the five worst so far… and the decade isn’t even half over yet.
Food Fight! ([U.S.] Threshold Entertainment, May 7, 2013)
Food Fight! had a clever idea: license rights to several well-known anthropomorphic food logos like Chester Cheetah and Charlie the Tuna, and bring them to life in an animated supermarket mystery/comedy. Dex Dogtective, a fictional logo, investigates with everyone else as a supporting character. But the result, shall we say, lacked something. Like an interesting story. Like in-depth characterizations and attractive character designs. Like good CGI art. The producer spent almost a decade trying to get a theatrical release before giving up and going direct-to-DVD.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
James, the Connoisseur Cat, by Harriet Hahn.
NYC, St. Martin’s Press, October 1991, hardcover $13.95 (169 pages).
James, Fabulous Feline: Further Adventures of a Connoisseur Cat, by Harriet Hahn.
NYC, St. Martin’s Press, June 1993, hardcover $14.95 (199 pages).
This two-book set presents a whimsical set of adventures of a very British cat, more aristocratic than James-Bondian.
“I spend a lot of my time in England,” begins the nameless narrator, a traveling art expert. “My apartment in Baron’s Chambers, on Ryder Street, is my headquarters.”
[…]
“I felt wonderfully at home, and then I noticed something new. Sitting on the small table where one usually finds messages and brochures describing current exhibits and events sat what appeared at first glance to be a big, gray, short-haired cat. It was motionless and its eyes were closed, but even so, I felt the power of a rare personality.” (p. 1)
James never does talk, but he makes his feelings plain through pantomime, especially to the narrator.
This guest post is by a furry and usher for Cinemark, one of America’s largest theater chains. He asked not to be named for employment reasons.
He raised an international issue I didn’t think of in Part 1. France has had some high-profile riots and political violence. As a result, since 2011, the country has a law making it “illegal to wear a face-covering veil or other mask in public places”. It’s caused interesting enforcement, like banning costumes on Halloween. Comments wanted from French furries – has this affected anyone personally?
(UPDATE:) This article was completed on November 13, only hours before a mass shooting in France hit the news. Relevant detail: “Julien Pierce, a Europe 1 journalist… has described what he saw: ‘Several armed men came into the concert. Two or three men, not wearing masks…'” Fans watching the band “Eagles of Death Metal” were shot. It’s interesting how heavy metal and violent movies have been unfair scapegoats for moral panic in the past. Will it increase for costumers? From tiny conventions to large shows, let’s value culture and liberties. Let’s also send community sympathies to those affected in France.
– Patch
Guest opinion from a furry theater employee about costume bans.
For a second, I thought the US was considering a rule where costumes aren’t allowed anywhere except homes and conventions (kinda like what France is doing).
First off, I think the rule these theaters made are over-paranoid. I’ve taken a look at the 2012 Aurora Shooting (which started it all). Here are some important facts I noticed that I think Cinemark overlooked when they made this rule. (PLEASE NOTE: I got most info from wikipedia, so you may want to verify on your own.)
