Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week
February 3, 2016

National Hugging Day, #tonytigergate, #FC2016, cool furs and hot news. NEWSDUMP (2/3/16)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. 

Site goes down with high traffic for #tonytigergate – and the hits keep coming.

The Twitter joke of #tonytigergate drew enough mainstream curiosity to overload this site. (An upgrade may hopefully prevent that next time.)  After the story about it was posted here, it kept getting mainstream traction – highlighting a cheeky dichotomy. On one hand, there’s reputation concern – on the other hand, tickling an audience is kind of validating. It’s two sides to the coin of furry subculture and I don’t think that will ever change.

It reminded Fred Patten of something else:

Dear Patch; I vaguely remember that during all the news and publicity in 1987 for  Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there was a report that Charles Fleischer, the voice actor for Roger, got many NSFW erotic invitations from women, addressed specifically to Roger, not to him.

For National Hugging Day, the new episode of Culturally F’d is based on a Dogpatch Press article.

National Hugging Day is every January 21 for normal people.  (It’s every day for furries.)  I propose making a special occasion of it next year. And it was like a big fuzzy hug to get surprised with an entire video based on my article – “Hugs are the handshake of furries.” Wow thanks Arrkay and crew, nice to see you used it!  Anyone can freely use any content on this site that way.

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February 2, 2016

My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

MLP CoverMy Little Pony: The Art of Equestria, by Mary Jane Begin. Foreword by Jayson Thiessen. Illustrated.
NYC, Abrams, October 2015, hardcover $29.95 (215 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $13.49.

Furry fandom has had a sometimes adversarial relationship with the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic TV series and its fandom, or at least its Brony often-extremist fans. The TV animated cartoon series that premiered on October 10, 2010 is in its fifth season/year now. It has won the Ursa Major Award as the Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short or Series for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, resulting in screams of both (from within furry fandom), “Oh, no! How could it have lost!?” (in 2014, to Furry Force), and (from Brony fandom), “How dare you furry fans try to hijack our program!? MLP:FIM is totally unanthropomorphic! The ponies of Equestria can just talk and sometimes fly, that’s all!”

My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria is an Everything You Want To Know About MLP:FIM, lavish, heavily-illustrated, full-color coffee-table art book. It has already been reviewed and analyzed in detail by the MLP:FIM fans, to general praise. Here is a review for furry fandom.

The book is a how-to and how-it-was-done about the TV animation series and the development of its world of Equestria, rather than an exploration in detail of Equestria and the “Mane Six” ponies, although the reader does get that, too. It begins with a double-page map, described below. A Foreword by the Supervising Director at DHX Media, the animation studio in Vancouver, outlines on one page the basic framework of the series.

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February 1, 2016

Off Leash – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

OFF-LEASH_cover-800wOff Leash, by Daniel Potter. Illustrated by Sabertooth Ermine.
El Cerrito, CA, Fallen Kitten Productions, October 2015, trade paperback $12.99 (vi + i +288 pages), Kindle $3.99.

“It had started as a good day. Objectively that was a lie, but after six months of unemployment self-delusion becomes a survival trait. I was two days from getting booted off unemployment, with my girlfriend AWOL for the last week. By ‘good day’ I mean I had wrestled a small drop of hope out of my heart that one of the half dozen jobs I had applied to while guzzling down iced coffees might result in an interview.” (p. 1)

Thomas Khatt, unemployed librarian, has been practically living in his local coffee shop for the last six months as he applies for job after job. Over the weeks he has noticed his reclusive neighbor as another regular customer; an old man, presumably retired, reading books with a pet cat. One day Thomas and the old man happen to leave the shop at the same time. The old man is immediately struck by a hit-&-run car. As he dies, Thomas blacks out and awakens in his own home as a cougar.

While he is trying to figure out what has happened to him, his door unlocks itself and an elderly hippie witch, Mistress Sabrina, comes in to welcome him to “the Real World”. She demonstrates enough magical power to convince him that objecting would be a bad idea, so he follows her and Rudy, a talking squirrel, to her home where he meets her familiar, a sable named Cornealius. They magically restore his power of speech. While this is going on, Thomas is barraged with a confusing flood of information about how the Real World works:

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January 29, 2016

After #tonytigergate, companies go Pro Furry and the Daily Show gets involved.

by Patch O'Furr

brand

The Year of Furry keeps bringing unexpected surprises.  Shortly before 2016’s furry fever explodes with Zootopia, here’s the satirical scandal of #tonytigergate.

Get ready to hack up a hairball about this, if you want furry fandom to get taken seriously without a speck of sexy humor about make-believe mascots.  (Or if you’re prudish and think cartoon kink is worse than ISIS.)  Stuff like this must have Disney’s defensive shields on maximum.

It started with furry flirting at Tony the Tiger’s Twitter account.  In November 2015, news media noticed that he was a long time Furry crush.  The buff, yiffable mascot for Frosted Flakes couldn’t tweet without pleas for his sweet tigermanmilk.  I shared all the news stories I could find about it:

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January 28, 2016

Swords and Sausages by Jan – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Pup Matthias

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

coverSwords and Sausages, by Jan
Hong Kong, Tiger Knight Comics, September 2015, trade paperback $30.00 (unpaged [128 pages]).

“Once upon a time, nestled somewhere amongst the rolling hills of Vale Valley, was a lively, albeit small, kingdom. And in this kingdom was …”

The main things that there “was” are Tor (a hunky tiger) and Silver (a svelte white vixen), two inept street thieves, would-be con artists, and even more would-be road warriors (robbers), plus the local sheriff (lion). Other supporting characters include the sheriff’s town guard (wolves), and varied town merchants (assorted anthropomorphized mammals, reptiles, and birds). The gryphons are unanthropomorphized and are treated as eagles. Read the rest of this entry »

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January 27, 2016

Drag Queens vs. Furries at a legendary San Francisco Party – January 30, 2016.

by Patch O'Furr

Frolic-Bootie-WebSan Francisco Bay Area Furries are fluffing up for this weekend’s party.  It’s the kind of subcultural crossover that makes this place Furry Mecca. (Except when Pittsburgh takes the title once a year.)  Organizer Neonbunny says:

We did this a couple of years ago, and it was a ton of fun. We’ll have a space for fursuiters only, so we won’t have to worry about drag queens wondering what happens when glitter is combined with industrial fans.  I do hope you’ll join us!

Frolic @ Bootie Saturday, January 30th, 9pm – 3:30am (room runs until 2am). DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, San Francisco.  21+.

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January 26, 2016

Fred Patten discusses history of adult and mature cartoons in response to Zootopia article.

by Patch O'Furr

Yesterday’s extra long post about Zootopia described complicated relationships between fans and marketers, and asked: are they intentionally winking at furries, but keeping it hidden?  According to Fred’s wisdom, the sensitivity is nothing new.  

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Dear Patch;

Cartoon Brew’s article described the petition against fan pornography of Disney’s forthcoming Zootopia and the reaction to the subject.

What seems most interesting to me is the apparent assumption that furry fandom (and people in general) are just discovering the pornography of high-profile animated cartoon characters with Zootopia.  Doesn’t anyone remember the furry fan pornography of Warner Bros.’ Tiny Toon Adventures TV series in the early 1990s, with the series’ own emphasis on gags about Buster Bunny’s not wearing any pants? It faded away after the program went off the air. It’s discussed in Reading the Rabbit by Kevin Sandler, an anthology of articles about Warners’ cartoon characters from Rutgers University Press.

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January 25, 2016

2016 is exploding with ‘furry’ movies like Zootopia – what will come with all the hype?

by Patch O'Furr

“Mature” stuff isn’t built in to a fandom for talking animal art, but it sure makes everyone hot under the collar – whether they love it, or just giggle about how weird it is. Keep that in mind for the below topics: The Latest Hype – The Weird Factor – Why Marketers Care – “Furry Chic” – and Making Buzz With PR Control.

THE LATEST HYPE – AND FOUR REASONS WHY FURRIES CAN’T WAIT FOR ZOOTOPIA.  

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January 22, 2016

Foxcraft: Book One, The Taken by Inbali Iserles – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Pup Matthias

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

foxcraft-cover-usFoxcraft: Book One, The Taken, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando.
NYC, Scholastic Press, September 2015, hardcover $16.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Kindle $8.87.

Foxcraft: Book One, The Taken, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando.
London, Scholastic Press, October 2015, paperback £5.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Audio CD £27.70.

Foxcraft: Die Magie der Füchse, by Inbali Iserles. Illustrated by the author. Map by Jared Blando. Translated by Katharina Orgaß.
Frankfurt, Fischer KJB, September 2015, hardcover €14.99 ([3] + 252 [+ 8] pages), Kindle €12.99.

I won’t guarantee the accuracy of the descriptions of the British and German editions, because I have not seen them. The American cover by Liam Peters is actually a wraparound digital painting, but the back cover portion does not seem to be online anywhere.

Foxcraft is another series for Young Adults; recommended for 8- to 12-year-olds or grades 4 to 7. The blurb calls it “The first book in a thrilling fantasy trilogy”, so we know that it will be only three novels.

“My paws slipped on dry earth. I kicked up shrouds of dust as I hurtled toward the fence. Swerving to avoid it, I righted myself and dived under the splintering dead wood. My pursuer was gaining on me as I grasped for the wildway, the tangle of greenery on the other side. I caught the rich aroma of hazel and cedar, the quiet and peace of the world beyond the web of grass.” (p. 1) Read the rest of this entry »

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January 21, 2016

Fuzzy Business 3: End Game, by Amelia Ritner – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Pup Matthias

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

Fuzzy BusinessFuzzy Business 3: End Game, by Amelia Ritner
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, November 2015, trade paperback $7.99 (173 pages), Kindle $1.99.

You would think that any book in a series subtitled “End Game” would be the final volume, wouldn’t you? Well, maybe you’d be right and maybe not.

In Fuzzy Business (May 2013) and Fuzzy Business 2: Fuzz Harder (December 2013), the young humanimal cat-girl Miara Cooper (she has cat ears, whiskers, a tail, and light fur) in San Francisco in the last half of the 21st Century finds herself the target of PAGE, a brutal anti-humanimal hate group who intend to make her a fatal example of what they do to anyone not 100% human. She is defended by the mysterious hunky coyote-man biker John, who starts out by kidnaping her, and the equally-handsome human Connor who, when she asks for help, comes running with “[…] An AR-15, a scoped hunting rifle with a wooden stock, a pump action shotgun, two .38 revolvers, a Glock identical to the one that John had pointed earlier, a laser-equipped Glock 26 that John snickered at when he saw, ten varying boxes of ammunition, a stun gun, a .22 semiautomatic rifle with an obscenely huge magazine of bullets attached to it […]” (Fuzzy Business, p. 113) and a lot more. She also has the help, whether she wants it or not, of pro-humanimal activists who insist on recruiting her into their groups. And PETA. Read the rest of this entry »

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