Digging Up Positivity: January 2022

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Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the fifth year of Digging Up Positivity! This episode we do highly various members of our community both new ones and older guests with some updates. And there will be some news from nature and the wonderful world of animation. And if you would like to get your paws on the T-shirt I am wearing or get some other Thabo merchandise, check the end of the video! As for now, let’s get started with the charities!

New Years Fur Ball

This year had a lovely kick off when it comes to furry charities where New Years Fur Ball managed to raise $1,029.15 for the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance. What a lovely way to start this year.

Flappy New Year

But besides the critters from Newark, USA, we had Adler the Eagle and his crew working hard for Give Kids The World Inc. I dropped by at their stream a few times, and the atmosphere was truly amazing. And in that weekend they managed to raise $16,590 for this lovely charity.

Painted Desert Furcon

But this amazing first weekend of the year did not stop there! Painted Desert Furcon, in Phoenix Arizona joined the rants with a whooping $12,338 raised for the Phoenix Herpetological Society. A non-profit organization dedicated to educating, rehabilitating and preserving native and non-native reptiles in Arizona.

Anthro Expo

And last, but not least, we have Anthro Expo. Where 669 attendees raised $7,777 for Sisu Youth services. They provide overnight shelter for those who are unfortunate enough to experience homelessness. They focus on the ages between 15 and 24 and everybody is welcome in their low barrier LGBTQ+ affirming safe space.

Lackadaisy

Back in the early days, every week we saw a new web comic coming around, and through time, only a few really managed to make waves and survive. Some even became more! One of them is Lackadaisy, a comic set in the Prohibition era in St.Louis, America. The artwork of the comic always has been a very strong, on par with other superb comics such as Blacksad. And they are working on an animation! After a successful Kickstarter they have been steadily releasing little bits and pieces, giving insight of the production process in their animation blog, and judging from the animation, they really do know what they are on about. A release date for this short is not yet known.

Piti Yindee

Bilibili is a big video-platform that is mostly known in Asia. Every year they host several awards. One of them being the Bilibili Animator Award! And in their latest edition Piti Yindee won first prize with his, now award winning, animated short ‘Fossils’. Featured in an earlier edition of Digging Up Positivity, its a short about a dog and a cat, Kati and Pingo trying to dig up fossils and all sort of Tex Avery inspired loony and wacky antics ensue!

Ask Papa Bear

Since we are on the topic of awards. When you talk about this fandom, 2 of them come to mind. And they are both accepting nominations. First we have Ask Papa Bear, known for his advice to furries, young and old. This is the 4th time he is hosting the Good Furry Awards.

Previous winners are amazing critters such as Tony Berret, also known as Dogbomb, who’s name lives on in the countless of ALS charity drives, Ash Coyote known from the fandom documentary, and the very talented Cassidy Civet (also a previous guest on this show).

You can submit your own nominations together with video fragments of them being pawsome for a possible video compilation until the end of April 2022 on their website. If all goes well, the awards will be presented in May in a certain convention in Reno, USA [Biggest Little Furcon].

Ursa Major Awards

The second big name are the Ursa Major Awards. Where Ask Papa Bear focusses mainly on people within the fandom, the Ursa Major Awards celebrates anthropomorphic works from outside of the fandom as well. Ranging from novels to animations. They too have their submissions open on their site. You can submit your entries up to February 12th!

Joshua and the Promised Land - Reanimated

As an animation enthusiast, I have seen many animations. Ranging from wonderful to the downright terrible. And Bible stories have always have been a bit of an odd ball. They can be good, just look at the Prince of Egypt, but there are plenty of bad ones out there.

I am guilty as charged with being part of one myself! Back in 1999 I was on the team responsible for ‘Biblical Beasts’, an animal themed Bible Story series aired by the Dutch broadcast group NCRV. But even with the low budget we had, looking back at my Xeroxing thousands of animation frames, it does pale in comparison with ‘Joshua and the Promised land.’ An animation so infamous that Saberspark, a very well known cartoon reviewer on YouTube, decided to reanimated it with the help of an awesome diverse team of YouTube animators. And the result is quite awesome!

Besides the released video, they also released a comparison video. Seeing all those different styles with their own references, in-jokes and quirks really makes it a fun video to watch!

DC League of Super Pets

Superheroes are a staple of geek culture, you can’t go around them! They are everywhere! But you never see anything about their pets? Well, the occasional mention here and there, but the people at DC found it time to have a movie focused on the superheroes’ best friend! DC League Of Super Pets.

Here we can see how Superman's dog has quite some trouble fitting in the other doggo’s. But in the end he makes friends with some superpowered shelter-animals. Will he save the day in the end? We will find out in May!

Oh god, I sound like a commercial do I? I am just hyped, sorry! I mean it's like the Secret Life of Pets but with super powers.

Cuphead

Back in 2017, the videogame Cuphead was released and took the world by storm. Not just did it show that a difficult game could be widely popular despite its difficulty, but the animation was just amazing. It did not just look like that typical rubber hose animation from the time, but they actually adopted many of the techniques that were a staple of the golden age of American animation. Frame by frame, it was hand-drawn resulting in that feeling and atmosphere of days gone by.

So when the news hit about Netflix adapting it, the reactions were mixed, but many did look forward to it. And recently the trailer got released. From the looks of it, they do try to mimic the atmosphere of the game. But you can see they did cut the budget. Understandably they could not animate it by hand like they did in the game with these circumstances, and that really does show. Especially to the more devoted animation fans. But despite this, I am going in with an open mind. It will be released in February this year. Pawfingers crossed!

Dogurai

Another area that features quite some critters from the fandom is the video game industry, and in November 2019 we featured Hungry Bear games. We are switching to Score Chaser to tell us more!

[ScoreChaser segment]

[Editor Summary - Dogurai has a physical release for PlayStation 5]

Jonskey S C.S.

And of course we have Jonskey C.S. , he keeps on going, but with even the best of us, sometimes you don’t feel so good. What happens if the happiness and motivation are just not there. It can happen to all of us, myself being no exception.

How to get through that valley to reach new heights? That inspired him to make this new song. Of course, do check out his channel regularly! I love the chiptunes.

Robots and Sprockets

From the games industry down to music, down to animation, and now end up on robots. And here we have Freyfox who is still going strong with his beetle weight bots Vega, Plucky and Sprocket. Last year Sprocket reached the top 16 in the Chatham Challenge belt, and in November the quarter finals of the Bristol Beetleweight Championships. And that same month, Plucky won the Gladiator rumble at Antweight World Series 62! Of course all this success leads us to expect more, and more he is planning. But besides this terrible trio of bots, more builds are on the way.

Be warned Freyfox, we are watching you with great interest!

Wolves in the Dutch Veluwe

The Dutch Nature Conservation organization ‘Natuurmonumenten’ is putting a lot of effort in the wolves of the Netherlands. While once a part of our ecosystem, they have been away for a while. But made their return in the more recent years. As part of their newest campaign ‘Get used to the wolf again’ which aims to educate people about the wolves’ their way of life and the impact of humans on their surroundings, they have released footage of what they suspect are new wolves. DNA research from their droppings will, in time, tell if they truly are. But in the meanwhile, we have footage of those lovely big floofs!

Featurette: Chise

[Interview]

Outtro

Thank you so much for sticking with us until the very end! As you might have noticed, things look a bit different. I switched to new software and redo the entire layout. And we started with the Furry Charity Index. You might have seen some of the elements from there appearing here.

Besides the new layout, there are plenty of new ideas of what to do with this channel. And if you would like to support it, consider getting some of my merch from my store linked in the description below, or perhaps spare some coin on my Patreon or Subscribestar like these amazing people: Cosmik with a K, Els Deckers, Falconeo, Hanzana, Ishnula, Kitako, Tantroo McNally, Taross, and Score Chaser

The next Digging Up Positivity will be the 26th of February and I really hope to see you there. Thank you all so much, and see you all around. And remember: All the hugs!