Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: furries

January 27, 2015

Spirit Hunters: The Way of the Fox, by Paul Kidd – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Spirit Hunters. Book 1: The Way of the Fox, by Paul Kidd. Illustrated by Angie Kae (KaeMantis).
Raleigh, NC, Lulu.com/Perth, Western Australia, Kitsune Press, September 2014, trade paperback $31.97 (470 pages), Kindle $7.99.

product_thumbnailSpirit Hunters is set in the realm of traditional Japanese mythology, vaguely around 900 or 1000 A.D. if you know your Japanese history. It begins with the rebel lord Sanuki nō Tazadane trying to annex the lands of Kitsune Mountain.

“Lord Sanuki’s castle and treasury both mysteriously burned to the ground two days later …” (p. 3)

Asodo Kuno, a young and handsome, but not terribly bright human samurai, a junior deputy of the sixth rank (a bottom-rung position) in service to Magistrate Masura of the Imperial court, is traveling on foot to the sword tournament at Iris Castle, where Magistrate Masura is presiding over contests of swordsmanship. Kuno hopes to win the tournament to achieve promotion to a higher position. He meets Kitsune nō Sura along the road:

“A fox woman lounged upon a fallen log like a reclining Buddha, eating a roasted chicken leg. Beside her, there were the embers of a camp fire and a pair of backpacks ready for travel. The fox woman had a long, clever pointed muzzle, and great, green eyes filled with humour. Her body was human in size an shape – excepting for its lush pelt of fur, her fox head with muzzle and long pointed ears, and her long, elegant red tail. She wore a priestess’ robes decorated with images of peaches – with each peach missing a single bite. The fox called out to Kuno in a loud and merry voice while she wriggled her black-furred toes.” (p. 12)

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January 26, 2015

Uncovered, by Kyell Gold – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

uncoveredUncovered, by Kyell Gold. Illustrated by Blotch.
St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, July 2014, trade paperback $19.95 ([xvi] + 411 [+ 3] pages), Kindle $9.99.

(publisher’s advisory):
“’Uncovered’ is a romance novel intended for an adult audience only and contains some explicit sexual scenes of a primarily Male/Male nature. It is not for sale to persons under 18.” 

This is Book 4 in Gold’s award-winning Out of Position series, following Out of Position (2009), Isolation Play (2011), and Divisions (2013). The series follows the lives of the tiger Devlin Miski and the fox Wiley “Lee” Farrel as they become secret homosexual lovers while seniors at Forester University, then graduate. Dev, a college football player, is signed onto the professional Chevali Firebirds, while Lee applies for a non-playing job with his team. When Dev becomes the first outed gay football player, their lives and the lives of their families and Dev’s teammates are thrown into turmoil, with some staying supportive and others turning hostile. Dev and Lee can now openly set up housekeeping together, but each is faced with many problems.

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January 20, 2015

Baby squirrels smell like maple syrup – Post FurCon Newsdump (1/20/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Site news:

Super linty hugs for everyone, especially if you send Dogpatch Press from the Ursa Majors recommended list to the Award nominations (now open!) For the next few weeks, my posting will be sparse due to time demands.  Meanwhile, enjoy uninterrupted content from Fred Patten.  His History of Furry Publishing is packed with amazing info. (It wore out my eyes to lay out tons of cool cover art from early zines and books.)  You might also catch a few of my back-dated Flayrah articles reposted via @dogpatchpress.

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In the Media

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More FurCon coverage: “Furries descend on Silicon Valley, modeling eccentricity for a staid tech culture.” Read the rest of this entry »

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January 17, 2015

The Furry Future: Fred Patten’s book announcement for Further Confusion 2015

by Patch O'Furr

Late, but not too late… sorry Fred! A busy week got in the way of posting this before the con. There’s time to check it out at the con now.

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this announcement:

The Furry Future; 19 Possible Prognostications, edited by Fred Patten and published by FurPlanet Productions, is scheduled for release at the Further Confusion 2015 convention, in San Jose, California, on January 15-19, 2015. It will be on sale through the online FurPlanet catalogue thereafter.

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January 15, 2015

3D Social Network IMVU loves furries, wants to meet you at FurCon.

by Patch O'Furr

I don’t often see outside companies actively reaching out to the small but thriving Furry subculture.  Not directly.  If I had to guess where it would happen, I’d guess for Second Life users.  But there are signs that Furries count as modest but valued audience, for some game media like Furvilla aimed right at them.

One of these companies, IMVU, reached out:

“IMVU is the world’s leading 3D social network with over 130 million registrants… IMVU’s users seek and create new connections, lives, and lifestyles in a completely user-generated world that combines custom avatars, chat, community, content creation, commerce, and anonymity.”

It was cool of them to search my blog to talk about their plan for Further Confusion:

“I’m writing to connect with Dogpatch Press and let you know that Mountain View-based IMVU will be at the show to embrace the furry community, many of whom are a part of IMVU’s 3D, avatar-based social network. As a company, we meet “furries” every day on IMVU but look forward to meeting them in real-life at FurCon 2015.

If you plan to be at the show, stop by and see us at FurCon – we expect out “fan table” to be in an area outside the Dealer Marketplace – 2nd floor of the San Jose Convention Center in a walkway/hallway leading to the adjoining Marriott hotel.”

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January 12, 2015

FURRY GOOD IDEAS: Fursuit of the Year award and fashion show, and more.

by Patch O'Furr

One of the few search results for "fursuit fashion show."

One of the few search results for “fursuit fashion show.”

Read to bottom for Fred Patten’s informative comment that inspired this.  

In 2014, fun hobby blogging exposed me to many new ideas that could use more development.  This blog is for underexposed, underrated topics.  That’s subculture, and it’s about fan love.  I love sharing it!

Looking back at some articles about new ideas and opportunities, I think they could use a feature.  FURRY GOOD IDEAS joins previous special features here.  

I was going to call this “What Furry needs”.  But nobody really NEEDS these. This isn’t preaching what’s best for you.   It’s just observation from one enthusiastic fan, inspired by other fans.  It comes from a thriving subculture that ‘s expanding with a convention every weekend, somewhere in the world.  That makes a lot of room for ambitious proposals.  This is an attempt to highlight ideas with popular demand, appeal, or opportunity to make real.  Share yours too!

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January 8, 2015

ROAR vol. 5 – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer, submits this review:

roar ROAR vol. 5, edited by Buck C. Turner

Dallas, TX, Bad Dog Books/FurPlanet Productions, July 2014, trade paperback $19.95 (325 pages). 

ROAR vol. 5, the approximately-annual anthology of “literary” (non-erotic) anthropomorphic short fiction under the Bad Dog Books imprint, contains stories on the theme of Secrecy. Editor Buck C. Turner says in his Foreword:

“This volume features stories based around secrets, a theme which brought out amazing plot twists and tense revelations. Keeping secrets brings an inevitable tension to life, one which no one fully escapes. […] Secrets can give their holders power and pain as they must wrestle with the decisions on how – or if – to utilize the information they possess. This is the task these fourteen authors, the largest number I’ve accepted to a ROAR volume, have undertaken.” (p. 10)

Warning: this is a long review, to cover fourteen stories.

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January 7, 2015

Happy Furry New Year! A look back and what’s coming soon from Patch and Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Furry New Year from Spottacus, Majik, Maczyn, Dakota, Bakr, Cassie, Stormy, Relaxing Dragon, Cyclone, Scoob, Chairo, Trail Horse, Zarafa, Kalu, Patch, and all the Bay Area Furries. (Pic by Amenophis.)  At the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the crowd was super excited to hang out with us before the fireworks.

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It was a great year, and it’s a huge honor to host Fred Patten’s articles.

 

The blog got active in May 2014. It’s had around 3 posts and a few thousand views per week.  (All relative to focus of topics, for a small niche of fans.)

The top article of 2014 was about November’s “Wild Things” party (NSFW), with 7,000 views.  The second was about John Waters and furries. Third was about a photo art gallery show.  It’s interesting that these three involved local, live events in San Francisco.  Fourth top article was Talking with the directors of College Humor’s “Furry Force” – associated with a many-millions-viewed Youtube animation that I submitted to the Ursa Majors recommended anthropomorphics list.

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January 6, 2015

Paved with good intentions – Furry Newsdump (1/5/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

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In the Media

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You Can’t Get Inside – a profile of the furry community from within. furries

Michael Arthur writes at The Hooded Utilitarian.  “Profiles written in good faith by outsiders are thin on the ground.  Accurate ones do not exist.  Do not feel discouraged.  If you really “got it” like we get it, you’d be one of us.”

The article doesn’t just verbalize getting it, it IS that.  Great essay!  (When I read it, I was glad it supports criticism I’d already written about the Buzzfeed article, below.)

Arthur writes about being “Zapped with that funny feeling” that is Furry… it reminds me of something from a while back, in the same post where I mentioned that President Obama hung out with a furry.  “The furriest thing ever”. Here’s being zapped:

Photos, Furries, and Photos of Furries.

Flavorwire makes a small notice that positively shares the below article.

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December 31, 2014

Responses to fursuit auction story confirm $17,500 top price.

by Patch O'Furr

January 2018 update: Here’s a note that record top auctions just rose from $11,575 to $13,500.

wolf 08-03-2014 005 smaller

Last week’s article about fursuits and top prices had very nice feedback.

Andreus wrote to mention that he owns Vex:

…a realistic MixedCandy-made werewolf fursuit that cost roughly $4,500 US / £2,600 GBP at the time of purchase. It’s got body-shaping padding such as digitigrade legs and large muscles for the proper muscular werewolf look. It’s also got a moving jaw.

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