Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: comics

October 27, 2017

Furry Nation: The True Story of America’s Most Misunderstood Subculture, by Joe Strike – review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Furry Nation: The True Story of America’s Most Misunderstood Subculture, by Joe Strike. Illustrated.
Jersey City, NJ, Cleis Press, October 2017. Trade paperback, $17.95 ([ix +] 342 pages), Kindle $10.99.

Yes!

Here it is! What we’ve all been waiting for! The book about furry fandom!

Full disclosure: I’m quoted by name on a back-cover blurb, and cited as “a founding father of furry fandom”.

Is it perfect? No, but it’s probably better than any of us could have written. I gave up writing a book “all about” furry fandom long ago. If I may be permitted a moment of “I told you so”, I told those who asked me to write such a book in the late 1990s that it would take me around ten years to fully research and write such a book. They turned from me to find someone else who could do it right away. They couldn’t.

Joe Strike has been in furry fandom since the 1980s. He has been working on Furry Nation for at least fifteen years. It’s full of both his own knowledge and the interviews that he conducted. He has interviewed not only all the earliest furry fans, and the current leaders of furry fandom – Mark Merlino, Rod O’Riley, Jim Groat, Mitch Marmel, Dr. Sam Conway, Boomer the Dog, leading furry artists like Heather Bruton and Kjartan Arnórsson, fursuit makers like Lance Ikegawa and Denali, academics like Dr. Kathy Gerbasi, and so on – but those outside the furry community who have impacted it. The writers of newspaper and TV news stories about furry fandom? He interviewed them. The executives of Pittsburgh’s tourist bureau? He interviewed them. The directors of TV programs and theatrical animation features that have used furry themes? He interviewed them.

What Furry Nation covers: a definition of furry fandom, the influences that gave rise to it back to prehistoric times, the history of how it started, profiles of the earliest furry fans, how the rise of the Internet affected it, a description of furry fandom in North America today, with emphasis on its conventions and a profile of Anthrocon in depth, its artists and furry art, its fursuits, its public perception, an acknowledgement of its seedier side, and how it has grown from a tiny, unnoticed subgroup to an important influence on popular culture today. The book has 189 footnotes throughout it. There are over two dozen photographs and samples of furry illustrations from the 1980s (early fanzines and Furry Party flyers) to the present.

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September 28, 2017

“Suburban Jungle: Rough Housing” – Comic review by Ace.

by Patch O'Furr

Review: Suburban Jungle: Rough Housing
Guest review by Ace

Suburban Jungle was a web comic done by John “The Gneech” Robey that started on February 1, 1999. It starred a young tigress, named Tiffany, who is trying to make a career of acting and modeling while holding down numerous temp jobs. Along the way she meets the Kurt Russell-esque Leonard Lion, Leona Lioness (no relation to Leonard), and many others such as Drezzer Wolf and Conrad Tiger. It was slice of life with the characters residing in the fictional city. It was light, campy and a general good read.

It was the web comic that made me become a furry.

When Suburban Jungle ended in November 6, 2009 it felt like a giant punch to the gut. I had only been in the fandom ten years in the fandom because of Suburban Jungle. I loved the characters, especially Tiffany, Leona, as well as Leonard, Conrad and everyone’s favorite gay uncle, Drezzer. It was hard to fill those holes. I had never gotten to the opportunity to read Never, Never (which I found out actually came before SJ in terms of production) and while I liked other web comics, they didn’t hold my attention like SJ did.

So imagine my surprise when found out that The Gneech did another SJ comic starting in 2016. This one was a sequel but didn’t feature the same characters. Instead, the main character was a cheeger (the hybrid result of a tiger and a cheetah, in this case Comfort Tiger the sister of Suburban Jungle star Tiffany and her husband the code speaking Dover Cheetah), named Charity Cheeger.

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September 23, 2017

French anthro comic: Solo, T. 2, by Oscar Martin – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Solo. T.2, Le Coeur et le Sang, by Oscar Martin.
Paris, Delcourt, January 2016, hardcover €16,95 (109 [+ 1] pages).

Oops. This volume 2, The Heart and the Blood, almost got away from Lex Nakashima & me. Volume 3 is out already. Expect a review of it soon.

I said of volume 1, “The setting: a bleak, war-destroyed future Earth. Think MGM’s/Hugh Harman’s 1939 animated Peace on Earth, where the last humans on Earth kill each other and leave the world to the peaceful funny animals; or the similar sequence in Alexander Korda’s 1936 live-action feature Things to Come, where England (and presumably the whole human race) has been bombed and shot up back to the Stone Age. It’s Mad Max with furries.”

That’s still true of vol. 2. Quoting from my review of volume 1 again, I said, “Solo is a brawny teenaged rat-equivalent of the young Conan the Barbarian, but a lot smarter. In the first few pages, he and his warrior father are shown fighting giant, mutated monsters in a freezing winter landscape for food for their family, and killing rival mustelid warriors ready to eat them. Solo and his father win, but it is obvious to all that Solo’s family is slowly starving. Solo, a huge teenager, decides to leave so his parents and siblings won’t have to share their food with him.”

Solo spends most of volume 1 as an almost brain-dead gladiatorial warrior in a human-run arena. It’s clear that he could escape whenever he wants, but is there anyplace else in the world worth escaping to? He finally finds such a place; a new home and a wife. He finds that life is worth living again.

Of course, this now gives him responsibilities – to his wife and to his community.

The Heart and the Blood is divided into two sections; the story of 73 pages, and a mixture of “technical notes” (some of the other intelligent species of Solo’s “cannibal world”) and short independent stories.

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September 18, 2017

HappyWulf’s Furry KickStarters – Ep. 3

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Welcome back, my shopping friends. Let me tell you a story! I almost missed this first entry because I don’t usually sift through the music section of KickStarter for projects to share. Imagine the egg on my face had I not found it. People don’t tell me these things! I have to find out on my own! I’m here to tell YOU about these things!! So these things, here they are!

MUSIC

Muh. A Pepper Coyote Album

I shouldn’t need to introduce Pepper Coyote. This is for his new album, along with Fox Amoore, Runtt and Koro. You can also get it on Vinyl!

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July 29, 2017

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World, by Shannon and Dean Hale – review by Fred Patten

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World, by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale. Illustrated by Bruno Mangyoku.
NYC, Marvel Press, February 2017, hardcover $13.99 (324 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $9.99.

The Marvel Comics Group is having hardcover novelizations written of most of its high-profile super-heroes such as Iron Man, for the 9-to-12 age group. Marvel does not go in for animal heroes, so the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and her 300 squirrels are about the only ones who would qualify for interest to furry fans. New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale specializes in romantic novels for adolescent girls and young women, many in collaboration with her husband, Dean Hale.

This novel recounts the beginning of Squirrel Girl’s career, written in a breezy teenager’s diary style. The comic book stories began in 1991 with her as a 21-year-old college student, but here 14-year-old Doreen Green has just moved with her parents from Southern California to Shady Oaks, New Jersey. “Who runs the world? Squirrels!” Doreen may be prejudiced because she was born with a bushy squirrel’s tail. Otherwise she looks like any young teenage girl, except that she’s super-strong and has retractable claws and “her two front teeth were a little longer than their neighbors. She had to gnaw on things to keep them from getting even longer. Things like logs.” (p. 2) Maple logs are her favorite.

No reason is given for her having a squirrel’s tail, but Hey! this is the Marvel Universe. Doreen used to see She-Hulk while she lived in Los Angeles, and now she’s looking forward to seeing Thor and the other Avengers who live in nearby New York City.

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July 7, 2017

HappyWulf’s Furry KickStarters – Ep.1

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Hey everyone! I’m Furry trash! But more than that, I’m KickStarter Trash too! I thought it’d be a good idea to occasionally show some Furry stuff I’ve found on KickStarter for the folks who might not be regulars to the site, and share what they might be missing. These posts may often feature one time offer only listings.  (This first edition is a little quick and dirty, due to the time constraint of the first entry.)

MADCAP – This is a TOON based RPG with lots of renowned artists lending their talents to the book and the game is coming from the creators of IronClaw. Ends TODAY.

  • Back again for the first time, despite popular demand… it’s the singular, particular, jugular and avuncular MADCAP, the role-playing game of cartoon screwball action! It’s the game that stars the best person we could find on short notice: YOU. And you’ll have a supporting cast of your friends, your compatriots, your hangers-on, your contemporaries — heck, anyone who could hold a pencil by the right end, they could play this game with you!

Rabbit Island – A 4X Territory Control tile board game with buh-nees.

  • Lead your tribe to explore a new island every game! Build up your civilization with the value of the Carrot, and the help of special Action Cards. Can you conquer your opponents in 20 rounds?

Trash Pandas card game – A small push-your-luck style card game… And I’m Furry Trash, as previously stated. This one is a limited run of only 500 copies being made, and it’s cheap. Why Not? said I.

  • Trash Pandas is easy to learn, portable, and fun for all ages. In Trash Pandas, players are raucous raccoons, tipping over trash cans for food (and shiny objects). Players push their luck to acquire more trash cards, but must stash them in order for them to count as points at the end of the game.

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May 25, 2017

The Wayward Astronomer, by Geoffrey Thomas – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Wayward Astronomer, by Geoffrey Thomas. Illustrated, map by David Lillie.
Midland, TX, Corvus Publishing, May 2017, hardcover $24.99 ([ix +] 309 pages).

Wow! Geoffrey Thomas wrote this as fan fiction in David & Liz Lillie’s Dreamkeepers universe, set about a year before the Lillies’ Dreamkeepers serial, and got Lillie’s permission to publish it as a novel. Lillie even agreed to illustrate it. Thomas wanted to make it a particularly handsome book, so he started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $18,000 for its publication. He got 484 backers and $32,309. The Wayward Astronomer is a Beautiful Book, with each of 25 chapters getting a full-page illustration and a chapter heading picture by Lillie.

The Dreamworld is inhabited by funny animals. Each character also has a special psionic power. The largest city in the Dreamworld is Anduruna, but its repressive government has made use of special powers illegal.

(This is somewhat different from rules of the Lillies’ Dreamkeepers visual series. In that, the Dreamworld is inhabited by an equal number of people as our world, which currently is estimated at seven billion people; and each character looks different. He or she also has a special power. With over seven billion inhabitants, that’s a tremendous number of physical and psionic differences. David Lillie can show the variety in his art, but in this text novel, it would keep stopping the action to describe in words how each character looks different from everybody else. So the cast of The Wayward Astronomer is mostly just funny animals; an anthropomorphic raccoon here, a wolf there, or an owl or rhinoceros or jackal or another well-known animal. As for the restriction against using special powers, that has a plot purpose but it’s also to keep from having to write dozens of special powers into the story.)

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May 8, 2017

Nova Seed movie review- a rare find of sci fi animation.

by Patch O'Furr

Gonzo, trippy, visionary sci-fi is a rich mine for cult movies. A new gem has come to light.

Nova Seed is a great hand-drawn cartoon. You can’t tell from the high quality, but it was animated to feature length (63 minutes) by just one guy in 4 years. (There were a few helpers for stuff like music).  I’m writing for furry fans, and furries love art that’s not mainstream but is full of guts and talent. That’s how this movie works inside limits to exceed expectations.  If your animation gold standard is a blockbuster like Zootopia, gold is common compared to a gem like this.

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February 17, 2017

What’s Yiffin’? February 2017 edition – now syndicating the monthly furry news program.

by Louis Kohn

Greetings, readers of Dogpatch Press. I am André “Dracokon” Kon. Maybe you’ve heard of me as I’ve made my rounds in the fandom over the past decade.  If not, here’s the fastest crash course I can give you. I began as a purveyor of written reptilian smut, got invited to speak at a couple of conventions, was admin of the late Herpy website, had work read in an NYC art show, was briefly on SoFurry’s staff, joined the musical stage act Attractivision, and became the host of a livestream called Gatorbox.

With Gatorbox, I’ve helped spearhead a new breed of entertainment through Twitch. With the assistance of my long-time writing counterpart Rob “Roastmaster” Maestro, one show we brought to this channel is What’s Yiffin’?. What’s Yiffin’ began as a one-off bit in September 2015.  The viewer response prompted us to bring it back the following month… and the one after that. The show has been a staple of Gatorbox ever since, with a brand new installment rolled out almost every month.  Now I’m honored to have the series syndicated, adding bonus commentary just for Dogpatch Press.

ENJOY THIS MONTH’S EPISODE

We usually don’t lead with self promotion, however since the Ursa Major Awards have just now opened for nominations, this month’s video lets you know we’re eligible for nominations in the “Magazine” and “Website” categories.  For a good many of you this is probably going to be your first exposure to us and I’m simultaneously excited and profusely apologetic for that. In the name of good journalism, I’d like to provide you with the show’s official playlist on YouTube to give you a better idea of our scope and coverage over the past two years.

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October 10, 2016

A brief history of who ruined furry.

by Patch O'Furr

fritz-the-cat-movie-poster-1972-1010196225Many people are to blame for ruining furry. This list isn’t comprehensive, and some of the jerks on it caused multiple problems at the same time.

1960’s – 1970’s:  Artists ruined furry.

Underground comic artists made a plan to stigmatize fans of funny-animal comics by putting adult stuff in ones like Robert Crumb’s Fritz The Cat and Reed Waller’s Omaha The Cat Dancer.  It worked well enough to keep fans from openly using the “furry” name until the 1980’s.

1985-1988: “Skunkfuckers” ruined furry.

It was just starting to be OK to be furry in public. Then some bad apples got us kicked out of respectable science fiction fandom.  Look at these 1980’s convention room party flyers from Lance Rund and Sy – this is the kind of thing that made furries get isolated apart from other fans, with our own private shame-cons.

furpy3

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