Dogpatch Press

December 7, 2015

Friend of community dies in shooting, Zootopia and animation – NEWSDUMP (12/07/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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.)

EP-151209804 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.”

ABC7.com: “A coffee shop worker killed in the San Bernardino mass shooting on Wednesday was remembered by loved ones as a caring and compassionate man.”
Inside Edition: Kaufman was “named as one of the victims of the San Bernardino massacre after his partner initially thought he’d survived.”
L.A. Times: “For victim’s boyfriend, 22 hours of conflicting reports, then heartbreak”
SBsun.com: “jovial person who touched lives”
The Guardian: “a gregarious free spirit who adored horror films”
PE.com: “Kaufman liked dressing up in costume and performed for 16 years in a local Renaissance Faire.”
L.A. Times: “dressed as an Italian noble with a stiff lace collar and a pewter goblet, or as a peasant riding a horse”
Frontiers Media: “San Bernardino Mass Shooting Took Gay Victim”

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.

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December 4, 2015

Cat Crimebusters and Other P.I.s On Paws, Part 2 – Book Reviews By Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Part 1 can be found here.

The Mrs. Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown is another animal crime series where the animals actively detect, rather than just tag along with the human amateur detective while she (it’s invariably a woman) solves the mystery. The Mrs. Murphy books, officially in collaboration between Rita Mae Brown and her tiger cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, are up to 24 novels. The next is coming in May 2016.

Wish You Were Here. November 1990.

Rest in Pieces. June 1993.

Murder at Monticello. November 1994.

Pay Dirt. November 1995. Read the rest of this entry »

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December 3, 2015

Odyssey from River Bend, by Tom McGowen – Book Review By Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

“Here is another old review, fixed up the way that it should be published.”

Odyssey from River Bend, by Tom McGowen.
Boston, Little, Brown and Company, April 1975, hardcover $5.95 (ix + 166 pages).

This was a minor children’s/Young Adult fantasy in 1975, but it is notable as one of the first novels to promote the theme of talking animals inheriting the earth after mankind has become extinct through its own mismanagement of the environment.

“It was an old village. Many generations of animals had been born, lived, and died in it. Its name was Jallakragga, which in the language of the animals meant ‘river bend.’

Around the entire village was a stout wall made of logs that had been cut and trimmed by the beaver builders, stuck upright in the ground, and plastered over with clay from the riverbank. The wall formed an irregular circle, and at several places along its length were watchtowers. From these, day and night, the wolf soldiers peered down, alert for any sign of the wandering bands of weasels or wildcats that roamed the forest and sometimes attacked villages. In the part of the wall that faced the great, dim mass of the forest there was a gateway, with a wide door made of thick logs. This door was kept closed and barred during the hours of darkness, and the logs were covered with carved, frightening faces, to scare away any wandering ghosts or wicked spirits that might try to enter.” (pgs. 3-4)

Jikatik and Ikatibby, two raccoon children foraging for food in the nearby forest in autumn, find an ancient object exposed where the river has undercut the bank.

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December 2, 2015

What will the National Mascot Hall of Fame mean for furries? – Part 3 of mascot series.

by Patch O'Furr

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 »

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December 1, 2015

When fursuits cross with sports, ‘Stupid Costume Enthusiasts’ go big – Part 2 of mascot series.

by Patch O'Furr

OIL_8042

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.)

Screen Shot 2015-11-25 at 3.37.46 PM wolf

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November 30, 2015

Exciting times are coming for fursuiting, pro sports, and The National Mascot Hall Of Fame.

by Patch O'Furr

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.

Calvinball

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.

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November 27, 2015

In a Dog’s World, by Mary E. Lowd – Book Review By Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

In a Dog’s World, by Mary E. Lowd.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, July 2015, trade paperback $9.95 (181 pages), Kindle $6.99.

This novella is the third book in Lowd’s “Otters in Space” series following Otters in Space (2010) and Otters in Space II: Jupiter, Deadly (2013), although her short fiction “When a Cat Loves a Dog” in Five Fortunes (edited by Fred Patten) and “A Real Stand-Up Guy” (with Daniel Lowd) in Allasso volume 3 (edited by Brian Lee Cook) are also in the same “world”. Humans have become extinct, and uplifted cats, dogs, otters, and a few others have inherited Earth and its space outposts. The cats and dogs are theoretically equals, but in fact the dogs are socially and politically superior, with strong prejudice in both species against the other. Lowd’s protagonists – Kipper Brighton in the two novels, and Lashonda Brooke in the short fiction – are mature cats who are disinterested in the prejudice (in Kipper’s case) or actively oppose it (in Lashonda’s case; she is married to a dog and they both want to adopt children, but are turned down by prejudiced adoption agencies among both cats and dogs).

The protagonist of In a Dog’s World is Katasha Blake, a studious tabby point Siamese cat in an upper-class cat family; a high school senior planning to go on to college. Preferably prestigious Isleywood College of Science and Technology, but she’ll take the local state college that her littermates intend to attend if she can’t get into Isleywood – a dog college. Tash, whose goal is an engineering degree to qualify for the space program, is sure that she’s got the grades to get into Isleywood, since dogs aren’t known for their studiousness: Read the rest of this entry »

November 25, 2015

Atta; A Novel of a Most Extraordinary Adventure, by F.R. Bellamy – Book Review By Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

“Here is another of my reviews that was published ten years ago, edited in a manner that I didn’t like. This is my original review, so it’s a bit different from the printed version.”

Atta; A Novel of a Most Extraordinary Adventure, by Francis Rufus Bellamy.
NYC, A. A. Wyn, Inc., September 1953, hardcover $3.00 (216 pages).

“It is with a singular bitterness that I begin this memoir of my youth.

Here at my table, west of the Mississippi, I can turn in my chair and gaze out my window at sixty acres of green hillside, orchard, and valley. They are the actual scene of the greater part of the adventures I am about to relate, adventures for which I myself can vouch.” (pg. 1)

Two pages later the narrator, Brokell, says these events happened forty years previously. 1953 minus forty years would be 1913, which would explain why he was riding about the countryside in a horse-and-buggy, and why he writes in such an old-fashioned, formal style.

Brokell is waiting in a flowery meadow with a box of candy for his betrothed. She is late, and after a half-hour he notices that red ants are crawling all over the candy. Infuriated (“Darn you, anyhow!” I said aloud.”), he picks up a rock and starts smashing the ants. Suddenly:

“For scarcely had my missile left my grasp before I was conscious of a hitherto unseen dark mass in the sky above me. Even as my own missile left my hand this mass became instantly larger in size and rushed down at me and the earth.” (pg. 7)

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November 24, 2015

The Worst Anthropomorphic Movie of the Decade – by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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.

Foodfight!_DVD_cover

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November 23, 2015

Costume bans and security, part 3: Want to organize a furmeet for Zootopia? Here’s how.

by Patch O'Furr

Nugget, fursuit of Salem Wolf

Response to the articles:

There were a lot of great comments! It does seem like the feeling of high anticipation is true.

Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 2.05.17 AM

There was one piece of confusion for some readers. Going to the movies in costume doesn’t mean wearing it during a movie. Parts will come off to watch it, and theater rentals may include change space. Members of local meets are interested in a social experience before and after, like a “crawl” around town.

Costuming and security is a much wider issue. I’ve heard rumors about cons encountering problems with organizing, while making hotel deals and then being surprised by rules against masks in their public space. Biggest Little Fur Con has to carefully manage no-mask rules on the casino floor of their hotel. FurTheMore convention moved to Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, in May 2015, where there’s a statewide anti-mask law. A staff member told me they had to work with police to get a special weekend festival exemption. The con put out official instructions not to go off hotel grounds in fursuit, or risk arrest. Costumers will have to deal with the issue in the future.

Interested in organizing your own movie meet – to get trust, and permission for costumes?

You can get a good start by collecting RSVP’s from friends and local members. If you’re able to get several dozen, a whole theater rental may be in your range. Scout around and see if there are local ones that support community events. Once you’ve proposed and negotiated rates and times, the next steps would be signing a commitment, or collecting ticket/deposit money in advance (depending on how payment is supposed to happen).

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