Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week
May 22, 2015

“Unbelievably cute:” True-Tail animation series, from Skynamic Studios.

by Patch O'Furr

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

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Back in August 2013, Rod O’Riley’s In-Fur-Nation brought us the first news of Skynamic Studios’ “True-Tail” Adobe Flash animation series in preproduction.  “A place where six unruly mercenaries must learn to work together … Or succumb to an ancient dark magic.”  The six are Caleb, a kitten squire; Brutus, a bear warrior-knight; Viktor, a fox thief; Melody, a rabbit bard; Doh-Li, a half-dragon, half-deer priestess; and Kanikus, an ancient phoenix wizard.  The art design is – unbelievably cute.

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May 21, 2015

Amazing BLFC report, Hug Permits, furries in national art shows. Newsdump (5/21/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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Mainstream sightings and fandom news

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VICE parties hard at Fur-eh!

The article gets super friendly, and stays refreshingly non-judgemental.  It can be hard to broadly cover an event with immersion in a tight circle of friends, so it’s only a small slice of the experience.  Not all furries are way into parties.  Some feel like it ruins think-heavy sci-fi focus.  However, sci-fi cons with no parties are a world I don’t want to live in. You can make a furry con anything you want it to be.  When they do party, nobody does it better!

Impressions from Biggest Little Fur Con.

I confess to partying too hard to cover this with it’s own article. (Thanks Vox for a great vid!)

  • It’s really amusing to see someone get covered head to toe in shaving cream.  (It takes about 4 cans.)
  • Favorite shirt I saw: “I’M FAT – LET’S PARTY”
  • Thank-you’s for blogging? You might as well thank me for eating! Someone joked that it must take drugs to pound these out.  Nope.  Fursuiting is my drug.
  • Attendance of 2400+ makes BLFC the 6th largest con. (AKA “Biggest Medium Fur Con.”)  That’s impressive to build in 3 years. The subculture is rising!
  • With the future Dystopia theme, a lot of fan interaction means they succeeded. Many said it was the best use of a theme they had ever seen.  High praise.
  • More interaction I loved were the unofficial “Hug Permit” officers.  They were funny, engaging… and helpful with secret wing-man encouragement. (See “code 90944?”)  Come on… with 2400 adults together for a once a year celebration, how could that NOT happen? No judging. Further proof that “Hugs are the handshake of furries.”

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May 20, 2015

Funny-animal comics retrospective: The History of Hi-Jinx and the Hepcats – by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

6a00d83451c29169e20192ac126c01970d-450wiI would like to thank Perri Rhoades for giving me the inspiration for this article and for making most of it easy. I used to have a complete set of Hi-Jinx, but when I had a paralyzing stroke in 2005 and was permanently hospitalized, some friends boxed up all my books, magazines and comic books and donated them to the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the UCRiverside Library. I have not seen them since. Fortunately, Rhoades has called my attention to the fact that much about Hi-Jinx and the Hepcats has been posted online since 2005. She has scanned all but one of the seven issues of Hi-Jinx for her LiveJournal, and she gave me her URL so that I could reread them at leisure for this retrospective. Even more, her scans have included the different covers of the Australian edition of Hi-Jinx, which I never knew about. Thanks, Perri!

Much of the remaining information is from The Comic Art of Jack Bradbury, a website created by his son, Joel (http://jbrad.org/index.html); and from Dave Bennett, a Hollywood animator and funny-animal fan for decades who knew Hi-Jinx’s artist Jack Bradbury personally. Bennett says, “Jack told me himself that all the Hepcats stories he drew were written by Cal Howard — he raved about how good he thought they were!  Other than those stories and the Disney work he did, Jack wrote all of his ACG/Nedor/Pines/Standard stories himself.  They were lettered by Tubby Millar.” And after I had thought that this retrospective was completed, Alter-Ego #112, August 2012 came along with “‘Something … ?’; A Study of Comics Pioneer Richard E. Hughes” by Michael Vance, containing never-before-published information about Hi-Jinx’s obscure publisher.

The American Comics Group’s Hi-Jinx, “Teen-Age Animal Funnies”, only lasted for seven bi-monthly issues in 1947/48. But it was – different. It was the only comic book to mix funny animals with teenage humor.

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May 19, 2015

A con was threatened, but don’t attack symptoms and make a problem worse.

by Patch O'Furr

There were lots of reasons to celebrate in Reno, on May 14-17, 2015.  2400 furballs tumbled across the desert to Biggest Little Fur Con, making it the 6th largest con after three short years. I spoke to the Chair, who said that they were very lucky to have the extravagant layout of the Grand Sierra. Happy vibes filled it up. There was a group photo of 700 fursuiters.  I jumped in to hug as many as possible, and it was like a spin in a dryer on fluff cycle.

Swept away from the outpouring of Furry friendship, there was one little black speck of pain. While others acted out their inner feelings in colorful costumes, one lonely guy let his inner demons out.  He went to make an outburst with threats of violence.  It was a cry for help. But the community could only help itself, and he was detained and escorted away.  Everyone else’s happiness could only be a mirage in his personal desert.

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May 18, 2015

Disaster Dogs joins The Furclub Survey.

by Patch O'Furr

Furclubbing: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.”  It’s a New Thing that’s been spreading since the late 2000’s.  This kind of dance party is independent from conventions.  This builds on the growth of cons, and takes things farther.  It’s more established than events that happen once, house parties or informal meets.  Those can be inner-focused, or gather cliquish friends to only seek each other.   This brings partnership with venues that aren’t hotels, and new supportive interest in the kind of events they host and promote.  It crosses a line to public space.  A stranger may walk in off the street to discover their new favorite thing.  It encourages new blood, and crosses over to other scenes. It makes subculture thrive.

See the list of parties at The Furclub survey.  Any one that gives a Q&A will get a featured article. Organizer Ezo Kewn tells you about this new event:

Disaster Dogs (founded 2015)

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Current Founders: Ezo & The OG Disaster Dogs Crew.
Event Type: Club.
Styles Of Music: DJ’s, Rap, Rock Bands.
Crowd Size: 75-100.
Venue: The High Line, in Seattle WA.
Twitter: @Disasterdogs
Website: www.disasterdogs.net
Comments: Disaster Dogs has been around for years in the Seattle area throwing house parties and brewing beer, but this year we are branching out to provide a club outlet for the furry community in the Pacific Northwest.

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May 16, 2015

Catalyst and Catacombs – book review by Fred Patten.

by kiwiztiger

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

Catalyst; A Tale of the Barque Cats, by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
NYC, Ballantine Books, January 2010, hardcover $26.00 (256 [+ 5] pages), Kindle $7.99.

Catacombs; A Tale of the Barque Cats, by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
NYC, Ballantine Books, December 2010, hardcover $26.00 (236 [+ 3] pages), Kindle $9.99.

9780345513762_p0_v1_s600 McCaffrey and Scarborough, two well-known cat-lovers, focus upon cats of the interstellar future in this two-volume series. “Hood Station, where they had just docked, was a backwater facility providing the interface between the agro-based planet Sherwood and the rest of the universe.” (Catalyst, p. 3) The opening lead characters are Janina Mauer, a human Cat Person, and her charge, Chessie, the Barque Cat of the interstellar freighter Molly Daise. They have just arrived at Hood Station. Janina’s exact age is not given, but clues make her a rather naïve young woman. Barque Cats “are highly prized, as [they] are not only superbly bred but have all grown into the best ships’ cats in the universe.” They “save lives […] patrol the tight areas of our spaceships, keeping rodents from eating the coating on cables, smelling hazardous gases and even escaping oxygen”. (p. 4) They are extremely valuable, leading to Chessie being bred as often as is safe.

It is obvious in the first chapter that, although Catalyst is packaged and priced as an adult book, this is really an adventure for teenagers. Janina has a chaste crush on Dr. Jared Vlast, Sherwood’s handsome young veterinarian, which he reciprocates. As important as the humans seem, it is Chessie who is the focus of the opening of the story. The writing is “cozy”: “Chessie was surprised her human friends couldn’t hear each other’s chests pounding. Or maybe they could and just wouldn’t admit it. Humans were so strange about mating matters.” (p. 10)
And although Barque Cats are already highly intelligent cats, clues tell the reader that something in their diet on the frontier planet Sherwood is making both them and other Earth animals mutate or evolve into real sentience.

“As Jared then moved on to a quick, competent feel of her [Chessie’s] fecund belly, he asked Jenina what was concerning her.

‘Well, she’s been regurgitating a lot, and it’s strange looking.’ Janina showed him the vial that contained the latest of her spit-up. Humans collected the strangest things! Janina turned it in the light. ‘You see it’s got these sparkly bits that I can’t account for at all.’” (p. 12)

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May 15, 2015

Dude, Where’s My Fox?, by Kyell Gold – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Dude, Where’s My Fox?, by Kyell Gold. Illustrated by BlackTeagan.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, September 2014, trade paperback $9.95 ( [3] + 115 pages), Kindle $7.99.

DWMF-Cover-smallThis is “A Red Velvet Cupcake”, FurPlanet’s eighth “Cupcake” novella for fiction between the short story and novel lengths. It does not have FurPlanet’s usual Adults warning for NC-17 content of a M/M erotic relationship, but it probably – no; definitely! — should. Here is FurPlanet’s back-cover blurb:

“Lonnie’s slept with exactly two guys in his life: his ex-boyfriend of three years Steven, and the fox he just hooked up with while drunk at a party. The fox didn’t leave his name, just his scent in Lonnie’s fur—but a scent is enough for a wolf to follow a trail. With his friends Derek the gym wolf and Jeremy the fashionplate rat helping him, Lonnie will learn lessons of dating, sex, and trust, and maybe he’ll find the fox whose scent is just right before the clock chimes midnight.”

Lonnie (no last names here), the narrator, is a young, slightly small (5’5”) wolf. He’s a recent college graduate and structural geologist who seems to devote more of his life to his gay proclivities than to his professional career. He is still getting over his breakup with Steven, his previous red fox boyfriend, when he gets so drunk at a party that, when he wakes up the next morning, he can’t remember much about the male fox that he had sex with the night before, except that it was so good that Lonnie is determined to find him again:

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May 14, 2015

Mask/hood bans: Haters love this excuse for war on fun and freedom.

by Patch O'Furr

3RANT! Sometimes, you don’t know how good it is to have tolerance, until you see it taken away from others.

In Vermont, fursuiters were mingling with crowds at a Mardi Gras celebration.  They were high-fiving people and making them feel like they were in magical unicorn-land, like fursuiters do.  Then a town official with a Sequoia up his butt decided that fun should be illegal. Or they weren’t paying the Smile Tax. Or whatever.

Vermont town selectively bans fursuiters: Prejudice complaint and update.

Here’s what happened since:  The sad fursuiters patiently worked with the town, trying to jump through their hoops to get permits.  The town officials stroked their Hitler mustaches, and came up with this scheisse:

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May 13, 2015

Yay for street fursuiting! San Francisco’s 2015 How Weird Street Faire furmeet.

by Patch O'Furr

To me, street fursuiting is the best, most spontaneous form of “The Most Furry Activity”.  Street fairs are the best place to do it.  So, the start of street fair season is a special occasion.

In San Francisco, for at least the past several years, How Weird Street Faire has been first on the list.  After this, the season reaches a high point with the million-attended Pride celebration. It stays strong through October with events like the Superhero Street Fair.  It’s especially strong here because the crowds are very friendly to freaky spectacles and costuming – and the area may have the world’s highest population of furries.  Fun like this makes a good reason to say that the San Francisco Bay Area is Furry Mecca.

To any fursuiters who have never done it on the street, and feel like traveling – consider making a trip coincide with one of our meets.  You’ll get an amazing subcultural experience you can never have as a regular tourist.  That’s the beauty of subculture – friends wherever you go!  You can do this wherever you are, though.  Get inspired by my interview with Sakura Fox:  Renegade fursuiting is BEST fursuiting.

The 2013 How Weird furmeet gave us wonderful photos.  For the 2014 meet, ABC News gave a shout to furries picked out from thousands of costumers.  There was continuing recognition at the 2015 How Weird Street Faire, their 16th annual event.

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May 12, 2015

Camp Feral!: Fifteen Years, 1998 – 2012 (Part 1) by Fred Patten

by kiwiztiger

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

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“Camp Feral! An all-inclusive furry summer camp where the registration fee covers your food, lodging and activities for the most unique and memorable furry experience of your life! Your fee covers all the coffee you can drink, [and] all the breakfast lunch or dinner you can eat.” (from the Camp Feral! 2012 website)

Camp Feral! is the oldest of the recorded outdoor furry conventions, going back to 1998. (There may have been earlier informal furry camping trips that made no claim of being conventions.) It is also Canada’s oldest furry event, and the fourth oldest continuing furry convention (after EuroFurence in 1995 and Anthrocon and Mephit FurMeet in 1997). It was started after the oldest furry annual convention, ConFurence in Southern California (1989), gave rise to U.S. East Coast furry conventions in 1995 to 1997 (Furtasticon, Confurence East, Albany Anthrocon), inspiring Canadian furry fans to start their own convention – but with a difference.

Camp Feral! was conceived by several Toronto-area Furry fans. P. Pardus said in the Feral! 99! Survival Guide that it got started by him and Terry Wessner asking each other “what if” questions during Albany Anthrocon ’97. Other furs remember the planning as starting just after the first Albany Anthrocon in July 1997, while still others remember it as preceding the first Anthrocon but inspired by Anthrocon’s pre-con publicity. In any case, everyone agrees that Albany Anthrocon gave them the idea. The original plan, to have an outdoor summer camping retreat with furry workshops instead of a traditional hotel-style convention (it is often called the “uncon” because it is so different from other furry conventions), is credited to P. (Panthera) Pardus (Ken Suzuki) of Mississauga, and Silfur (Dan Markey) and Terry Wessner of Toronto. They held several organizational meetings from summer 1997 through early 1998, led by Pardus in Wessner’s 22nd floor Toronto apartment. The Camp Feral! name is credited to MelSkunk (Melissa Drake), in response to a call for a name that was “evocative without being too open to ridicule”. The initial committee consisted of Pardus (chairman), Wessner (facilitator), and Silfur (activities coordinator), plus Simba (Benjamin Eren Robinson, also known as Benjamin; advertising director and web site developer) and Wilykat (Colin Bolton; safety and security), all of Toronto-area furry fandom. The committee and workshop instructor posts for this and future years have not always had the formal titles that they do today – Pardus and Wessner were known at FeralCom meetings as “president-for-life” and “facilitator” — but these are the furs and the jobs that they were responsible for. Wessner bankrolled the first Camp Feral!, which operated at a steep loss because the committee seriously underestimated expenses. (He was reimbursed over several years.) Read the rest of this entry »

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