Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week
March 26, 2015

Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife – comic review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife (Book 5), by Rick Griffin
North Charleston, SC, CreateSpace, November 2014, trade paperback $13.95 (52 pages).

Does Book 5 have a real title page? After five volumes!? (Gasp! Choke!)

THUMBNAIL_IMAGEYes, Book 5 has a real title page! However – well, my reviews of the first four books have all recommended that unless you have them all, you should start with an earlier volume to get to know the cast. That is particularly true of Book 5. It begins with the dogs and cats of Babylon Gardens “imaginating” their own version of Guys and Dolls by Loesser, Swerling & Burrows. If you’re familiar with the Broadway musical and with Peanut, Grape, Tarot, Max, Sabrina, and the other housepets of Housepets!, fine. If not, Book 5 is a really confusing one to start with.

Fortunately, practically all readers of Dogpatch Press already follow Housepets! regularly – don’t you? Housepets! is an online Monday-Wednesday-Friday comic strip that began on June 2, 2008. It has won the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip for every year since 2009. The four previous collections are Housepets! Are Naked All the Time, Housepets! Hope They Don’t Get Eaten, Housepets! Can Be Real Ladykillers, and Housepets! Are Gonna Sniff Everybody; all previously reviewed on Flayrah. Housepets! Don’t Criticize Your Lovelife (Book 5) starts with the online strip from June 6, 2012 and ends with that from June 3, 2013. These are the story-arcs #56, “Let’s Imaginate Guys and Dolls” to #69, “The King and I”, plus one-off gag strips between those.

Housepets! is the story of the dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, and other pets of Babylon Gardens, a typical residential suburban neighborhood – in an alternate universe. The animals are larger than in our universe (but not human-sized), can talk, are usually bipedal, and address their human owners as “Mom” and “Dad”. Their status is somewhere between pets and children. Points established over the years are that humans can bequeath their belongings to their pets, who do not need a human guardian; human storekeepers are not allowed to sell catnip to cats; human police forces have an auxiliary of Police Dogs who are not all police dogs; the pets comment sardonically on how they can go naked in public but their human “parents” can’t; and – lots of other stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

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March 25, 2015

The Labyrinth, by Catherynne M. Valente – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Labyrinth, by Catherynne M. Valente. Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer.
Germantown, MD, Prime Books, April 2006, hardcover $29.95 (181 [+1] pages).download (3)

The introduction and blurbs emphasize this slim novel’s surrealism. Publishers Weekly reviewed it as, “…a female Theseus details the bizarre landscape of the Minotaur’s maze and its unique flora and fauna. […] Readers who luxuriate in the telling of a tale and savor phrases where every word has significance will enjoy the challenge of this fantasy. Others may find its maze of language an impenetrable mystery.”

You can put me among those who find its maze of language an impenetrable mystery. The jacket-flap blurb is, “A lyrical anti-quest through a conscious maze without center, borders, or escape–a dark pilgrim’s progress through a landscape of vicious Angels, plague houses, crocodile-prophets, tragic chess-sets, and the mind of an unraveling woman, driven on by the mocking guide who seeks to destroy as much as save.” The book’s murky cover by Aurélien Police fits it wonderfully. Can you tell what this is about?

But The Labyrinth is undeniably richly anthropomorphic. The nameless (or manynamed) narrator wanders through a maze filled with Doors. Each opens into a different dimension that threatens to sidetrack her from the Labyrinth’s end. And many are inhabited by an anthropomorphic animal.

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March 24, 2015

Chat with Strypes, Edmonton Oil Kings mascot performer and fursuit referee.

by Patch O'Furr

Here’s a followup post to:  Edmonton Oil Kings hockey hosts fursuiter race. “It’s looking hairy at ice level!”

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On January 2, 2015, the Edmonton Oil Kings hosted a fursuit race at their hockey game.  The “Frantic Furry 500″ entertained the crowd during intermissions.  It was organized by Strypes, (AKA bcbreakaway). It was incredibly cool of Strypes to answer my questions about the event and his furry activities.  I was surprised to find out that he seems to have discovered this fandom only two years ago – and he’s a professional mascot who already had the spirit inside.  Give him a high-paw for being an amazing example of why Furries rock! 

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March 23, 2015

A small story about being sexually assaulted in fursuit.

by Patch O'Furr

Or should I say “manhandled?”  Nah… Dogpiled. That’s more like it.

This story is no reason for alarm.  It’s just a P.S.A. to say “hey guys, look out for each other!”

With this story, I’m assuming:

  • You’re a furry, or at least you don’t hate them. (It’s in-group stuff.)
  • You don’t hate hearing about adult activity, with a disclaimer that it’s a special sub-interest that doesn’t define furries.

The fur was flying at a party that was very loud, crowded and gay. Muffled music was coming through my fursuit head. I was bouncing around and giving hugs to everyone, from “just friends” all the way to grinding if they wanted.  People know I’m into that (in the right time and place,) even if they come up behind me and I can’t tell who it is.  Basically, “if you see my fursuit, that’s my consent.”

A guy shoved up in the darkness, and I thought he was a regular.  He started pawing my junk, and his friend crowded in and yanked my belt off.  She got rough because I had suspenders on it holding up my tail.  That’s when I got surprised and flustered, because furries aren’t aggressive. Even when there’s “instant consent” with ones I can’t see, they’re respectful, but this was rough handling by outsiders.

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March 20, 2015

IMVU’s big buy-in. These messages sponsored by hugs and scritches. Newsdump (3/20/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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Fandom News

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FurAffinity sold to 3D social network IMVU.  

downloadYou heard, right?  FurAffinity is the shaky but most active anchor for furry socializing and art.  Naughty stuff on it can’t go without mention.  That makes it a haven for freedoms that make the community what it is, for good or ill (depending on how prudish you are.)  The sale to IMVU comes as a surprise.  It’s a bold move for a company to partner with a community with stigma attached.  How well will this work?

In January, IMVU reached out to me. They got an article about their appearance at Fur Con.   (It was before today’s news was public, but apparently around when FurAffinity was sold.)  I got back in touch with their rep, and have a confirmation that they’ll answer my questions.  Everyone’s yapping about it – more soon in a followup article.

4 fursuits stolen from Jakedashep. Send hugs.

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March 19, 2015

Ribbit – animated movie review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Ribbit, directed by Chuck Powers. 88 minutes. September 4, 2014.

This CGI animated feature was released theatrically in Malaysia, in Malay, on September 4, 2014. But I saw it at my sister’s on On Demand TV in English on January 16, 2015.

It is not the worst movie that I have ever seen, but it comes close.

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March 18, 2015

Ooops! Noah is Gone… Animated movie announcement by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Ooops! Noah is Gone…, directed by Toby Genkel and Sean McCormack. For Summer 2015.

The number of theatrical animated features coming in 2015 keeps getting larger.

There have been uncountable magazine cartoon variations of a pair of unicorns standing on a rainswept mountaintop, watching Noah’s Ark sailing off into the distance. But up to now, no animated feature has concentrated upon the animals that didn’t get onto the Ark.

Well, mainly just a couple of the animals; the nestrians and the grymps. No, I haven’t heard of them before, either. The German film sales company Global Screen has announced that Ulysses Filmproduktion in Hamburg is just finishing production of Ooops! Noah is Gone… (Ooops! Die Arche ist Weg …), a CGI “end of the world comedy” for families/children about the “untold story of the animals that didn’t get on the ark”.

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March 17, 2015

Princeton University course teaches Furry Fanfic – professor talks to us.

by Patch O'Furr

Fanfiction: Transformative Works from Shakespeare to Sherlock assigns homework to read a story replacing characters with animals.  (See March 4 in the link.) I emailed the professor for comment to furries. She has an interesting background and is author of “Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World”.  (Her previous course focused on Twilight – the movie just came out, so I’m guessing that’s why she had many journalist encounters.)

Professor Anne Jamison writes:

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March 16, 2015

I just voted for 2014’s Ursa Major Awards. Now it’s your turn! Voting is open until April 15.

by Patch O'Furr

Yay! Two things promoted here are on the short list of Ursa Major nominees.fryfrc-315x172

  • Best Anthropomorphic Magazine: Dogpatch Press – OF COURSE!   Well, it may be more accurate to claim “Fluffiest hugs” or “Most Linty”.  Who can pick just one from all the awesome choices?  But vote for us anyways, so we can spread more awards and hugs to everyone else.
  • Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short or Series: Furry Force from College Humor.  It’s the funniest piece I’ve seen of “fursploitation” comedy. (More on that in a future post). It works because the creators tease with love.  So, good for them for making the cut from 33 choices down to 5 nominees.  Vote for them to encourage more!  Pssst, I have a secret about Furry Force… there will be some exclusive news, but right now it’s for me to know and you to find out. Haha.

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

The 2014 Ursa Major Awards

 

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March 13, 2015

Furtual Horizons (Rainfurrest anthology) – book review by Fred Patten.

by kiwiztiger

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

Furtual Horizons; A Rainfurrest Anthology, edited by Ryan “Sterling” Hickey. Illustrated.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, September 2014, trade paperback $10.00 (269 pages).

978-1-61450-198-5_cvr_web
Furtual Horizons is the fourth annual RainFurrest charity fiction anthology, following 2011’s Stories of Camp Rainfurrest, 2012’s Tails of a Clockwork World, and 2013’s Dancing in the Moonlight. “The RainFurrest Annual Charity Anthology was created to celebrate and showcase the literary aspect of the anthropomorphics fandom as well as to raise funds for charity.  The charity for RainFurrest 2014 is Cougar Mountain Zoo (http://www.cougarmountainzoo.org/).” All stories are donated to RainFurrest by mid-June, and the anthology is published by FurPlanet Productions in Dallas to be sold at the convention in September, and subsequently at future RainFurrests and through the FurPlanet catalogue. RainFurrest 2014 raised $6,500 for Cougar Mountain Zoological Park in Seattle’s suburb of Issaquah.

RainFurrest 2014’s and its anthology’s theme was “Cyberpunk”. Furtual Horizons contains eleven stories, six of which are illustrated with full-page frontispieces.

Frankly, this 2014 anthology is the first that has looked like a real book rather than a thin booklet of barely over 100 pages. At eleven stories and 269 pages, the reader gets his/her full money’s worth. Also, personally, I am getting increasingly annoyed by the convention’s inability to settle on its spelling of RainFurrest or Rainfurrest after eight years.

“Artificial Evolution” by Shelled Spirit Bear (illustrated by Slavestate Comic) is set in the year 2460. It features Rachel, a robot; Alan, an anthro red fox; Shun, a female large 7’ gray shark in a black bikini; and later a Red Mechanoid. On the first page Rachel, the narrator, is badly damaged in an accident. It turns out that “she” is in an old-fashioned mechanical body: Read the rest of this entry »

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