Welcome to Tempe O’Kun, author of Paranormal Furry Romance, anthropomorphic-animal Westerns, and a frequent guest of the site.
The smash-hit furry anime Aggrestuko that came out April 2018 is already slated for a second season, but we got a Yuletide treat: a Christmas special. Read the rest of this entry »
In 2018, fandom had so much going on that this needs two parts. Part 1 has the media, and Part 2 is for conventions, charity, art, celebrities, awards, spending, and more.
Pic: Cecil Shepherd (center) with Mr. Disko and Patch
Ever been on an aircraft carrier? The USS Hornet, in Alameda CA, is docked across the bay from San Francisco. It’s a fearsome wedge of rust-flecked metal bigger than most city blocks, and bristling with guns, planes and artifacts from WWII to the Apollo Space Program. Now it’s a national historic landmark and museum, but if you walk down the cavernous hangar deck and look at photos of Pearl Harbor in flames, it almost tingles with the smells and sounds of a global struggle against the evil of fascism. It made me think of my grandpa in the South Pacific, taking islands from Japan. It could make the world’s biggest hippie feel a sense of pride and humbleness from the history there.
Look ahead a few months, when this ship will be full of furry animals throwing a rave. That’s the cutting edge of turning swords into plowshares!
The second Space Camp Party is coming. On 12/9/18 it started with a photoshoot on the ship that drew a whopping 130 fursuiters just for a pre-planning meet. Previously in March 2018, over 500 went to the first party at Faction Brewing (a converted aircraft hanger on the same navy base). From early demand, the followup is likely to reach the size of a single-day con.
While I was doing silly poses in my rat suit against a giant ship anchor (does Bad Dragon make one of those?) – I thought of furries taking over the ship and conquering the nation. Next, the world. Then the blue skies above, and then the moon.
2018 is an intense year with many furry news stories topping ones that just happened. It’s too much to easily keep up with, and Fred Patten’s death affects publishing here, but on the plus side, I’m now paying for articles. Get in touch about submitting your story. And check out how much cool furry stuff there is to share.
Welcome to Tempe O’Kun, author of Paranormal Furry Romance, anthropomorphic-animal Westerns, and a frequent guest of the site.
You might not be into pro gaming. Maybe your interest in gaming is limited to what you play yourself and the occasional piece of fan art. That’s cool.
But let me tell you why you should care.
You might not have noticed, but we’re rainbow animal-people. Midwest Fur Fest just passed 10,000 in attendance, a world record for furry cons. In some ways, the fandom will always be our weird little club, but we’re not some unknown niche anymore. Not when one of us breaks into the trending topics on Twitter.
So somebody is going to be the face of the fandom—or rather, various people are at different times. And we’re lucky that our two recent high-profile furries (SonicFox at the Game Awards and Bucktown Tiger on Jeopardy) have been really upstanding guys.
And it’s not just a public persona. As it happens, I talked to SonicFox at MFF last weekend. I ducked away from my book launch for a few minutes to say hey. And, even in suit, he made a little time to stop and chat with me. Just as you see in the video, he comes off as a sweet and sincere person. He’s absolutely someone we want as a go-to example of a furry.
Here’s a guest article from Joe Strike, a first-wave furry greymuzzle, writer about animation for Animation World Network, and author of Furry Nation, the first history of fandom in mainstream bookstores. His website shows work with TV cartoons you may know. He sent this in around the time of MFF. (- Patch)
Our community had been buzzing for months about the “furry” episode of CNN’s This is Life with Lisa Ling before it finally aired on November 18th. I kept my fingers crossed; like most other furs I’ve been watching the media get us wrong for years. (The primary reason I wrote Furry Nation was to correct the record; as I occasionally told people, “I’m tired of outsiders getting it all wrong—I decided it was time for someone in the furry community to get it all wrong.”)
But what really piqued my curiosity was that several people told me the episode was titled… “Furry Nation”!
Okay, what’s going on here? Shortly before the episode aired, I emailed the production company to ask, wazzup? how did you happen to borrow my title?, to which they responded:
Thank you for reaching out! Your book sounds amazing! We actually learned about this community from Lisa’s viewers. It was a suggestion someone sent in. Our research and facts came from FurScience.
Well, thank you “someone” for the free plug for Furry Nation The Book. (Said title never appeared in the episode by the way; I assume it was only used in the episode’s listings, although a search of cnn.com failed to discover it.)
Lacking cable, I caught up with the episode later via a relative’s DVR. After taking a few days to digest a second viewing, I’m finally ready to share my take on Lisa Ling’s take on Furry.
Grubbs Grizzly
is known for his “Ask Papabear” advice column, and Greymuzzles group popular among the original generation of fandom. He’s at work on The Furry Book and made The Good Furry Award for furs who demonstrate outstanding community spirit. Nominate one for a $1000 prize! Thanks to Grubbs for this guest article.
Corgi Events appeared here for their con Aquatifur. They made the fandom applaud in August 2018 when Denfur filled the vacancy left by RMFC. All eyes were on them when Denfur’s first year beat attendance estimates by double, as high as RMFC would have grown if it still existed. More than a mere numbers success, it represented fans rejecting bad behavior that ruined its predecessor, and embracing the ideal of a community. For that I would give Corgi Events all the support I can.
(UPDATE 1: a twist in the story shortly after publishing makes me modify this to say I support fandom and its members, volunteers and community that makes cons happen for the love of it.) – Patch
Corgi Events Is the Fandom’s First Convention Management Company
By Grubbs Grizzly
The history of furry conventions is an interesting one indeed, one that was recently written about by the late, great furry historian and book critic Fred Patten in his Furry Fandom Conventions, 1989-2015. As anyone who has read that book or is familiar with convention history knows, it all started with Confurence 0 in Costa Mesa, California, in 1989. After a couple years, new conventions started opening their doors. The phenomenon has snowballed until now there are nearly 100 conventions worldwide.
Up until recently, one thing fur cons had in common was that they were operated independently of one another. Often these would be organized by local fans, perhaps sharing crew with other events, but based in one community. Each would be organized by—typically—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the United States.
But the other day my attention was drawn to a company called Corgi Events LLC, when I heard its announcement of a new fur con in Irvine, California, to be called Golden State Fur Con. GSFC is debuting next year, along with another Corgi-created con, the Painted Desert Fur Con in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Reading this, bells started ringing in my fuzzy bear ears. Was Corgi trying to replace Califur, which failed to hold a convention this year, and may or may not in 2019? And Phoenix (Scottsdale is a suburb) already has the young Arizona Fur Con. Next, I saw that Corgi also runs DenFur, which has effectively replaced the failed Rocky Mountain Fur Con. The chosen locations look strategic, and multi-con management over distance is a departure from the furry norm.
ThiccPup was relaxing at home when his phone began to bark a series of woofs that spelled HIDE YIFF in Morse code. Thanks to home defense preparation and training drills, he was ready for action. He buttoned a dress shirt over his “Fuck Bitches Get Scritches” t-shirt, while his bookshelf flipped around to switch his werewolf erotica with a selection of sports magazines. His bed sank into a recess in the floor and a new one flipped down from the wall, hiding his plushies, Paw Patrol sheets, Tsaiwolf daki, and the framed art of an anthropomorphic femboy husky blowing a blushy jock rottweiler. His Furry Fuel energy drink was safely stacked behind a jar of mayonnaise.
“I got nervous when my mom saw my lunch on the floor, but I told her I was just dogsitting. Close call!” said ThiccPup.
Being caught with adult content has dire consequences for some furries. In California, one was forced to tell their grandma what a tailplug was for. In Pittsburgh, a con security SWAT team was deployed for a pup play lobby incident, with orders to neuter on sight. The threat of public exposure has never been so high.
CNN’s This is Life with Lisa Ling: Furry Nation aired last Sunday. As Furries do, some loved it and some hated it. That’s not surprising. When the critically acclaimed show (built around exploring the different corners of people’s lives) tweeted their season five episodes, fandom freaked out. Furries were tweeting about how CNN would cover them in the same season with MS-13, meth, screen addiction, and gender fluidity. Or how Furries complained that Anthro Northwest was letting TV do recording at their convention. Or how this episode was either the second coming, or the dawn of the apocalypse.
Boy, that changed overnight. If it sounds like I’m salty, I am to a degree. The reactions leading up to the premiere were just tiring. Many furries painted all journalists as TMZ tabloids looking for the next juicy clickbait headline, but looking at an episode shows Lisa Ling being a thoughtful reporter who wants to show the human stories behind the topics she covers. (You can see all episodes legally with a TV subscription here.)
It’s funny to see Furries wanting to share their stories and promote the good this community can do; yet push away anyone wanting to report on it. It lets rumors continue to define us. Of course, as I’m writing this, the BBC has done a piece about the hacking of an adult furry site many haven’t heard of. It’s actually a relatively neutral story in comparison to what happened to Ashley Madison (the website devoted to helping people cheat in their relationships), but with buxom zebras and scantily clad lionesses instead of mistresses/guys on the side (or whatever). Beyond the furry aspect, it’s neither positive nor negative, it’s just there. Perhaps those rumors are losing power just from becoming old and familiar.
It’s not without merit to be skeptical about the media covering this fandom. YouTuber Quartz Husky did a video about cable news coverage:
The issue as I see it, isn’t pointing out that there are people who will use us for sensational clicks. The issue is then finding positive examples to compare and contrast for what we, as a community want. The dialogue about the media vs. the fandom is so black-and-white, that any form of coverage is seen as bad. It leaves very little room for us to showcase who we are because there are no “good” reporters.
Fred in 1993 at a furry party at San Diego Comic Con. Lizard unknown. Photo by William Earl Haskell.
Fred Patten passed away on November 12, 2018 at age 78, leaving a legacy as historian and founder for the anime and furry fandoms. He was the star guest poster here. It’s hard to think of having no more Fred posts, but easy to say how much he influenced everyone. I’m really going to miss him sending in news tidbits or emails from curious fans, and asking if I can use them, then working out collaboration posts from his prompts. This was one of many, showing how he was sought out as an authority on anime and furry by people as far away as Malaysia.
Fred is remembered by many outside of furry. A memorial post on File770 highlights author David Gerrold calling Fred a “classic old-school fan”. The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society’s memorial page has Melissa Conway saying: “He was, without a doubt, the dean of Furry Fandom.”
From fellow furry fans, Dronon posted a rememberence of Fred at Flayrah news. So did Mark Merlino, cofounder of the first furry convention (ConFurence) and organizer of science fiction con parties that paved the way. Shortly before Fred’s passing, I ran into Mark and Rod of The Prancing Skiltaire (the long-running fan house in southern California) at PAWcon in San Jose. They had a table set up to remember gone but not forgotten fans. I think Fred deserves a place of honor in the middle of them all.
Welcome to Bessie, of Marfedblog, a comics review and criticism site. There’s furry stuff there, and much more, with devoted curation by a fan doing exactly what they love. If you like this, give it a follow. And expect more syndicated content from Marfedblog reposted here. (-Patch)
What’s the first thing to pop into your mind if I were to mention pigeons? The noble racing bird? Hmm, maybe. Dirty diseased rats with wings? Most likely. A way to embody, personify and express mental illness? Probably not… maybe the last one was a little too specific to Chuck Mullins.
Chuck uses the unjustly maligned bird to process and explore her own experiences of dealing with long term depression. For anyone who follows her Twitter or Tumblr feeds however, I’d wager good money it’s the first thing they think of now, whenever they spot one of our fearless feathered friends pecking at bread crumbs or chips on the street. A regular dose of cathartic pigeon positivity, a wing on their shoulder, and a comforting coo in their ear to keep on keeping on.
Welcome to Tempe O’Kun: author of Paranormal Furry Romance, anthropomorphic-animal Westerns, and a frequent guest of the site. I’m very happy he’s covering these literal dinosaur rockers. I loved seeing them, but never got to it because I don’t pay enough attention to the people and reptiles of Finland. Tempe had the head of the Hevisaurus fan club look over the article and he said it rocks. It reminds me, I just interviewed Jello Biafra, the punk legend, and he was curious if dinosaurs will come to his first time meeting furries as a DJ at their dance party. He also made funny reference to the cartoonish alien metal band GWAR – this is like an evolutionary cousin between them and furries. – Patch
Why isn’t heavy metal a genre for children?
Certainly plenty of metal songs aren’t kid-friendly —don’t go replacing Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood with Metalocalypse— but adult themes in music are a matter of lyrics and visuals. Nothing about the genre on a technical level limits it to adults. Extended guitar solos and amped-up distortion, no matter how hard core, will not cause your child to explode.
The main reason we don’t see much metal for kids is the same reason we’re only now seeing young kids at furry conventions: the genre is just too new. Heavy metal only emerged in the 1970s, which means 1) society hasn’t had time to get comfortable with it and 2) many fans are only now having kids.
