Dogpatch Press

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

Dubiously Canon, by Rukis
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, June 2017, trade paperback, $19.95 (199 pages), e-book $9.95.

This is a mature content book.  Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region. (publisher’s advisory)

“Synopsis: Tales from Red Lantern (that may or may not have happened)

A collection of stories chronicling the lives of characters in the Red Lantern universe, and their sexy misadventures.”

This collection contains five stories that originally appeared online. Four were written by reader demand to introduce two popular characters from throughout Rukis’ Red Lantern cartoon-art universe to each other, whether or not such a meeting would be possible by the story logic of this universe. So the stories are “dubiously canon”.

The four are “Language Barrier”, “Sinful Behavior”, “By Touch”, and “Ship to Ship”. All are narrated in the first person by one of the characters, most of whom are strangers to each other. Almost no names are mentioned. For readers familiar with Rukis’ Red Lantern art pages and her other novels, the descriptions of the characters will make it obvious who they are. In “Sinful Behavior”, for example, the wolfhound is Johannes Cuthbert from Red Lantern and Heretic and the bobcat is Shivah from the Off the Beaten Path trilogy. (That’s Shivah on the ship’s cannon on Rukis’ cover.) If you’re not familiar with Rukis’ Red Lantern universe – Mataa’s rocky coast in Legacy, the colony of Serwich in The Long Road Home, and so on – the locales and the characters won’t matter. All that really matters is that two healthy individuals come together, and erotic nature takes its course. M/m and m/f. Each of the four stories has a full-page NSFW illustration.

In “Language Barrier” it’s two males. A Mataa aardwolf desert estate guard on leave on Mataa’s coast helps a young Amurescan castaway dog sailor – a German shepherd or coyote, by Rukis’ illustration — who doesn’t speak the local language, to get home, for a share in his hidden alcohol.

“‘I know where the recent rum shipment went,’ he said, patting the crate next to him. ‘Twenty-two more like this. The Captain cached them down the coast a-ways, to get around paying the outrageous taxes to the local clans. I relocated the cache, after…’ He paused at that, clearing his throat. ‘Well, we had a falling out.’

‘You and your Captain?’ I ask, amused.

‘More me and my whole ship,’ he said with a frown.” (p. 9)

The two become homosexually involved. After their m/m tryst, they remain locked by the dog’s penis knot.

“He’d knotted me, like a son of a bitch, and I knew canines well enough to know we’d be stuck for a time.

‘You’re a bastard,’ I muttered, using the Huudari word that would best fit the insult.

‘I knew my father, thank you,’ he grumbled from behind me.

‘It means you’re an ass,’ I sighed. ‘Speaking of. How long until you can get off of me?’

‘I… honestly don’t know. It’s different every time.’” (pgs. 32-33)

In “Sinful Behavior”, the Amurescan Navy is hastily evacuating its untenable colony of Serwich in the humid Dark Continent. The young Carvecian Native bobcat woman (Shivah), who has gotten involved with them and brought to Serwich, is trailing the second-most high-ranking officer in the colony, unsure of whether she will assassinate him or not.

“The tall, wiry-furred, grey canine stood in the doorway and waited for me. He seemed dressed down, or at least dressed-down by his people’s standards. He was without his coat, his cravat and spats, and even his dark leather vest, but he still wore his ever-present chest harness over a simple white shirt, which meant, I knew, that he was still armed. No gun, though. No crossbow… no sword. Just the knives strapped to his back and chest. I wondered vaguely if he slept in the thing.” (p. 40)

They become emotionally involved enough to go to bed together, but it’s as a gentle older man to a young woman who is used to being abused, and whose first real lover has been recently murdered. There is sex, but there is also quiet pillow talk.

“‘Someday.’ I said quietly, ‘I will love again. Maybe… a lover, I don’t know. I’ll be honest, I’m not certain I want to be romantically in love, again. Maybe I’ll have another child, I… I don’t know.’ I gave a soft sigh, then, forcing a chuckle through a suddenly dense throat, murmured, ‘I promise you this much. It won’t be Grayson. That man is, at his best moments, amusing. But that’s all, I promise you. He’s too in love with his boat… and himself… to love anyone else, anyway.’” (p. 73)

The two characters in “By Touch” are the cattle dog Luther Denholme, Admiral of the Amurescan fleet evacuating Serwich, and a Carvecian shaman blind fox (obviously Puck, to those familiar with the Off the Beaten Path trilogy). Both are homosexual. Luther is a self-assured seaman on shipboard, but unsure how to treat a fox who is much smaller than he is, and blind as well, in a bedroom situation.

“Did you have any trouble finding your way here?’

‘No,’ he says with a quiet confidence that astonishes me. ‘May I come in?’

‘Absolutely,’ I say a little too enthusiastically, and remind myself to dial it back as he steps gingerly through the threshold. I watch him take small, silent steps inside, forever amazed with how fox tails just seem to glide effortlessly a few inches over the floor. It’s mesmerizing. He navigates his way into the center of the main living room, only needing to tap his walking stick once against a chair I probably should have pushed closer to the table, and turns to regard me with his ears, his multicolored white and brown fur catching yellow at the edges in the warm candlelight. I find myself wishing I could see him in his winter coat before he leaves, but it’ll never grow in this weather.” (p. 130)

Canon by Rukis

“Ship to Ship” features Shivah again, with Grayson, the wolf captain of the ship taking her to the Dark Continent. Ships in the Red Lantern universe do not take women on board, for reasons of custom and superstition. Shivah doesn’t know anything about that, and Grayson doesn’t care; but this means that there are no quarters for women aboard a wooden Privateer warship. Grayson’s solution is to have her share his cabin. And his bed.

“I’ve been digging my elbow into Grayson for about half an hour now, and slowly pushing. The end goal is to wedge the far heavier wolf onto his half of the bed, as per our long-standing agreement. I’d come to believe he only agreed to the rules I’d set forth because he fully intended to spend most of the time in our cabin = his really, but part of the agreement was that I could stay here so long as he got to tell his crew we were doing more than strictly sleeping next to one anther – unconscious and thus not accountable for his actions. And he was a snuggler in his sleep. Gods, was he a snuggler.” (p. 158)

Needless to say, they do more than sleep next to each other by the story’s end.

The fifth story, “Singh Gets Punched in the Face”, is only a three-page comedy; a fitting mood-piece to end the book.

Dubiously Canon has a lot of explicit sex in it, both homosexual and heterosexual, but all clean and between consenting adults. The emphasis in each story, however, is on the personality of the characters. You will get much more out of the book if you are already familiar with Red Lantern and with Off the Beaten Path, Lost On Dark Trails, and The Long Road Home, and you want to spend more time getting to know Luther Denholme, Shivah, Johannes Cuthbert, Puquanah, Grayson, and Rukis’ world of Red Lantern.

– Fred Patten

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

Felicia: The Night of the Basquot, by Chas. P. A. Melville. Illustrated by the author.
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, September 2017, trade paperback, $12.00 (257 pages), Kindle $9.99.

“‘So!’ crowed Felicia happily. And then she frowned. ‘So,’’ she repeated, more uncertainly. And then, in puzzlement, ‘So.’ Her ears flicked as she turned to stare at the rising sun. ‘So, what’s a ‘Basquot’ anyway?’” (p. 86)

Felicia cla di Burrows, the vixen renegade sorceress blackballed from the Magic Council, is thirty years old this year. She first appeared as an enigmatic background character when Melville began self-publishing The Champion of Katara comic book, #1 dated August-September 1987. Now she has her first novel.

Spiteful and egocentric, all that was really clear was that Felicia had been horribly mistreated as a child. She began studying sorcery — including forbidden black magic — to gain revenge against those who had destroyed her family. But her heart was not really in being evil, and she kept using her magic to help others while postponing her vendetta against her family’s enemies. As a flawed ‘good guy’ and a colorful, charismatic character, Felicia became the most popular of Melville’s anthro animal cast when he moved to Seattle and became active in the furry community there, and he resumed his comic-book stories for Edd Vick’s MU Press in the 1990s. Felicia’s most dramatic and complex adventure was the 184-page graphic novel Felicia: Melari’s Wish (August 1994). Later in the ’90s, she starred in three lighter stand-alone stories as a sorceress-for-hire without the dark background of her vengeance goal, written by Melville and drawn by Bill Schmickle, in MU’s anthology comic-book ZU.

Melville later brought Felicia back in a series of text novelette booklets, with illustrations every few pages, published by CaféPress. These continued the lighter stories in ZU. Felicia became a professional sorceress-for-hire/detective who got involved with finding and dispelling ancient evils, or preventing their escape to wreak havoc in Katara and its neighboring animal kingdoms of Dogonia, Bruinsland (bears), Scentas (skunks), Rodentia (mice), and others. Melville wrote five of these, from Felicia and the Dreaded Book of Un (February 2004) to Felicia and the Border Collie Patrol (January 2008). One, Felicia and the Tailcutter’s Curse (June 2004), won that year’s Ursa Major Award in the Best Short Fiction category. All five were republished as a single book, The Vixen Sorceress (CreateSpace, December 2008).

Melville began producing a Felicia webcomic, Felicia, Sorceress of Katara, in December 2007, but for the last nine years there have been almost no Felicia text adventures. Now Felicia is back in a 257-page novel.

Felicia: The Night of the Basquot is her origin story, and an introduction to her world (which might be described as Tolkien lite, with funny animals). It begins when Felicia emerges in Katara from a mysterious seven-year disappearance, crackling with magic energy and ready to join the all-powerful Magi Council (a.k.a. the Brotherhood of the Candle) as its newest and youngest sorceress. Instead, she is shocked and infuriated to learn that she has been rejected.

“There was a liquidly pop, and somebody stepped through into the middle of Manwa Katdu’s private office.

Felicia swept her cloak out of the way and marched in, looking furiously about before centering her sights upon the wizard. ‘You!’ she snapped, angrily advancing upon him. She pointed at him, her fist still grasping an official letter. ‘Are you Manwa Katdu? I want to speak to you!’

Manwa [a cat wizard] lowered the still-sparking mace, but kept a tight grip upon it. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded indignantly. ‘How dare you just barge in to my sanctuary this way? Do you have any sense of proper decorum?’ More to the point, he wondered, how did you break through a series of protective spells set in place by a committee of the most powerful Magi?

‘Blow it out of your peaked hat,’ snapped the vixen shaking the letter at him. ‘I want to know what this means!’

[…]

Felicia resumed glaring at him and continued her harangue. ‘How can you possibly dismiss my application so casually? Don’t meet your minimum standards? Why, you’ve no idea what I’m capable of!’

‘That is precisely the point,’ Manwa told her. ‘We don’t know.’ He studied her more carefully. ‘You are Felicia, correct? The old Sorceress’ apprentice? Then you know as well as anyone should how careful the Council is in accepting applicants to its order, even from among its own brotherhood. […]” (pgs. 36-37)

Felicia’s determination to keep how she learned her magic a secret (part of her planned revenge against the powerful wolf nobleman who murdered her family when she was a child) keeps the suspicious Council from accepting her. This world has two gods, or a god and a demon, the good Aln and the evil Murk; and the Magi Council will not admit anyone to its ranks until they are certain that the applicant is not an agent of the Murk. Felicia is obviously powerful enough, but she will not revel her training or the source of her magic.

Before the matter of her rejection by the Council can be resolved, this world undergoes a major attack by the minions of the Murk. The wizards and sorceresses of the Council rush to oppose it, while Felicia is sidetracked by the enemy who killed her family.

“It’s too soon, a voice in the back of her mind warned. You’re not ready yet! ‘I should have known,’ she growled to herself. ‘From the very beginning, I should have known. When I first saw the tray! Only he would have had access to it and all of the other property stolen from my parents!’ She pulled on the reins, forcing the horse to take a fork that led along a deep stream. Startled night creatures scattered at her approach, chittering as they fled into the high grass. You’re not ready yet! her inner voice reminded her firmly. It’s too soon! This isn’t according to the plan! First, you get established and make a name for yourself! Remember? Then, you slowly, slowly, acquire friends among the powerful, until you have enough to worry him. When it’s time, you move your friends against him. But you need time!

‘I don’t have time!’ she snarled aloud, and snapped the reins again to urge the horse faster. ‘He’s up to something now, and he’s using my parents’ wealth to do it! By Aln! I’ll make him suffer for this!’” (pgs. 126-127)

Felicia: The Night of the Basquot (cover by the author) is a fast-paced mixture of drama and humor, well-blended although occasionally descending into silliness, as when Felicia wins the dubious support of a band of miniature dog warriors…

“‘We’re the Toy Pooch Patrol! We’re the fighters that everyone forgets, but who forget no one. We’re the ones who watch over the overlooked, and guard against the injustices done to the little folk.’” (p. 155)

…or with names like Bill Sneakyshoes. On the whole, though, if you like Disney-fairy-tale-type desperate battles of funny-animal knights against monsters, good versus evil wizards and sorceresses, noble sacrifices and tragic deaths, you will enjoy Felicia: The Night of the Basquot. Melville presents a broader picture of his animal world, and the mood is generally more serious than in his novelettes like Felicia and the Cult of the Rubber Nose with its mime assassins.

– Fred Patten

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

Griffin Ranger. Volume 2, The Monster Lands, by Roz Gibson. Illustrated by Cara Mitten, Amy Fennell, and Roz Gibson.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, August 2017, trade paperback, $19.95 (557 pages), Kindle $2.99.

Griffin Ranger. Volume 1, Crossline Plains, 369 pages, was published in January 2015.   It ends on a cliffhanger. This book is not so much a sequel as the conclusion of a single 926-page novel. There is a 3-page What Has Gone Before, but you really need to have read Volume 1 and then continue directly with this Volume 2.

To condense what I said about Crossline Plains:

“Griffin Ranger is set in a totally alien alternate universe. The land masses are the same as on our Earth, but the life forms and civilization that have evolved are dominated by birds. (The reader will have fun identifying both geographical features such as the Twin Continents, the Alpha River, the Five Lakes, and the Endless Ocean, and the cities and towns like Defiance, Flatlands City, and Foggy Bay.) Since birds don’t have hands, the main intelligent landbound mammals are the raccoon/lemur-like ‘hanz’ that are their symbiotic partners, and two species of canines: the wild wolfen, and the more domestic herders that have evolved from them. This Earth’s civilization is dominated by the griffins, who are the principal inhabitants of what the reader will recognize as the Americas, Europe, and Asia. But in the last few hundred years the greenies, an aggressive bird species, have erupted from the Emerald Isles (New Zealand) to spread over the world. The griffins of the Northern Continent have allowed the greenies’ partial settlement there under strict supervision, but there are suspicions that the greenies are preparing to take over totally.

“Griffins during their adolescence traditionally go on a continent-wide ‘wander’ of exploration. Harrell, the Griffin Ranger in charge of an area north of Earthquake City, learns that his daughter Aera, who is on a joint wander with four companions, is a week overdue. They went missing near the central Northern Continental agricultural city of Crosstown Plains, populated about equally with griffins and greenies. Harrell is worried, but not enough to abandon his territory to search for the missing youths, until his ex-mate Vaniss, the Ranger in charge of Earthquake City and his organizational superior, assigns him to find them. To aid Harrell, Vaniss gets him two assistants: Kwaperramusc (Kwap), an exotic griffin from the islands north of the Dry Continent (Indonesia and Australia) and the Rangers’ best Investigator, and Tirrsill, an inexperienced but willing young female hanz.

“Harrell, Kwap, and Tirrsill go to Crossline Plains, despite unexpected opposition. The lower-ranking greenies are cooperative, but they don’t know anything. The non-cooperation of the greenie officials is expected; what is more troubling is the unconvincing innocence or open hostility of the local griffins, especially the resident griffin ranger.

“The trio learns that other griffins and their hanz have gone missing near Crossline Plains. Their investigation draws them into a series of violent attacks, attempted murders with a high body count of bystanders, and more. Someone is desperate to keep them from learning anything. What they find could destroy their whole world.”

Crossline Plains ended with Harrell, Kwap, and Tirrsill learning that the greenies there and their unexpected alien allies have constructed a dimensional gateway. The trio go through it, Harrell is captured, and Kwap and Tirrsill escape into the alien dimension – our own Earth. The Monster Lands is set almost entirely around what would be Crossline Plains in our Earth, and tells two stories: Harrell’s captivity in the fortified gateway building of the greenies and their human allies, and Kwap and Tirrsill’s desperate struggle to remain free and either rescue Harrell or somehow communicate with their world to summon help. There is a deadline unknown to them: the greenies and their human allies are planning the genocide of all griffins and hanz in their dimension.

One of Gibson’s nice touches in The Monster Lands is that the trio don’t just step into a different world than they are used to. Our Earth is toxic to them. The air is almost unbreathably thin to them, and full of potentially deadly diseases. They don’t know what foods are safe to eat. In addition, Kwap and Tirrsill cannot let themselves be seen by the monster natives, and the villains have sent agents to kill them. The book is 557 pages of almost nonstop suspense. That’s 557 pages almost to the edges of the paper with very narrow margins, too.

Some of my favorite quotes:

“Kwap flew straight up, trying to escape the corona of light that surrounded the monsters’ building. His lungs burned with effort. The air had no substance as if he were flying through a vacuum. Riding on his back, Tirrsill clutched his equipment harness so tightly the straps dug into his breast and stomach, making it even harder to breathe. Behind him, the greenies screeched as they poured out the door. He had a small lead, but there was no way he could outfly them carrying Tirrsill. He had to find somewhere to hide.” (p. 11)

“Silence for a moment, then a voice much closer, echoing in the dwelling. ‘Look at all this blood! Did he get shot?’

‘Not unless the hanz shot him by mistake. None of our people had any weapons,’

‘Maggoty rotten rules! Make sure to gather up every single feather here. We don’t need the locals wondering where they came from.’

‘What about the blood?’

‘Nothing we can do,’ the first greenie spoke louder. ‘Kenkret-Eet! Peep them back! Have them send some more builders here to help us search this area!’” (pgs. 26-27)

“When the monsters returned to clear the food dishes, they were accompanied by the white-tunic alpha and three others wearing white. One of the newcomers had skin that was a very dark brown, with fur on the top of its head that flared out in a circle. Harrell thought the monsters had only two color varieties – pale tan and pink – and he was surprised to see a different color. Beyond the dark skin and odd fur texture, it was the same size and proportion as the others. Maybe the monsters were like herders and had a number of color variants.” (p. 153)

Griffin Ranger. Volume 2, The Monster Lands (cover by Char Reed) was also funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign. Fortunately! Crossline Plains is a great appetite-whetter, and its ending on a cliffhanger is really frustrating. It would have been maddening if this conclusion had not achieved the funding to get published. It’s been a 2½-year wait, but here it is!

In case you need it spelled out, Griffin Ranger. Volume 2, The Monster Lands is most highly recommended.

– Fred Patten

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Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

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

The Fox of Richmond Park, by Kate Dreyer
London, Unbound, July 2017, trade paperback, £11.99 (287 pages), Kindle $1.99.

“If the Animals of Farthing Wood had lived in London and hated each other a little bit more, their story may have been a lot like this one.

‘Get out of the way or get an antler up the arse, yeah? I’m sick of these glorified donkeys.’” (blurb)

Almost all the (British) reviewers have compared this British novel to Colin Dann’s 1979 classic The Animals of Farthing Wood. In it, the woodland community of Farthing Wood is paved over by human developers. The wildlife inhabitants, led by Fox, undertake a dangerous trek to the safety of a distant nature reserve.

The Animals of Farthing Wood is a Young Adult novel. All the animals act together in brotherhood. No one eats anybody.

The Fox of Richmond Park is an Adult novel. Richmond Park is a large wildlife park in London that Wikipedia says is known for its deer. In this talking-animal novel, the deer are the arrogant elite class of the Park’s fauna. When the deer decide they want the lakeside area where several foxes have had their dens for generations, they just tell the foxes to move out. Most accept the order without protest. Vince does not.

“‘Why I should leave,’ Vince snarled as he prowled back and forth in the semi-circle of bare earth that marked the entrance to his den, black ears flat to his head, ‘just because some over-entitled deer want to be near the lake?’

‘It’s not like that. And you can dig a new, bigger den in a day or two. I don/t see what the problem is. Other animals have moved without a fuss.’ Edward tilted his antlers towards the small skulk of foxes several leaps away, who had gathered at the edge of the woodland to wait for the sun to set. ‘And your friends are being very cooperative.’

‘That’s because you’ve told them a load of scat about how great the cemetery is.’ Vince said, the copper fur on his back bristling. He’d had every intention of talking this through civilly with the stag, but his temper had other ideas. Just like last time.” (p. 1)

The other foxes privately agree with Vince, but why bring on an animal war? It’s easier to move. Vince goes on arguing until he says he’d rather leave the park altogether than move to an inferior neighborhood, just because the deer order it.

“‘But I’m not your enemy, Vince [Edward says]. This park is a wonderful place where we can all live together in safety, where humans respect us and take care of us. But there are rules. Just follow the rules like everyone else and you can stay. The last thing we want is to drive anyone away. Be serious, Vince. Do you really want to leave this place and live among humans? Dodging their cars, being kept awake by their incessant noise, eating their leftovers out of bins? Especially after what happened to your father.’” (p. 3)

Vince won’t back down. Besides, he’d always wondered where his grandparents had lived before they came to Richmond Park. Now he’s free to find out.

He’s not alone, either. Rita the magpie wants to join him.

“‘Why do you want to come? I don’t even know where I’m going.’

‘I want to travel with you. See London. Have an adventure!’

‘I’m not going on an adventure.   I’m just looking for my grandparents’ old home.’

‘Sounds like an adventure to me. Come on, I’ve spent too many seasons in this place. There’s nothing for me here and I’m getting old… I want to see the city! Fly to new places and taste new food and hear new birds!’” (p. 13)

So Vince and Rita venture from Richmond Park, where they have always led a sheltered, protected life, into the London metropolis. They have to dodge cars, learn how to cross streets with traffic lights, discover the difference between human pedestrians with cell phone cameras who just want to take their pictures and animal welfare officers who want to trap Vince, and more. A running joke is Vince’s frustration to find out what a poodle is.

Their search for Vince’s grandparents’ den takes them from Richmond Park to Hyde Park, Regent’s Park where the London Zoo is, and further afield. They meet many animals like Sid the badger, Oswald the swan, Frank and Roger the geese, Socks the cat (“Official Feline Administrator of the Hammersmith area”), G, Jonny, and Ra-Ra, the rat gourmets of Soho, Arthur the hedgehog, and more. Some are helpful. Some are murderous. There is comedy, suspense, violence, and tragedy. Vince and Rita are gradually joined by others.

There are hints of romantic complications. Vince has left a vixen, Sophie, back in Richmond Park. Sophie has recently mated with another tod, Jake, but she and Vince still have feelings for each other. Vince and Rita meet another vixen, Laurie, an urban fox, on their travels. Will Vince mate with Laurie, or return to Richmond Park for Sophie? How far will Jake go to ensure that Vince does not return to Richmond Park?

There is also the constant plot to kill Vince before he can find his grandparents’ home.

“‘Why bother? [asks Kara the owl] He’s already gone.’

‘His death will be a warning to everyone here [answers Edward]. They need to be reminded that the city is dangerous and that Richmond Park is the best home they’ll ever have. I have little doubt that Vince will fail on his own, but I’m not risking it. I can’t have him sending messages back, encouraging others to flout the rules or leave or … worse. Park Watch would fall apart. I’ve spent seasons making this park what it is and I won’t have that flea-ridden creature ruin it for me.’” (p. 30)

Dreyer refers at one point to Watership Down, but it’s obvious before then that she is familiar with it. However, The Fox of Richmond Park (cover by Mecob) is completely original. It is a top-quality addition to any library of talking-realistic-animal fantasies. No furry fan should miss it.

– Fred Patten

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Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Mark Lungo, thanks for chatting. What’s your game about?

Crimestrikers, an RPG supplement set on the futuristic furry word of Creaturia, will be published in November by Spectrum Games as part of their Cartoon Action Hour series. Soon you can enter a new world of fun and adventure, as a colorful team of heroic agents protects Creaturia from the crime syndicate Outrage and other supervillains. Crimestrikers is created and written by Mark Lungo, with game stats by the Spectrum staff and illustrations by various artists (including Cindy Ramey of Ringtail Cafe Press, Derek Van Deusen, Jon Kemerer, Alishka Jolitz, and Rick Yurko). Stay tuned to http://www.spectrum-games.com/ for further announcements.

(Spectrum Games:) “Do you remember those magical days of the 1980s, when Saturday morning and weekday afternoon cartoons offered kids heaping doses of excitement, action, and fun? There were huge sentient robots, paramilitary forces, science fantasy barbarians, and everything in between! Well, guess what? Those days have returned! With Cartoon Action Hour, you can re-live it all… but this time, you’re the star!”

I found your FA, and it looks like you have been into furry for a while. Can we get a little bio?

I’ve been a furry ever since my childhood in the late 60s. The first movie I saw was The Jungle Book, and the first comic I read (a Disney digest) included a Jungle Book story and Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge classic The Prize of Pizarro. When I was nine, The Houndcats came to Saturday morning TV; although most have forgotten this short-lived cartoon, it hooked me on furry action-adventure for life. Since then, my pop culture diet has included Disney and Warner toons, SWAT Kats, Biker Mice from Mars, Captain Simian, and indie comics like Furrlough and Albedo, among others.

Are you into RPG’s in general, or furry RPG’s specifically? Can you tell me about that – your favorites, what style you like, the kind of game mechanics you prefer, etc?

I’ve never been a gamer, although I own a few sourcebooks because I enjoy the characters and stories. So why is Crimestrikers an RPG? I showed the idea to my friend Cynthia Celeste Miller of Spectrum Games, who I knew from her company’s Cartoon Action Hour franchise (a series of original games inspired by toy-based 80s cartoons like He-Man and Transformers). I just wanted Cynthia’s opinion, but to my surprise and delight, she liked Crimestrikers so much that she wanted to publish it! I’m leaving the game stats and mechanics to the Spectrum team – they’re the experts.

Do you know much about the history of furry RPG’s? Some of them played a part in making furry fandom a thing. Are you into that, or just more of a general gamer who happens to be a furry?

See above. However, Crimestrikers includes a few suggestions I wrote for fans playing the game. For example, one of the episode seeds is “10 Minutes to Showtime!”, in which the heroes must find a bomb that’s set to destroy a drive-in theater in ten minutes. I wrote that players can create the proper atmosphere by serving snacks and soda while playing the kinds of ads that drive-ins run during intermissions, while the bomb can be simulated by a hidden timer that the players have to find before it goes off.

Diana Mastron by Jerberjer. See much more in the Crimestrikers tag on Deviantart.

What led you to make your own, and what’s the process been like?

I’ve been having ideas for shows and characters for a long time; also, whenever I watched or read something, even if I liked it, I’d always think “If I had written it, I’d change this and this and this.” However, Crimestrikers is the first of my concepts that really came together. I basically took everything I like (furries, action/adventure, sci-fi, even a dash of rock & roll) and put it all in one series. The process has been a lot of fun, although I overwrote so much that I had to edit some items to avoid exceeding Spectrum’s word count, including the deletion of some character bios. If anyone wants to see this material (and some new ideas I’ve come up with since completing the manuscript), be sure to buy Crimestrikers so maybe there can be a Volume 2!

Any comments about the publisher?

Spectrum has been very good to work with. Cynthia and her team have been very supportive, and aside from the word count thing they haven’t asked me to make any major changes. They also let their authors retain ownership of the properties they create, which anyone who has an idea that fits in with their product lines should consider.

Any hopes for the game?

I hope it’s successful, of course. I also think Crimestrikers has the potential to become a multimedia franchise that could include animated series, video games, comic books, action figures, you name it. Sure, it’s a long shot, but getting it published was a long shot, too. People who have seen Crimestrikers enjoy it, and one of my friends is already writing fanfic for it–seriously! I think it has a lot of potential.

Thanks Mark! It would be great to hear comments from any reader who is into furry RPG’s.

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I must again apologies for a very short breathed post this month, but I’m still in a cast and my one good arm is tired. Prep your butt for another quick and dirty list.

For any videos, click on the little ‘K’…

… Right here… to go to the campaign page.

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Please note that some of these kickstarter projects may be NSFW

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Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon. You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward. They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

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

Magnificats: Return of the Demon Wind, by Gwyn Dolyn. Illustrated, map by the author.
La Jolla, CA, Plowshare Media, January 2017, trade paperback, $15.95 ([11 +] 239 [+ 9] pages), Kindle $3.95.

Magnificats is an unusual mixture of Young Adult fantasy and several specialized ethnic vocabularies, beginning with both faerie mythology and commonplace Irishisms; not to mention Big Words that aren’t in most Young Adult novels. 13-year-old redhaired Aoife “Apple” Standish, taunted as Red Apple Stand by her classmates in today’s Dublin, is blown by a sheegee wind to where a Magnificat is watching.

“Meanwhile, just down the street and past the cheese shop where her brother worked, Tak, the lanky old cat who lived under the ancient parish church on Apple’s route to school, sensed something awry in the autumn air. This sheegee was a concern. Sniffing, he tickled the air with his whiskers, then remarked, ‘Hmm. Interesting autumn wind; deliberate, with a stench of malice.’

While Tak was indeed a cat, he was not your everyday, meowing, rodent-chasing, scratching-up-the-furniture sort of cat. He was the leader (to be exact, Littern) of a clandestine order of numinous nine-life cats, known far and wide in creature kingdoms as Magnificats – keepers of sacred knowledge and masters of the winds.” (pgs. 1-2)

Dolyn peppers her novel with obscure words, Irish at first and later Egyptian, then others. “The strange sight of a girl caught in a whirlwind caused car screeching, men’s caubeens flying, and children diving for cover under their mums’ waving skirts.” (p. 4) Wikipedia defines a caubeen as an Irish peasant beret. “Gwyllion” is another Celtic magical word used a lot in just the first chapter – strangely, Wikipedia says it’s from Welsh mythology, not Irish. (It’s all Celtic.) Some other Irishisms in Chapter 1 that aren’t mythology-based are hooligan, shamrock, shenanigan, Finn-McCool, and gobsmacked. But when Apple goes to Egypt with other students on an archaeological dig, the vocabulary switches to Egyptian. “‘Hey App,’ Dan’s voice echoed across the flat sand, ‘we’re going to wrap this up. The winds are getting bad; looks like a haboob coming.’” (p. 29) You’ll learn more about cultures, winds, and mythologies (especially Irish) than you wanted to know:

“She [Apple] crumpled up the joyce her mum got at the airport exchange so she could have spending money for the layover in London, since the Brits did not accept the Euro.” (p. 17) [The Irish Republic today has adopted the Euro as currency, while the U.K. has kept the pound sterling.]

Tak is an ancient Magnificat, a world traveler on his ninth and last life:

“She [Miw, Tak’s mother] named Tak after the six-winged Ethiopean saint, Takle Haymanot, not China’s Taklimakan Desert, as was often speculated. His well-traveled nine lives made that assumption logical. Miw secretly hoped that the name might bring him wings, as his littermates sported. It did not. Yet a wingless Magnificat earning Littern status was a testament to Tak’s prowess.” (p. 9)

Tak hopes to relax and take his final life easy, under an old church in Dublin. He is disconcerted to see some obvious malicious magic being used against an apparently-normal 13-year-old girl. He dispels the sheegee wind (which has grown into a gwyllion tornado), but he can’t help wondering who the girl is that it was used against. Meanwhile, his magic cancellation of the wind has given Apple a glimpse “beyond the veil”:

“Sandwiched right between where she dipped one knee and looked up at the crucifix, Apple spotted a translucent gold cat atop the courtyard wall. Her glance rested on a sparkling cross that dangled from his jeweled collar. It was an Egyptian ankh, reflecting brightly in the afternoon sun. Apple and Tak locked eyes and a chill ran through both of them, from head to toe. ‘Why on earth would a transparent cat be wearin’ a key o’ life?’ Apple wondered under her breath.” (p. 6)

To give away a major spoiler right now, the main villain turns out to be Ephippas, the Arabian wind demon. Yes, Ephippas is genuine; I Googled him and he’s in the Bible, the Old Testament. What is an Arabian pre-Islamic wind demon doing in Ireland? Read Magnificats to find out.

Besides specialized words, Dolyn is adept with accents. There is Apple’s and others’ Irish accents:

“‘Oi’ll be t’ankin’ Spitface for her swinging-flap invention for a month o’ Sundies,’ Thom gloried.” (p. 6) [Spitface was Sir Isaac Newton’s pet cat. He invented the pet door for her. It’s on the Internet.]

There are incidental characters from Jamaica and Canada:

“Rasta’s face lit up as he tossed his head back in a gruff laugh, causing his white teeth to sparkle like pearls against his coffee-toned skin in the bright morning light. ‘This book tells about dah romance of all romances, Queen Saba and the wisest king in all dah land, Solomon. His great-great-and-fifty-greats-more was dah last emperor of Ethiopia. It is because of him that ol’ Rasta joined this expedition. That wise king hid his treasure with Queen Saba, a golden chest covered in angels, and I aim to find it.’” (pgs. 23-24)

“She [Apple] was petrified that the young woman would notice what it was, but instead, Rhonda politely handed the partially unwrapped stone back to her, and said, ‘Here you go. You’d better keep that pack zipped-up around here, eh?’” (p. 30)

Another character, Ms. Coleman in Phoenix, Arizona, is clearly a Southern African-American:

“‘Since I had no chil’ins of my own, Kryssy, I aim to teach you all I know about cat med’cin’. Danged if I am gonna let my Bibi’s secrets leave this world with me.’” (p. 77)

Cats are not the only animals anthropomorphized:

“Trailing Magnificats snagged the fractured aurora’s medicinal light particles to take to Magnificat Stubbs in Alaxsxaq, where the feline mayor was recovering from a vicious dog attack. Polaris’ wind brought early winter to a swaggering wolf pack, treading single file across the rocky tundra below, and they howled in protest. ‘We have not prepared our dens yet.’ The sudden frost over the steep hillsides angered bears for the same reason. Polaris [the polar bear wind of the north] was unmoved. His cold wind pressed southward over Turtle Island’s elk-filled, brown grass prairies, to the red-earthed Land of the Sun, where condors with eleven-foot wingspans made passage over the aqua waters of the regal Grand Canyon. Finally, Polaris settled at the top of the aspen and pine covered San Francisco Peaks, the seat of Moosa [a Maine Coon cat Magnificat], Clouder over the 56 nations of the Americas. The sudden wind caused the white underside of the aspen leaves to dance like butterflies.” (pgs. 63-64) [“Alaxsxaq” is the Aleut word from which the English “Alaska” is derived.]

“‘Your tail is still pretty quick for an old blue whale,’ Polaris joked tiredly as he eased into his turn.

Blue [the blue whale wind of the south] did a double midair flip to show him she still had that (and more) in her, accidentally sending a surging sea wave towards Oceania. ‘Oops’’ she giggled, in hopes the icebergs she sent rolling would go unnoticed. In the past, Blue had swept away entire populations of animals and [humans] with her ‘innocent’ wakes.” (p. 86)

But Magnificats keeps returning to Dublin, and either Apple or Tak:

“There was some evidence that she [Apple] was not dreaming at all. Like the time several huge cats with pheasant wings flew in and out of her room through a window sealed shut with paint from previous tenants. The next morning, Apple found the window wide open and in good working order. Another time, she swam in a blue lake with a bright orange cat wearing goggles, flippers, and a rubber swim cap, and awoke soaking wet with a fish in her bed. The most outlandish dream, by far, involved seven cats sitting at the foot of her bed, building a campfire, and fanning it with raven’s wings. ‘Apple, there’s a fire! We are getting out!’ her mom yelled. She had smelled the smoke and called Fire Services. Apple decided not to tell her about the dream, especially after the neighbors had to stand in the cold in their pajamas for three hours while firefighters cleared the flats.” (p. 41)

This review barely mentions a major character, Krystal Kay Kenner.

Magnificats (cover by the author) eventually brings into the adventure the winds of the other directions such as Thunderbird of the west, and more Magnificats besides Tak (“‘Good Lord and all, how many of you are there?’ April asked, exasperated to see yet another talking Magnificat.” [p. 198]; and they have Politics). Tak turns out to be a shapeshifter who can morph into a Bastet half-human form (he loses his fur, though). There is more than enough in the novel to make it a worthwhile, exotic adventure for furry fans.

It’s educational, too.

“Of Pogeyan lineage, originally from the Indian tribal regions, Alkina was a Mystifier – able to engender a mist-like covering through his skin, allowing his fur to change like a chameleon. He could project images out on his fur, like a television screen, to trick the eye. This skill ingratiated him to the Jawoyn [human] tribe of the north, who divided into groups by 10 different skin types. They placed high importance on markings. He could disappear in the shadow of a golden wattle flower as easily as he could blend in with the blue sky.” (p. 87) [Guess which ethnic group is referred to in this paragraph.]

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• Blog: About the book
• More on publisher’s page

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Welcome to guest poster Summercat – a great friend to Dogpatch Press, with a cool interest in Furry Comics and Zines History.

Publisher Dealer Table. Photo provided by Rabbit Valley

When I first joined the Furry Fandom, there weren’t many fandom publishers, and most printed works were vanity press or self-publishing. These days, it seems that the world of Furry Publishing has exploded in size, with many relatively new companies plowing ahead and looking strong.

However, there aren’t too many resources available for those looking to get their works published on whom to go with, and sites like Wikifur confusingly list long-dormant and dissolved companies under active publishers. So I went ahead and compiled a list of currently active fandom publishers looking at submissions, either regularly or periodically. I do not pretend this to be exhaustive, so these listed may not be the only options available.

A word of warning: What these publishers accept may change without notice. Some only publish through submissions to anthologies, while others may open or close their submissions for certain types of media. Many of these publishers are selective in what they publish under their imprint, and are often flooded with submissions and proposals. Always do your research before sending a submission in!

When discussing a contract with a publisher, keep special care to know what rights are being sold. While most publishers only require a period of exclusivity, some may be intending to purchase complete rights to the work. Make certain that you and the publisher are both clear on what is expected from either of you!

When it comes to publishing and compensation, there are four general approaches:

1. Flat payment. An up-front flat payment upon accepting your submission, sometimes per entry, sometimes per-word or per-page. There is no further compensation after this payment.
2. Royalties. A royalty is a percentage of the sales of your book – the more copies your book sells, the more money you make.
3. Product. Instead of cash, you receive a copy of the work, either for personal use or for you to sell yourself.
4. Vanity. Instead of being paid to have your work published, you instead pay the publisher to print your book or comic for you. You pay the full cost of printing and take the entire stock. Publishers may have a clause letting them purchase copies from you at a discount of the cover price.

And finally, if you know of a Furry Publisher that is not included on this list and is currently active, please feel free to drop a tip!

Rabbit Valley – Comics, Novels, Anthology Submissions, Vanity Publishing

The oldest active publisher on this list, Rabbit Valley is also a distributor for other publishers, having a table presence at conventions all around the world. Rabbit Valley offers vanity press printing for Comics and Novels, and is accepting submissions to publish Comics.

InkedFur – Color Comics

Inkedfur makes its money selling art prints on behalf of other artists, having tables at several conventions. Their offered printing services include full color comics, prints, wallscrolls, dakis, pillow cases, beach towels, and mousepads. InkedFur is currently accepting submissions for full color comics. Disclosure: I am friends with the owner of InkedFur.

Furplanet – Comics, Novels, ‘Zines, Anthologies, Artbooks

Furplanet was founded in 2004 as an online store for Furnation, and as an independent company in 2008. It publishes a variety of novels, comics, anthologies, and more under it’s own imprint as well as the Bad Dog Books label. Furplanet is currently accepting submissions for comics, novels, ‘zines, anthologies, and artbooks.

Jarlidium Press – APA, Comics, Novels, Anthology Submissions

Jarlidium Press is a publisher of various anthologies, comics, and periodical ‘zines. Current regular titles include the APA North American Furs, Xformations (adult transformation art/comics/stories), and Squeak! (adult M/F or F/F comics and pinups). Jarlidium also offers the short-run “ArtZone” and “WebcomicArchive” lines, as well as their Royalty option for comics and novels.

Antarctic Press – Accepting Portfolio submissions

Antarctic Press is a comic publisher that originated many Furry titles over the years. A more traditional comic publisher than others, they take submissions of portfolios rather than works to be published.

Sofawolf Press – Novels, Graphic Novels

Another well-known Furry publisher, Sofawolf Press publishes many authors and artists, as well as the Heat periodical. They are currently closed for Novel and Graphic Novel submissions, but periodically open for anthology submissions.

Goal Publications – Novels, Novellas, Single-Author Collections

Another newer publisher, Goal Publications focuses on the written word, seeking novels and novellas in the 20,000 to 140,000 word range, and single-author collections.

United Publications – Novels, Comics

A UK-based publisher and distributor, United Publications has published many Furry titles in the past. They are currently accepting submissions of completed novels or comic-style books.

Thurston Howl Publications – Novels, Anthologies

Thurston Howl is another publisher that handles anthologies and novels. Their editors get involved with editing and preparing your novel for publication. In addition, Thurston Howl also offers marketing, distribution, and web design services.

Sanguine Games – Roleplaying Games

An oddball in the list, Sanguine is the publisher of the Ironclaw and Myriad Song tabletop RPGs. While mostly an in-house publisher, Sanguine sometimes considers outside submissions.

Weasel Press – Novels, Novellas, Poetry

A “Beat” publisher, Weasel Press say they specialize in the weird and the oddball. They specialize in the written word but say they would consider graphic novels or artbooks. Weasel Press publishes erotica under the Red Ferret Press imprint.

Armored Fox Press – Anthology Submissions

A publisher of anthologies, Armored Fox Press looks primarily for work relevant to the anthologies being worked on. They pay a half-penny a word for accepted submissions.

Furry Writers’ Guild

While not a publisher, the Furry Writers’ Guild is worth mentioning due to its collection of resources for authors, including a “Market” listing of publications or publishers currently accepting written submissions.

Radio Comix – Comics, Comic Anthologies

Once a powerhouse of the Furry Comic world, RadioComix has been dormant in recent years. However, the publisher is planning to come back into action late 2017, starting with a kickstarter for issue 194 of Furrlough, one of the longest running North American comic anthology titles and arguably THE longest running Furry comic title. RadioComix plans to have an updated submission guideline posted around that time for future issues.

– Summercat

For more like this, see also Fred Patten’s articles about furry publishing.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Welcome to Bessie, of Marfedblog, a comics review and criticism site. There’s furry stuff there, and much more, with the devoted curation of a fan doing exactly what they love. It’s my favorite kind of writing – thoroughly researched, thoughtfully presented, in magazine style long form. I suspect it may be underexposed considering the high quality, so if you like this, give a follow. And expect syndicated content reposted here too.  (- Patch)

“Don’t be scared! He doesn’t bite. That’d be gauche”

Scot Zellman’s Buster Wilde first appeared on-line around the mid-nineties back in the prehistoric days of the internet. Following the exploits of our eponymous hero, lover and maybe most importantly, gay lycanthrope as we quickly discover the he twist in the familiar folk tale and pop culture staple. Sinewy, flamboyant party animal by night at sunrise Buster switches back to his beleaguered alter ego, Bernard. Stressed, uptight and again most importantly, straight. As Buster humorously and enthusiastically throws himself into his new life, navigating the gay club scene with its drama and clichés, Bernard struggles with a double life he doesn’t remember and more often than not waking up in other guys beds. It was among one of the first web comics I discovered when I finally got on-line and I quickly made my way through every strip on the now broken and mostly forgotten geocities site. You heard that right, Geocities. It’s been around fourteen years since the final strip was posted and it’s a testament to both the quality of the strips and Zellman’s considerable skills as a writer and gifted cartoonist that those who saw it at the time still hold it in such high regard over a decade later. Apart from one of two references that date them (Buffy, who Buster declares is a bitch because of her treatment of fellow werewolf Oz) the Buster Wilde strips have a timeless quick paced humour to them that’s still as funny today as when they were first conceived.

They continued sporadically for four years and fifty two strips until one day they just, stopped. One last strip with the energetic Buster switching the word ‘fetch’ with ‘felch’ and then, nothing. The site was never updated again and still remains, albeit a little bit more broken. If anything it reminds me how easy it was in the early days before social media and constantly online presences for people to simply disappear from the surface of the digital world. Details are still frustratingly few. Beyond a few mentions on forums here and there, the odd broken link, I feel confident in saying this post will be the most ever written about it. In the last few years web comics have really come into their own as something unique and separate from other comics, gaining a lot more attention and exposure in the process. It’s a real shame that in being an early example of the medium that it’s fallen through the cracks when it comes to wider recognition and it feels bizarre to be the first one writing about so many moons later.

My understanding from what I could gleam from a question here and there on twitter is that Zellman simply moved onto other projects, before eventually retiring from comics completely. It was a pleasant surprise a few years ago to find that a print version of the Buster strips existed, released by Furplanet who now helpfully host copies of the originals online. Alex Vance, writer of the Heathen Cities series and also a fan had reached out to Zellman with the offer to touch up the original artwork and release them on paper and ink “There was a new generation in the furry community and when I was still in publishing I reached out to him and developed scans of his originals into a book,” says Vance on giving Buster a second chance in the spotlight  “They represented a significant work. Drawn and lettered entirely by hand, a vanishing art”. The volume collects all of the original comics, promotional artwork, a fascinating artists sketchbook giving a glimpse into the creative process of the comic. Most tantalisingly it features two partly inked, mostly  unfinished strips both in a larger format with more experimental layouts. One of these featuring Busters strange toilet habits is now among my favourites and gives a fleeting glimpse of what could have been. I inquired if it might be possible for him to reach out to the man responsible for the strips Scot Zellman in the hope that he might answer a few lingering questions I had about his creation. He graciously obliged and I honestly didn’t expect a reply, it has been over a decade after all. A few days later however Scot shot me back a message and took time out his schedule to indulge me with rather a long interview. I’d like to thank him again for taking the time to answer me and give a wonderful insight into what went into the making of a comics classic all those years ago.

Bessie: The first boring, obvious question a lot of people must have asked. Why did the Buster Wilde strips stop, was it simply a desire to move onto other projects, lack of time and interest in it or something else?

Scot Zellman: I think I lost interest mostly due to frustration. I’d hoped the strip would reach a wider gay audience, especially through the gay-interest newsweeklies I was sending copies to in the hopes they would run it, but I quickly found the strip and Buster character made a much bigger impression on a gay furry community. That was an education because at the time I had no idea there was such a thing as “furries” gay or straight.

My education in furry fandom was hard and fast and while the specific trappings were never of personal interest I certainly appreciated the enthusiastic response even if I did have to turn down a large number of requests for commissioned pieces featuring a much less G-rated version of Buster.

I saw the strip as a slapsticky, funny animal, Warner Bros.-style cartoon antidote to the gay strips I was seeing at the time, most of which looked and sounded the same and featured no talking animals, something mainstream comic strips were full of. It was pretty easy, actually, to end the strip. I needed to focus on my “real” job and I wasn’t really interested in being a niche cartoonist with a small audience. After a couple years I thought “OK, playtime’s over. Time to move on.”

B: It’s unusual you made the comic and it caught on with furs, an audience you didn’t even know was out there, did it lead you to look into what other anthro comics were popular with them or artists who considered themselves furs?

SZ: I did look around a bit, especially when I’d get fan mail from other artists or from folks who’d recommend other artist/cartoonist sites.  The only anthro comic/character I really eventually found interesting and still follow these days is the Blacksad series. And that’s mostly because I love hard-boiled detective stories and film noir. Plus, the artwork is beautiful.

B: Why do you think the gay weeklies and such were so reluctant to run the comics? The comic itself or partly the attitude towards LGBT at the time?

SZ: Most gay weeklies weren’t really reluctant to run the strip, they were reluctant to pay meto run the strip.  I think the ones that were reluctant to run it for non-financial reasons wanted something a little less slapsticky and a little more mature and thoughtful (Dykes To Watch Out For, Curbside, and The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green were big back then.) Or whoever was in charge of picking the comics to run just didn’t think it was funny. That happens, too.

B: The comic debuted around 1997, was it difficult working with the limitations of the internet back then in terms of storage and bandwith?

SZ: I know nothing of computer tech and wouldn’t know where to begin in setting up my own website, especially in 1997. I had a tech-savvy friend do all that for me. I had been a cartoonist for my college daily newspaper, so I was well-versed in the process of keeping artwork looking good when it’s reproduced/reduced for the printed page.  As for the original website, I supplied my webmaster with good-sized, pristine copies and let him do his best with the internet limitations of the time. 

B: What attracted you to the idea of showcasing Buster Wilde online as a webcomic? What was the reaction of other artist or those around you to adopting such a new medium in terms of comics?

SZ: I never really heard from others about the novelty of being online. Mostly people sent me emails telling me how much they liked Buster and the strip. I actually forget sometimes that the strip is still online these days. I usually just think of it as a book.

B:What was the audience and there reaction like at the comics peak? Was it difficult to find an audience in a time when comics online were not as recognised

The reaction was uniformly positive. In fact, I can’t remember getting any negative email at all.  As for my expectations, I had none.  I assumed people were seeing it and the ones who really loved it were the folks sending me the fan mail.

B: Buster Wilde now seems like a snapshot of, albeit a humorous exaggerated one, gay club culture at the time. Is that how you saw it and how do you think the strips might differ if they were coming out now? Would any characters differ or just settings and such?

I haven’t been out clubbing in ages, but I don’t imagine things have changed too much. Going out will always be about the same things:  fun, excitement, adventure, and the giddy hope you’ll meet someone thrilled to meet you no matter how sceptical or clumsy or overexcited or over it all you may be.

B: The printed book shows a few iterations of Buster before the one you settled on. What was the original idea and how did that develop into what you eventually drew? What was the eureka moment when it all fit together?

SZ: I was trying to come up with a gay-themed “funny animal” comic strip for my local gay paper and at one point I thought that a straight man who turned into a gay werewolf would be funny and allow for a lot of opportunities to poke fun at both gay and straight people. The eureka moment came when, after some time trying to come up with a name for the character, the name “Buster Wilde” popped into my head after Oscar Wilde, of course. Once I had “Buster Wilde” the rest just poured out of me.

B: How do you feel about webcomics becoming a lot more established since Buster Wilde and do you ever follow any at the moment? Do you think you would have an easier time building an audience now?

It’s a logical technological progression, so I’m not surprised and it certainly makes it easier to get your work “out there.” I still worry that books will be marginalised to the point being hard to find or disappeared entirely. That said, I do have the book versions of my favourite online strips. I follow Bob the Angry Flower, Poorly Drawn Lines, Scenes from a Multiverse, and Doonesbury regularly. That’s about it.

I don’t know. Probably, but I’m still pretty disconnected from what’s going on online.

B: Are there comics that inspired the humour and structure in the Buster Wilde strips? Are any of the events (obviously not the lycanthropy) inspired by real events or people?

I’d say the primary inspiration were the old Warner Bros. cartoons, especially the Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote and Daffy Duck cartoons. Plus, I’ve always just loved slapstick and pratfalls.

The personal inspiration was just my years going out, my friends, and my love of good-natured, accepting straight people who are easily unnerved and exasperated by gay people.

B: The Unfinished strips included in the print version have a more experimental panel layout than the other strips, would this have been something we would have seen more of if the strips had continued? Did you ever find the regular format limiting in any way?

SZ: That was an experiment in longer-form  storytelling told in a comic book page format that, because I’m a comic book reader, thought I’d try just for fun.  The regular format I’d already been working with didn’t feel limiting in any way since I felt like I could do whatever the gag called for.  That said, I do like the inherent restrictions of the “Sunday comics” format.

B: Did you have an overarching story or a direction the strips were going in?

SZ: Sort of, but not really. The goal was to cram as much humour into each “episode” as I could without overloading it to the point of incomprehensibility. As for the overarching story, I just knew that the character’s stories would continue to unfold and more characters and adventures would be introduced as time went by.

B: Are you surprised that people like myself, still talk about and hold it in such high regard after all this time and Do you have a favourite strip out of the bunch?

SZ: Not really. Once people find something they love it usually sticks with them. I’m the same way with older comic strips, TV shows, movies, comic books. The ear-piercing strip. The bare minimum amount of dialogue, the right amount of slapstick, and a funny the turnaround/topper.  The strip still makes me LOL as they say.

B: Overall what do you think the appeal of Buster is?

SZ: The exact same appeal of the friendliest, sweetest Golden Retriever you’ve ever met. He’s just happy all the time and you’re his best friend

B: Raspberry Flan. Are there any other suitable bathroom foods?

SZ: Baked Alaska Flambe.

Buster Wilde can be read in it’s entirety here. The printed version can also be purchased here or from amazon.

Originally posted on marfedblog, where Bessie reviews and spotlights Furry and mainstream comics.

There’s lots of furry movie outings, and sometimes they even rent a theater for a special occasion, but I’m not aware of many permanent furry movie clubs. Oslo’s Cinéma Anthropomorphique isn’t just well established, it seems to be the premiere fur meet for the capital of Norway. I’m going purely on stereotype about the frozen northlands of Scandinavia, but I imagine that in between good cold weather fursuiting and, I dunno, pulling sleds with husky friends under the Northern Lights, indoor movie time has to be a great pastime there.  I’m also assuming that the fur community there must be close-knit, making this an inviting gateway to fur stuff. Here’s what I learned about it from TF Baxxter – founder and administrator of the Norwegian furry community Norwegian Paws and department head for NordicFuzzcon. Extra questions are further down. (- Patch)

TF Baxxter continues:

Cinéma Anthropomorphique started in December, 2012. We were only four people. Now we average at around 20 – 25 (maybe closer to 20; our record was 27 attendees). The event is held in someone’s home in the Oslo-area (which means it can get really cramped); we have main hosts, but like to vary it when we can.

Meets are announced on the Norwegian furry forum, Norwegian Paws, and through a couple of Telegram channels (mainly Tigerstaden, the furry Telegram chat for Oslo-furs). We try to get people to tell us beforehand whether they’ll be showing up, but people are pretty bad at it and will often just drop by.

We have a different theme every month. This month it’s Halloween, so we’ll be watching three horror films (Zombeavers, Tusk, and Frankenweenie). Before that, we watched all of the Watership Down TV-series in one go, without sleeping (it was about 14 hours in length, I think); we try to do an annual series marathon. We also have other annual themes, like the “VHS Special” where we watch VHS-tapes with animation and animal films you can’t find elsewhere. We also have the annual “Rufserulett” (Furry Roulette), where we will choose the films randomly during the event from larger budget box-sets of animal films (like this).

One soft rule we have is that we only watch material we have physically available. It’s to make it feel a bit more like a proper film club, and to discourage us from going the easy route and just using Netflix, YouTube, and torrents. But if something is unavailable physically but fits into a theme we want to have, we might ignore the rule. One example of this is the Norwegian dub of The Animals of Farthing Wood TV-series. Only the first season of the series was made available for the home market (on VHS). So we had do download the remaining two seasons for our all-nighter marathon (which was the first time we did the now annual series marathon theme).

We also have a guest book that all guests either write or draw in. We didn’t introduce the book until a year or two in though, unfortunately, so we missed out on a few evenings initially. But we have some fun drawings and good memories captured by that book.

We usually order food together, some bring snacks or cake to share, and people are free to drink if they want.

I’m the main driving force behind the event, but we have a small “council” of organizers and hosts who help to choose what we watch, which dates work, etc.

Since starting the film club, I have started increasingly collecting furry films – films and series with animal characters. I will often scour through flea markets and charity shops, looking for hidden gems, and might have to do some detective work online to track down certain titles at affordable prices. Sometimes I get other furs to help with importing titles; e.g. Animalympics is currently only available on DVD in Germany (with both the German and the original English dub), so I ordered it on amazon.de and had it sent to a German furry, who then passed it on to me at Eurofurence. A Spanish furry who visited Norway helped me out with transporting a few film titles I’d ordered from amazon.es. I have gotten a pretty good personal collection, and must have spent several thousand kroner. It’s always exciting when I stumble over a VHS of some furry animation I have no idea what is and which might be a candidate for our annual VHS Special-themed movie nights.

Right now, it’s the only monthly furmeet event that takes place in Oslo, and people seem to enjoy it! I know many people have met good friends through the meets, including myself. Noise level can be an issue with so many people, and we have gotten playful complaints that the films and series we watch are sometimes too obscure or poorly produced (like Dingo Pictures films), but people keep returning and seem to have fun. While the vast majority of attendees are Norwegian, we have had a few Swedish and American furs drop by, and we try to cater to them if we know beforehand (like showing films in English rather than Norwegian, or at least with English subtitles).

We have had a couple of “specials” at NordicFuzzCon, a furry convention in Sweden. The two first years of the convention we had room parties where we watched some loosely animal-themed MST3K episodes (I believe Puma Man and Werewolf), inviting both Norwegians and non-Norwegians. The third year we got to use the hotel’s large auditorium/movie room to have a public screening, showing a few brief highlights from CinAnt (as we regularly abbreviate it). The last two years we skipped it, partially due to stress, but I’m hoping we can try having another CinAnt room party at the forthcoming NFC convention.

We chose a French sounding title for the film club to play up the snootiness of film clubs. We might not be watching art haus films, but that’s no reason not to be a bit snooty! And the tiger is because the city of Oslo is known as “tigerstaden”, which translates to the Tiger City or the City of Tigers. So it seemed appropriate with a monocled tiger.

Did you put on the Zootopia screening at NordicFuzzcon?

We didn’t put on the Zootopia screening, no! Alas. So that’s unrelated. Except I’m also on the board of NordicFuzzCon. Trax was the person who organized it.

When it goes around between members houses each month, are there any with special screening setups? And does it ever do a formal theater outing?

The gatherings are usually held at Emphy and Leophan’s place, who help to organize it. But we try to vary it when we can, and whoever has a TV and a living room that’s big enough is welcome to host! And it has to be in Oslo, of course.

No special screening set-ups, no. But a large TV is good, and we need to know what the hosts are capable of playing. If they have region-free players, if they can play LaserDisc and/or VHS, etc. Emphy has a pretty good collection of electronics like that, which is also why it often ends up being at his (and Leophan’s) place.

Would love to go full movie theater with this, but renting a location would cost a lot. Most would also exclude us from bringing any of our own food and drink. Maybe if we had the right contacts (I know there are smaller film showings at locations organized by student groups and fully official film clubs), but alas.

We are very much at the limit of the amount of attendees we can handle, and we’re considering options. Maybe requiring people to pre-register and having a hard cap, and actually turning away people who just show up unannounced to join – which would be rather sad. Or we’ve joked with consistently watching more bad films to discourage people from attending, reducing the amount of people who want to come.

Is this one of the biggest meets in Norway? Are there others that meet monthly or more in other parts?

I’m fairly sure that this is the biggest monthly/regular meet in Norway, yes. But there’s a yearly new year’s party that’s definitely larger, with 40-50+ people attending. We have thought about “franchising” CinAnt, but that would be hard to organize! And we’ve gotten a few requests to somehow stream it, but again, not that easy (especially when we are watching different formats on different devices).

Here you can also see the meet’s official thread, with the complete run-down of themes (with a lot of Norwegian).

UPDATE: Some meet photos.

• Crowd: Various ‘crowd pictures’ from a few different nights.
• Teasers: Pictures to tease about movies we are watching at forthcoming movie nights (Usually at the @CineAnth twitter account).
• Guestbook: Pictures from the guestbook! (A lot is in Norwegian.)
• Collection: Some of my movie collection.

Thanks to TF Baxxter. A super cool thing about furries is having an international conspiracy – wherever you go, there may be a nest of them to welcome you. Know of any cool or unique ones? Tips always welcome.

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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.

This flyer is an illustration in the book – by Mark Freid, from Loscon XXIII in 1996.

Some chapters: The Many Flavors of Fur. A Fandom is Born. Pretty as a Picture: Furry Art. Together is Just What We’ve Got to Get: The Convention Age Begins. Walk a Mile in My Fursuit. I Read the News Today, Oy Vey. Anthrocon: The Convention that Conquered Pittsburgh.

What Furry Nation does not cover: furry fandom outside North America, and areas of furry creativity in addition to its fursuits and art, especially its literature: the furry specialty publishers, the novels and anthologies and collections, the furry writers’ organizations, and the literary awards. This is deliberate and really nobody’s fault. I can confirm personally that Strike interviewed me at length about furry literature. Allyson Fields, the Marketing Manager at Cleis Press, apologized that Strike’s manuscript was so huge that whole chapters had to be edited out. A look at the attractive but small book tells why: Furry Nation is only 5” x 7.9” wide, almost a pocket book (most standard hardcovers are 6” x 9” or slightly larger) but nearly 1” thick; bulging for its size.

The result has unfortunately reinforced the stereotype that furry fandom is primarily an American subculture, and that most furry fans are only interested in wearing fursuits, and drawing or collecting furry artwork. There are mentions still in the book of the furry conventions outside North America, and of activities besides the furry art and fursuits; but they are so small that they are easy to miss.

A further flaw is that, as Strike alludes to in his first chapter, “And quite a few people who enjoy anthro characters no longer call themselves furry […]” (p. 5) Specifically, a few people who were crucial or influential in starting furry fandom in the 1980s and 1990s refused to be interviewed for this book, or to answer any of Strike’s questions. I know personally of one who hopes that it fails. For potential legal reasons, they are not mentioned in Furry Nation. Yet they were very important furry fans twenty and thirty years ago. Any history of furry fandom that does not even mention them is badly flawed.

So what are the merits of Furry Nation (cover photograph of “Madelein the Lynx” fursuit head constructed by Temperance, by Temperance; cover designed by Scott Idleman/Blink)? It’s always flattering to read an entire book that presents a favorable picture of your self-adopted hobby or lifestyle; that pats ourselves on the back. (Or should that be, scritches our fur?) For the furry neofan who wonders when and how it all got started, here is the answer! For the adolescent fur whose parents want to know what furry fandom is before giving permission to go to that convention or to attend that rave, here is the book to give them.

The main physical drawback of Furry Nation is its small size and paperback nature. Libraries tend not to get such books, so you probably can’t refer anyone to it. If you want to show it to anyone, you may have to buy your copy, or show it on Kindle.

Joe Strike has said that if Furry Nation sells well, he will write a second book that contains all of the material cut from it: Furry Planet. So what are you waiting for? Get it now!!

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• On Cleis Press

Don't forget sub types like baby furs.

— Been Doxx (@PupRylee) October 27, 2017

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

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

Civilized Beasts, Poetry Anthology, volume II, editor-in-chief Laura Govednik. Foreword by Jonathan Thurston Howl.
Manvil, TX, Weasel Press, August 2017, trade paperback, $8.00 (126 pages).

Well, this is a bargain. The 2015 Edition, volume I, was $8.99 for only 86 pages. This is only $8.00 for 126 pages. Let’s hope this trend continues.

This poetry anthology contains 84 poems of mostly one page or less. Several authors have two or more poems. There are many familiar furry fan names among the poets: Makyo, BanWynn Oakshadow, Thurston Howl, Televassi, Donald Jacob Uitvlugt, Thomas “Faux” Steele, Altivo Otero, Searska GreyRaven, Dwale, and Frances Pauli, among others. It is another charity for the Wildlife Conservation Society. “All proceeds from this anthology go towards the Wildlife Conservation Society.”

The poetry ranges from classic couplets to scintillating stanzas; from imaginative iambic pentameters to sparkling sonnets; from fantasy free verse to honorable haiku. (But do “rules” and “school” really rhyme?) The poems are divided by animal species: “The Carnival of Canids”, “The Festival of Felines”, “The Bolero of the Beasts”, “The Rally of the Rodents (and Rabbits)”, “The Aria of the Avians”, “The Circus of the Scales and Fins”, “The Interlude of the Insects and Arachnids”, and “The Menagerie’s March”.

As with the first volume, these are mostly not poems about anthropomorphized animals. They are more about the beauties of nature, or the probable thoughts of real dogs, cats, horses, deer, and others. In fact, only one is clearly about an anthropomorphic animal: “The Natural Order Disordered” by J. J. Steinfeld.

“What more evidence do you need?”

the well-groomed articulate fox says

to the slovenly tongue-tied hunter

with the newly-purchased rifle.

[excerpt]

Except for featuring a fox rather than a rabbit, it reminds me of an old Warner Bros. cartoon.

Anyhow, whether the animals – that’s any beast that isn’t a vegetable or a mineral – are anthropomorphized or not, for only $8.00, how can you go wrong? The cover by Darkomi is worth $8.00 by itself. And it’s for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Buy copies to send to your relatives and friends (like my sister did).

Full disclosure: I have two poems in this.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Weasel Press

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Tempo (Tempe O’Kun) is a furry author in North Dakota.

Art: Rattusdingus

~ ~ ~

If you support white supremacy…

If you play dress-up in the uniforms of genocide…

If you mock people who just want the same rights you enjoy…

…you don’t belong here. Not in my fandom. Not in my country. Not in my world. You cannot possibly play the victim enough for me to consider your murderous opinions valid. So cry all you want, but we’ll be here in the furry fandom having fun without you.

To the rest of you, to actual furries: this is our fandom, a place on the Internet that’s nobody’s but ours. We decide who gets to play here, and what the rules are. The offline world’s pretty messed up right now, but kicking the Nazis out of furry is a concrete, realistic, and powerful move toward justice.

I’M JUST HERE FOR THE TALKING ANIMALS

Let me tell you why to care.

I had one grandfather flee Germany before WWII and another fight his way in during it. Both were white, blue-eyed, straight Christians—yet they opposed Nazism in every form it took, because they believed every person had worth. They are dead and cannot tell you why Nazism isn’t safe to ignore. They are dead and I’d be a coward if I didn’t give you the lessons they paid for in blood spilled and horror witnessed. For them, I strive never to be a coward.

Until last year, I tried not to “bring politics” into furry. I consider the fandom a place for healthy escapism. But you can only afford to be “non-political” so long as the things you care about are safe. I’m making an exception because of these people we’ve been excusing in our fandom, who post comics crying about how black people want equality, who whine that Nazis “should be tolerated.” No. They are committing real-life terror attacks, literally murdering people on the street in the name of Trump. We would not allow open ISIS supporters here—we cannot allow neo-Nazis and KKK types here.

Sociologists call this problem a “tolerance paradox”—if you allow toxic people to twist your group’s tolerance to condone their hate, your group becomes less tolerant overall. Then more and more moderate people are driven out until only the hate group remains, having eaten your group from the inside out. This isn’t a flaw with tolerance. True tolerance is active. It’s sticking up for people with less power, attesting to their right to be different. Passively letting genocidal bullies take over your fandom others isn’t tolerance—it’s being a lazy jerk.

Charlottesville is a wake-up call to any furry who thought Nazifur was harmless make-believe. Anybody who sticks with Nazifurs now is showing you their true character. Publicly associating with that community after the terror attacks means you’re okay with what they did, that it’s no big deal to you.

CAN’T WE JUST GET ALONG?

I believe in tolerance. We can’t live in harmony with people who want to kill us. “Tolerating intolerance” isn’t tolerance at all, it’s putting your comfort above somebody else’s safety.

I believe in compassion. You do not serve the cause of compassion if you let murderous thugs gain power. Bullies rely on our desire for peace and tolerance, which is why the cry about being persecuted when called out for persecuting others.

I believe in diversity. The fandom is lucky to have people from diverse backgrounds, and we benefit from their unique perspectives when solving problems. But listening to different viewpoints only makes sense when both sides have merits. There’s no merit to “let’s kill everybody who’s a different race/orientation/religion than me.” What would a compromise there even look like? Only killing some of those groups? Idiocy. It’s treating self-described wannabe serial killers as having a legitimate philosophy we should learn from. Again, no furries have argued to me we should “just get along” with ISIS.

I believe in harmless fun. But Nazis are murdering people in the streets because we’ve been lulled into thinking it’s a weird fetish we shouldn’t kink-shame. It’s not. It’s literally the idea we should murder everyone who disagrees with white supremacism.

I believe people can change—some already are. And I spent months talking to folks in that community. But, for all their claims of being reasonable and logical, I got led around and around, having every logical fallacy thrown at me in the hopes of tiring me out and having me slip up so they could claim victory.

BUT BOTH SIDES!

Black Lives Matters is not shutting down furry cons. Feminists are not shutting down furry cons. Communists are not shutting down furry cons. Anti-fascists are not shutting down furry cons, doxxing, swatting, or costing $10,000s in legal fees. Nazis are. Our minds love binary opposites, but we can find no symmetry here. Pretending some balancing force exists only keeps us from confronting the problem, since it allows us to tell ourselves the two will cancel out without our having to do anything. I wish.

The time for smugly saying “what about?” and “both sides!” or “I never see it…” or “it doesn’t affect me!” is over. Nazis love these supposedly “centrist” excuses. Refusing to condemn Nazis doesn’t make you a savvy centrist. It doesn’t even make you coolly detached. Let me tell you about apathy. Apathy is fearful rationalization. Apathy is an emotional defense mechanism—and not a healthy one.

“Everything’s fine…” Apathy purrs in addictive tones. “Because if it weren’t fine, you couldn’t justify doing nothing. You’d have to Do Something. And where would you start? It’s such a complicated mess. And ya might fail. That would suck. And you might look stupid for changing your mind. Better to do nothing. Better to crouch here with me, between good and evil, and hope that’s enough to save your pride and your life. It’s fine. Both extremes are the same, anyway. They have to be, right? They’ll cancel out. +1 and -1 equals zero. We’re smart here in the middle. Everyone else is just stupid. That’s why they’re worked up. It’s fine. You couldn’t change anything anyway. Everything’s fine…”

But it’s not fine. We are past the point where you can be “not into politics.” Every furry in every nation is responsible for who we are as a fandom. Stand up. Either you oppose white supremacy in the fandom or you’re fine with it. (No, I’m not over-simplifying. There are literally just two positions. You either believe some races as sub-human or you don’t.)

And you can’t just wait for it to blow over. This isn’t just another fandom spat. It’s not “just online drama” when real-life people are being murdered. The Nazis in the fandom and the ones out marching with torches are the same people. They visit Stormfront, worship Trump, make death and rape threats to minority and female furries, and participate in the coordinated attacks. Some of them even traveled to Charlottesville to join in the terrorist attacks.

If you’re different, it’s their stated goal to literally murder you—no matter how much they say it’s for the lolz. They aren’t real furries.

WHY DO THEY WANT TO BE NAZIS ANYWAY?

Basically: because it filled an emotional void for them, at least in the beginning.

In another life, I worked in a drug rehab center. Hate’s like a drug. It pumps you up, makes you feel sure of yourself, gives you a rush of endorphins. It’s a powerful neurochemical response, designed to help you fight off physical threats. And you can get hooked on it. It follows the same pattern as any other addiction. Back in rehab, we called it “the only addict story.”

– First, you think you can use it casually, socially. You’re just playing around. You can quit whenever. Whoever supplies you frames it as users versus people not in on the fun. You feel like you’re one of the cool kids. (In the case of hate, we’re talking about “non-PC” memes and jokes about minorities and women. If you’re older: Fox News and talk radio.

– Then your brain acclimates to those endorphins. You need more to get the same rush. you think you’re clever enough to outsmart their own brain chemistry. Nobody has ever succeeded. (Moving on to harder stuff: racist articles on InfoWars, Breitbart, Stormfront—racist videos on YouTube.)

– Next, your brain acclimates so much, you feel like shit at your natural endorphin baseline. You start building your day around the fix. You keep it on you. You sneak a little during other activities. (If you’re addicted to hate, you bust out your phone and cruise the Nazi image boards or chats. Older folks just leave Fox News on all day.)

– Finally, your friends and family start to notice you’re addicted and freak out. They try to get you to stop using. So you hang out almost exclusively with the one group who won’t ask you to quit: other addicts. You tell everybody who’ll listen that you’re a rebel, because really you’re surrendering control. On some level, you know this is a bad move, so you shut yourself away from anything that makes you feel bad about using so you don’t have to think about it. (You start only listening to news sources that validate your hate, no matter how flimsy or convoluted the logic has to be to do that.)

– Then you’re really in a bind. The cool stuff in your life starts falling apart, so you’re depressed and crave fixes even harder. People start really taking advantage of you, since you’ve got nobody reliable to fall back on. Plus, you’re super easy to manipulate since you’ve built your identity around the fix and your brain chemistry is all over the place. (You get roped into doing stuff the “old you” would’ve rejected because it’s stupid or fucking evil—online harassment, doxxing, swatting, and, in the case of our own local Nazifurs, actual real-life terrorist attacks.)

Some asshole always benefits from these latter stages, and it’s never you. Like I said, this is the only way addiction goes down. Ruthless people who know how this goes down can get money, willing pawns, or heck even cult members by hooking vulnerable people. Addiction is vital to recruiting terrorists, but, since we don’t think of hate like a drug, it can seem like only someone inhuman to start with could be radicalized. Cult leaders punish those who drop out or speak up. Again, you don’t see antifa furries doxxing people. Remember: the human mind is wired to see mirror opposites, even when none exist—just like it’s wired to see faces in the clouds or the moon.

I don’t hate addicts. If I did, I never would’ve gotten into the business. I feel bad for them—they’re using to offset something they’re not getting in their lives. But you can’t let addicts run the show. Eventually, nothing is important as their next fix. Not their job. Not their family. Not their friends. Not another human life.

Thing is, you can’t force an addict to get clean. Even if you lock them away from their fix (and other potential fixes) for a few months —i.e. rehab— so their brain chemistry normalizes and they build new habits, they’ll fall back into addiction unless they fix the underlying emotional problem they had. Only they can decide to do that.

In the case of Nazifurs, I’ve seen the same underlying causes a lot. These sync up pretty well to other terror groups.

1) They don’t feel as powerful as they think they’re supposed to. You see a lot of young men there because we have this idea in society that men should be impossibly tough, strong, and aggressive. It’s called toxic masculinity. It’s also why Nazis idealize masculinity and get really threatened by trans folks, powerful women, gays, and anybody else who doesn’t fit into traditional gender roles. Hence why you see so much “SWJ” hate. Ever notice why so many GamerGaters got drawn into voting for a pseudo-manly strongman and now into Nazism?

Society is more accepting than ever before. We’re starting to see gender and race not as absolute categories, but as spectrums. This is threatening to the almost uniformly white and male Nazifurs because they feel like they’ve had power stolen from them. They throw a tantrum when they’re not the star of the show—when we get female Ghostbusters or a black gunslinger or a queer X-wing pilot. The openly-idiotic doublethink of “white genocide” resonants with Nazifurs, since it justifies horrible acts since you’re suddenly the victim.

2) They feel like they don’t fit in. Remember being a teenager? Yeah, pretty much any of those reasons. Ever wonder why there are non-white Nazifurs? Because they don’t feel American enough (or whatever country), and white nationalism sold to them as a way to be more so. Of course, they’re still brown, so they can fall out of favor with their new “community” dangerously fast.

3) They have a mental condition —anxiety, depression, et cetera— and are “hacking” their brain chemistry with endorphin rushes. We call this self-medicating. (We all self-medicate to some degree, relaxing meditation or video games or whatever. When it’s healthy, we call it a “coping skill.” Or, you know, getting real meds from an actual doctor. That’s also better.) But hate is really difficult to manage, even by drug standards. Mental illnesses get worse, not better, when you’re pissed off all the time and not learning to deal with your problems.

You’re probably feeling bad for Nazifurs. You should. That means you have empathy. Being an addict of any kind sucks, but being radicalized with hate is super insidious because there’s no physical external drug to blame or even notice—just your own brain chemicals. Pity these guys. But don’t let them use that pity to manipulate you: deflections, excuses, playing the victim. (Addicts quickly learn to be master manipulators, helped by the fact that you’re nothing compared to the craving.) Don’t let them off the hook. They’re not smoking pot. They’re addicted to being pissed off—pissed off that Jews and black people are alive. That’s really dangerous, because the brain is wired for violent confrontation, not peaceful cooperation, when doped up on hate chemicals.

Here’s the problem: we can’t lock Nazifurs up to break their habit. We can only lock them out. And we should. They don’t have the right to hurt people. Letting addicts hurt others only pushes them deeper, because guilt catches up to them when they’re not using, so they use more. The good news is the furry fandom isn’t the entire world, so their family and real-life friends may notice they got booted from that talking animal thing the liked. Or they might have to get arrested. Addiction sucks like that. In the meantime: fandom quarantine is best for everyone. Seriously, they’re fucking around with their brains and obsessing over the idea of murdering people.

WHAT CAN I EVEN DO?

First off, follow AltFurryBlocker on Twitter. Install the blocklist. Even if you don’t normally like blocklists. Even if you aren’t seeing the problem on your feed. The more regular furries who use it, the quieter the Nazifurs get. They may not have targeted you, but you’re helping to protect women and minorities in the fandom. Right now it’s just a basic blocklist, but they’re updating it into an auto-updating one that adds/removes accounts as Nazifurs make alt accounts or have changes of heart.

Next, learn about how fascist groups work. For those who haven’t seen it yet, this short video is a very good analysis of how fascist groups work.

Don’t be scared off by the creepy preview image.

After that, talk to your friends. Tell them you can’t believe this bullshit. If they make shitty racist jokes, remind them who they’re associating themselves with. If you have a friend who leans right, make sure they know where the line is and if they cross it. A conversation with someone you trust is miles better than avoiding arguments on the Internet. Talk to the people in your life, even (or especially) if they disagree with you. You don’t need to debate them, you don’t need to “win” an argument. Just talk to them and empathize and get them to see you and your concerns. Your moment of bold empathy inoculates them against this sickness.

Don’t debate Nazis. They’re just going to string you along. It takes way less energy for them to spew talking points than for you to refute them—and by the time you do, they’ve moved the goalposts. And don’t let them fool you with their newest sanitized hashtag. Tolerating intolerance isn’t tolerance at all.

Block users who spread hate. Report them. Delete their comments. Oppose them on every platform you use. Stick it to them in a thousand little ways. It makes a difference. We outnumber the Nazifurs 10,000:1. They can’t stop us. And they won’t try. I’ve been bullied to hell and back. Bullies are cowards. Always.

Don’t give money to artists who celebrate or excuse Nazis. Don’t favorite or share bigoted art.

Write to your favorite furry conventions. Tell them to ban white supremacist gear from cons, if they haven’t already. Don’t let Nazifurs shut down any more of our cons.

And sign on with your local Indivisible group if you live in the US—there are now at least two in each US congressional district (see Twitter and Facebook). That’s never happened before, and it’s all happened since the election. You might have noticed the largest sustained protest movement in US history. That’s us. If you live in another country: vote, protest, and stop this hatred in your country. Get organized.

If you found this journal compelling, share it with your furry friends. Spread the word. The world changed and Nazis can play the victim no longer. The free people of the world won’t play those games anymore. We’ve seen them kill six million people.

WAY AHEAD OF YOU

If you’re already in this fight, I give you this:

– Resist them in the streets and parks—with bravery, with organization, with solidarity.

– Resist them in your daily life—with compassion, with tolerance, with humor.

– Resist them in your heart—with beauty, with love, with self-care.

You rock, and I’m in this with you. If you want a daily dose of Liberal Cowboy Activist Tempo, please see my Twitter: https://twitter.com/tempowrites

See you out there. #resist

– Tempo

~ ~ ~

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Rune’s Furry Blog showcases people within the furry community, issues and media plus personal blogging. Rune joins other guest posters here – Welcome Rune! – Patch

“It’s a sleepy day in the sleepy town of Fur City Bluff…” begins the narrative of ‘The Furry, Furry West’ within the ACFI con-book. It sets the tone, bringing us to a dusty town under the watchful eye of the Sheriff and his team, to a place where there is a fair coming up, and the looming threat of the Red-Mask-Gang.

Boots, badges, masks, and moneybags…this was the stage for San Antonio’s first-ever Furry Convention.

As someone living in Texas, I first heard of the San Antonio community back in 2016. I had just gone to a comic-con in Alamo City to meet the Power Rangers and I took my fursuit head with me. I thought this would be a great opportunity to suit for a little while, and get used to wearing my character in a crowded place…Needless to say that there were not as many furries there as I thought, and I quickly became intimidated. Long-story-short, this got me noticed (after the con) by a local who mentioned the furmeets happening within the area, and she asked me to add her on facebook so that she might invite me to said-events so I could attend.

While I was never really in the area to go to any of the meets (as I live over 2 hours away) I did research on them. This lead me to videos, and photos, to chatting with Adam King occasionally, and it really gave me an idea of what a Furry Community really looked like. Never did I think that such a tight-knit community could evolve into something so much greater…but after this weekend, I realized that myself along with 737 other people made history as we celebrated and experienced San Antonio’s new Furry Convention!

• Standing out from all the rest:

—Since there is already a Furry Convention held in Texas, a lot of people were wondering how ACFI stood apart. On the Official Website, their statement said: “We are working to bring more of the fandom to the state of Texas. We believe that by holding Furry Invasion on the dates we do, we will be offering more options to those that wish to participate in furry conventions rather than competing for attendees with limited time and resources.”

There were other ways in which ACFI tried to distinguish itself as well. First was with a narrative: not just the one written in the con-book…this was a “live narrative” that followed the story from the con-book and would pop up during events around the convention. It followed the takeover of the town by the Red-Mask-Gang and the efforts to stop them. It ended with a ransom being collected to free one of the staff at the closing ceremonies, and then ended with a cliff-hanger when we learned that someone had taken the safe-box. This narrative would then pick up at ACFI 2018. Also, to set itself apart… the con-book was also made to be something like a yearbook. Attendees could have people sign their books or use the spaces to fill in their favorite memories. All of which I thought was an amazing and unique idea that would appeal to a large amount of those going.

(Top left): Avisiris Minnowgulper/ (Top Center): Captain/ (Top Right): Rune/ (Bottom Center): Escap’e

Benefits of a brand-new convention:

• –There are several benefits to participating in a newer convention. Some reasons might be more selfish than others but it’s still fun to think about. I think the more ‘selfish’ reason is that you get noticed a lot more and its much easier to be social in a smaller crowd. One thing I noticed about TFF was that there was already established ‘groups’ of friends… and there was so much going on, it was often hard to get pictures, harder to stop and socialize, and it was much harder to stand out. But, with a smaller convention… you get noticed more often which means more pictures, more hugs, more people you actually get to talk to and get to know. But, the main reason that I like the idea of a new and smaller convention is because you get to see how it will change! You get to see the convention grow and evolve into something bigger, something better, something greater than you ever imagined… and you do so knowing what the first-ever convention looked like. You are written in as part of that convention’s history, and it’s something really neat to think about. I think it makes those memories in particular stand out all-the more.

Fursuit Parade- Group Photo 2017

• Breaking records:

–ACFI ended up placing 2nd place for first-year attendance. There were 737 furries that attended this convention with 100 fursuiters. We raised over $1000 for charities, and this all stemmed from only 200 people originally being invited to the con. So, while we may not have placed first, there were still records broken which ACFI should be proud of!

• Helping Charity:

–This year, ACFI chose a local charity called: Pets Alive! Their mission is that they are a life-saving organization that only rescues cats/dogs that have been selected for euthanasia. They are working hard to make San Antonio a no-kill community which is something I think we can all get behind! This organization provides a neonatal kitten nursery, parvo-ward, ringworm ward, medical clinic, foster and adoption programs, and a transport program- as well as other amazing things! ACFI was able to raise over $1000 for charity and if YOU would like to help too, links will be provided down below.

Rune giving high-fives

• Bringing smiles to people’s face:

—I have always said that while Furries have become more normalized than they were before, there is still a lot of stigma surrounding the fandom. That is why I think that conventions are really important. It is a chance for us to mingle with the general public… to show them what we are about, and to really make a positive impression on the surrounding community. I loved walking off the elevators and the hotel staff asking for pictures. I also loved all the kids running around, asking for hugs and high-fives. I always love seeing the smiles that fursuits put on everyone’s faces. It shows me that we are setting the right example and really putting the fandom in the right light. Furries, to me, means fun and happiness… that is why I love dressing up in a fursuit for conventions such as this one.

• Scheduling Errors:

—Since it was a new con, one has to expect that things like scheduling might get a little out of hand. I guess that there was an issue with the schedule being printed in the book versus what was on the website. The schedule of panels that was posted on the website was correct, but, the schedule posted within the con-book were incorrect. This lead to a lot of people missing their events as well as some events having been cancelled that people were trying to attend (as well as events overlapping and such). It was not so much ‘bad’ as it was inconvenient… and luckily, we still managed to make most of what we had planned to do.

• Very Small and Understaffed:

—New Conventions are very small, and so one can not predict what may or may-not be there. At this con, there were a few vendors, but nothing on the scale of TFF or Anthrocon. Same as with the panels. They were small and kept simple. There are not so many rooms to utilize at the El Tropicano so panels were few and far in-between, but what they did have to offer was still fun and would still appeal to a majority of their attendees.

However, the bigger problem was the fact that ACFI was obviously understaffed. I often saw people running around like crazy, there was mixed-info on what was happening at any given time, and sometimes the staff did not know what was happening at all. The Fursuit Parade was one of the biggest examples where the time got pushed back twice, and staff did not know what to do with us in the meantime. People in suit were getting hot and had no idea what was happening… and no one really had any answers for us. There was a booth where they were asking people to volunteer for teardown, and my wife and I (as well as my group) put their names down because they really had no one and we did not want to think that they would be there all night working if they did not get a little more help. Short staff and poor communication between the staff was also apparent in the closing ceremonies where, they asked for shaving cream pies and a tarp… only to then get the pies but no tarp because: “No one asked for it”. Small mistakes, but things that can definitely be improved upon for next year.

(Left): Captain/ (Center): Escap’e/ (Right): Rune

• Etc:

—One thing I find that was also poorly coordinated was the group photo for the fursuit parade, and then seating for the dance competition. When they smooshed us all together for the group photo, my buddy and I already knew we would not be seen. There was no lift for the photographer so there was no way that everyone was getting in. The room was much too small. Sure enough, when the group photo was released…people were sad because they were nowhere to be found.

The same could be said (in a sense) for the dance competition. My wife was standing behind my chair and though she got to enjoy the show, I saw more of the judges than I did the dancers until finally enough seats opened so that I could move in closer. The room was just too small for all those chairs… and it made it very difficult for short people like me to see. This same scenario could apply to the opening and closing ceremonies. I thought the narratives were hilarious but I could not see them and could barely hear them. I could barely see people getting a pie in the face at the closing ceremonies even though I was near the front.

Another small complaint happened before the convention… I was told via the team that there was nothing I needed for the convention except an ID card. I asked them whether I needed a confirmation e-mail (and whether I would get one) and they said ‘no’. But, the first day that I arrive, I am asked about a confirmation e-mail and whether or not I had one. Then I have to go through a registration process AGAIN just to get my badge and bag. It seemed like this took a lot of unnecessary time and, I feel like this is something they should fix for the next convention. Also, I contacted the department about the use of “props” – I contacted the team via their website and through the facebook page which said they typically reply within an hour. I even messaged Adam King himself since I had friended him on facebook. I got no reply from any of the 3 outlets. The question about registration I had received in a day… but a question about props got no response. So, if they are not going to respond to questions about it, they need to at least include cosplay props and such as a section within their code of conduct since I could not find it anywhere.

• Suggestions:
  
  —The Headless Lounge needs to be bigger or at least needs more water and more “trees” for the fursuit heads. One is just not enough.

—Seating for the Dance Competition should not include chairs unless they are in the back- suiters should be warned of this ahead of time so they can make whatever adjustments they need.

—People doing the narratives need a microphone, and narratives should maybe just get their own panel or their own little event? Just seemed weird how they were shoved into opening and closing ceremonies, although the ransom thing was hilarious.

—I think next year should focus on getting more staff and working to make better communication between the teams.

—Code of conduct needs to include a section on cosplay props ( as there currently is none.)

—ACFI needs to work on getting back to people messaging them through the website with questions (and messaging their facebook page as well). Also, I was given some false information which made my process of getting through registration longer than necessary. This is also something that needs to be fixed for next year if possible.

Mummy Furs! (From Left to Right): Rune, Escap’e, Captain, @thatstupidsnowfox

• Favorite Memories:

—ACFI really was a blast, even with all the snags. I have a lot of amazing memories from it, so it is really hard to narrow down my favorites. My biggest and most favorite memory would have to be the Drag Show! Slay Queen was amazing and it was so much fun!!! I was grinning like a goober the entire time and I really hope they continue to bring them back for years to come!!!

—My second favorite moment was actually making a new friend! We ran into @thatstupidsnowfox and he asked to tag along with us. Then we ended up spending a huge majority of the con together and he made for some amazing company. He is an artist and his work is amazing, so if you wanna check it out, his Twitter will be listed down below!!! But it was really great meeting someone new, and really developing what could be a lasting friendship with someone else in the fandom. We had a lot of laughs and adventures together, so here’s hoping we can meet up at cons in the future!

—My third favorite memory was getting to be mummies. There was a panel where people volunteered to be wrapped up as mummies and the other people did the wrapping. In Rune, I got covered in paper towels and toilet paper and then attempted to walk in it. Everyone got a lot of giggles out of it, and we all had a blast walking around like monsters! My wife, Captain, and even my new buddy Nick got to be mummified. We all got a kick out it!

• Least-favorite Memories:

—I can not really say that there was a part of the convention that I “didn’t like” because there was nothing that was really ‘bad’ so much as it was probably just short or poorly planned. So, this one was really hard. But I guess if I had to pick something, I would say my least favorite part of the convention was actually the fursuit parade.

So, usually the parades look better on YouTube… people add music and make them seem magical and fun. But, in reality they are quiet, kind of awkward if no one is cheering, and they tucker out the fursuiters. But this one was silent, awkward, and also extremely short. Not to mention it got delayed a lot… so it just made for a lot of unnecessary confusion. But I think that is something that will be fixed in the future, and it will be better once we get more attendees to go, and there are more suiters participating.

(From Left to Right): Captain, Omnom, Splat, Rune, Escap’e

• Conclusion:

—It was amazing laying in bed after the convention and looking at my wife as we talked about all the things that made this convention special. This was her first convention with me, it was also her first time being in a fursuit, and that’s when we realized that we were part of something special. By being there at that first convention, we were part of ACFI’s history. We both agreed that this convention is something special, and, we can only see it getting bigger and better in the future. We already plan to attend for 2018 and we wanna see what new things it brings to the table. We want to support this convention and really help it grow. We want to keep making memories and look back fondly to this time when it was all new and all starting out.

So, if you’re in the Texas area, ACFI is worth checking out and taking the time to see. The El Tropicano is great hotel, and as the convention grows, we can only imagine what new venues might host us in the future! Give it a go and I think you will have a lot of fun.

As always… what do YOU think? Did you go to ACFI? What was your first impression of the convention? What did you love about it and what did you dislike about it? Where do you think they should focus their improvements? Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comment-section down below. Also, if you got any pictures of myself (Rune), Escap’e, Captain, or our friend Nick… feel free to link those to me in the comment-section as well.

Rune & Captain

Thank you all so much for reading. I will see you all in the next blog

LINKS:

1. Alamo City Furry Invasion (website)
2. San Antonio Furries (facebook group)
3. Alamo City Furry Invasion (facebook page)
4. @thatstupidsnowfox Twitter (click to see awesome art!)
5. Captain’s FA / YouTube
6. Rune’s FA / YouTube / Facebook
7. Pets Alive Website / Twitter / Facebook / YouTube

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

High profile fur R.C. Fox is in legal trouble. When interviewed by police outside his home, “he admitted there ‘might be some’ child pornography on his computer” and “he has ‘a very small interest in’ pornography depicting children and admitted to having about 50 videos containing it on his computer.”  R.C. was known for meet organizing and media appearances that bring a spotlight now. Here’s a long video about it by Ragehound. The case is in court.

It brought in a reader tip – (thanks Meow Mix):

Recently there’s been some furries involved in meets and cons popping up in the news for pedophilia and child porn. There’s the RebelWolf/LupineFox ring, and more recently R.C. Fox has been charged with child porn possession. (Location/photo/birthdate in the news matches R.C. Fox).

These sorts of charges have come down on furries before, and the fandom has in the past welcomed such people back, only for them to offend again. One of the more well known cases is Growly, convicted in 2001 of having sex with a 14 year old, and after release was banned from furaffinity for a conversation with a 16 year old. Despite this, he still is allowed to volunteer for conventions and furmeets.

"This looks bad for furries because he was a popular person!"

Two Words you can use to respond:

Jimmy Savile.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) October 17, 2017

I haven’t posted about the Lupinefox/Rebelwolf ring since 1) Wikifur has the basics 2) It’s still in court 3) I looked but didn’t find new info 4) A victim may not want overexposure. There’s been one guilty plea so far. I hope they do justice to anyone involved with something as heinous as abusing a kid.

For context, as far as I’ve heard, people who went to meets in common with them were horrified to learn the story when it came out. And while fandom is having strong growth, it can proportionately raise such issues the same as anywhere. It would be extra worrisome to find higher-up coverup (Catholic church style) but that’s different from a few friends hiding stuff with each other.  So far it seems most fit for courts and mainstream news handled by pros.

R.C. Fox is out on bail and can use the internet. He tried to delete his Wikifur page on 9/22, perhaps following a 9/19 arrest. On 10/17 after this got a lot of fandom attention, his twitter account was deleted. That case is still in court too but so far it looks open and shut. One guy reportedly admitted doing something wrong and will have consequences depending on court findings.

Child pornography in violation of 18 PACS § 3612.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) October 18, 2017

There have been similar stories in the past with Frank Gembeck, Alan T. Panda, and Mitch Beiro. They were high profile and made furry news without getting ignored, excused or welcomed back. I haven’t seen issues with those beyond what the courts decided, or with reoffending, or deeper fandom connections beyond problems people have everywhere. There can be another side to these issues as well, with a case of alleged injustice related to a minor impersonating an adult in the @SaveOurSisk story.

The Growly story is a rare case of someone back in fandom and raising concerns over a decade later. He put out a statement after finishing parole in 2007 about pleading No Contest to one charge of sending a nude pic. Contrary to rumor, that isn’t a guilty plea or a finding of worse. Perhaps the older person involved (who has since died) was more responsible and the court found the one charge to be low level since they don’t go easy on that stuff. The claim about chatting a 16 year old may seem shady but the facts are debatable, trolling happens, a real person hasn’t complained and I’m not a lawyer. About volunteering for events, 10 years after finishing parole, the issue isn’t hidden and he’s being treated as a person who did the time and is wanting to make amends under watch of organizers. There are myths about reoffending when it can be less likely than with other crimes. Part of the issue is how understaffed cons rely on those who step up, so if you go to cons, they’re serving your demand. One way to mitigate concerns is to encourage more people to volunteer so they can be more selective.

It’s complicated. 

Furries aren’t alone. Hollywood has a wave of abuse stories right now, and furry animators have told me about the climate making them quieter about their hobby. Meanwhile in fandom, these stories can ignite drama.  Is it sensational to simply publish facts? Of course not. But is it sensationalizing to connect furry to the stories?  Do they do that with Star Trek fans?

Yes, last decade a supposed Star Trek/pedophilia connection got a lot of press. This Popmatters article takes it apart; comparing bad logic to a blind person aiming a shotgun at the topic, making an “intellectual blender” about sexual minorities, and “analytical style that seems the most pathological, paranoid and desperately seeking the sexual in the textual for the pure sake of finding it there.”

But furries have a unique community. You might do Spock Eyebrows if 2/3 of Star Trek fans were LGBT, and 80% of those find relationships with other Star Trek fans. That’s a survey finding by the IARP about furries meeting furries. The point is that having a real community can make it part of conversation about events connected to members. It’s all part of larger fandom and deeper talk about toxic aspects or how to improve them. We could also mention how DragonCon was founded and run by notorious child predator Ed Kramer, or the Geek Social Fallacies. A furry issue is just one of many we can talk about like grown ups.

Still, it’s complicated to publish crime info because:

• There’s a risk of collateral damage with a group where outsiders have done real sensationalism, and members are closely linked. Would it affect a fursuit maker to link their very recognizable work with this story?
• The whole fandom shouldn’t be associated with encouraging or being a slippery slope to crime that happens in any group. If people act on their own to exploit it, that shouldn’t be treated like giving them a license to do it… unless it really is.
• There’s a risk of falsely conflating crime with harmless fetish or sexual minorities. Curiousity and acceptance comes with an average age for group members that coincides with experimenting and being young adults. Positive support they give each other shows responsibility about it.

The Furry Raiders and license against consequences: “1’s and 0’s on a hard drive never hurt anyone”

When the stories are complicated, it’s good to focus on individual doers and the power they have. A story might not need more exposure if it’s an open and shut case for mainstream courts and news. But it might if there’s another layer about toxic attitudes and leadership. That’s why these were published here:

• Rocky Mountain Fur Con’s sex offender CEO, Kahuki. His record forced him out of the con chair position, but 8 years later, he still owned the con behind the scenes.  It caused a critical problem for rule enforcement when apparently the board couldn’t overrule him. Mismanagement ultimately shut down the con when he made an illegitimate “Sovereign Citizen” threat against another fur – on behalf of a toxic fringe getting favored (and on staff.)
• That fringe is the Furry Raiders, who target kids with grooming and recruiting. Their founder Foxler had so much access to the leadership of RMFC that he was trading advice about their public relations while threatening to escalate problems.
• Furry Raiders had a meet with astonishing language about minors and porn, at Kahuki’s address matching his entry on the sex offender registry.

Foxler’s Wikifur entry

Those are real examples for how toxic leadership intensifies bad personal choices.  Not by furry fandom, but in a rejected cult-like fringe.  Here it is on display with the R.C. Fox story, from altfur/Furry Raiders member Dionysius. (See also additional screenshots.)

not that this is shocking really but

Dionysius "ones and zeros that compile explicit images of children never hurt anyone" Tragos, everyone pic.twitter.com/RSPFy6oZ45

— delay enthusiast (@edgedestroys) October 18, 2017

Less than an hour after Dionysius excused owning illegal files, Foxler made him a Furry Raiders admin, then went on to promote him as doing charity for kids.

The Furry Raiders don’t just put antisocial behavior in charge of their group, they have a habit of trolling cons with it (in this case while ghosting.)

"Time to call the police, I'm being oppressed by a piece of paper!" pic.twitter.com/oGGTJYhV83

— KodyWulf (@KodyWulf) October 7, 2017

At Furreality, people were worried about the Raiders putting up cameras looking out of their hotel room because that’s what the Vegas shooter did days earlier. (Then 10 days after this event, an altfur threatened to do mass murder, egged on by another member, resulting in an FBI report and account ban.)

There’s a clear problem when a group ethic comes from bad leadership. It isn’t just one weird example, it’s a pervasive pattern of license against consequences:

Such Sovereign Citizen attitude about laws is how people find themselves in news about breaking them.  There’s more to this, too.

Kahuki, the ex-CEO who sent SovCit threats on behalf of RMFC, had a partner Ivan Otter on staff of the con. In 2011, Ivan was convicted for a child pornography offense. A Colorado fur with an organizer role alleged to me that the files were actually from the collection of someone close to Ivan. Kahuki posted about it:

Shifting excuses.

Kahuki’s own sex offense has many defenses that vary radically from one person to the next. This 2008 podcast dates to when he was forced to step down as RMFC chair. It repeats a sanitized story (at 5:30) that he was 23 and his boyfriend was just under age of consent (in fact he was 30 when convicted in 1993). When the topic revived in 2017, his roommate Scorch said it was old news and there was no sex (a comment claims something else was hushed.) Other versions come from Furry Raiders Telegram – and a private message sent to Deo:

There’s a whole other topic from vocal defender of the Furry Raiders, 2 Gryphon. His video about them complains at length: “at least have the common decency … to find out what you’re talking about.” That makes sense… when it means asking people who tell a consistent story in good faith. So now consider the time when 2 found himself in a similar predicament with a partner. Here’s where it gets more and more interesting to see who he picks to attack and who to defend. (Supposedly this stuff comes from a comedian, with no punch line in sight.)

In 2012, 2 Gryphon posted a journal declaring that molesters are “the saviors of their own victims.” It trashed victims of child predator Jerry Sandusky for acting like “grown men turned into blubbering, sobbing children” who should move on and get over it. Then, within a day of the posting, like a miraculous voodoo prophecy, there was an FBI raid for child pornography at his home with his partner Toast Rabbit.

Apparently in 2012, the FBI raided his home or studio on a CP warrant. He laughed about it at the time because they found nothing.

— Matt (@m_m_myers) April 14, 2017

Middle: 2 Gryphon, Raiders Foxler and Kody

The story returned with a vengence in 2016, when 2 Gryphon found himself defending Toast on his youtube channel. 2 claimed that the FBI had recently arrested Toast for child pornography because he mistakenly downloaded one zip file of “shock” images that he “deleted immediately” and had no interest in.

In his video, 2 protests the legal system for “ruining people’s lives that don’t deserve it”. He attacks “the SJW’s out there” who he fears will judge Toast and himself with “a wave of hate”.  He says “I want to get this out there now, about what happened, so that there actually can be a record of officially what’s going on.”

The problem is, the story about one mistake download falls apart when compared with court documents. They charge Toast with distribution of illegal files in December 2011, and receipt of files months later in February 2012. Files depicting child pornography were found on multiple devices. The documents claim it didn’t happen just once, and distribution before receiving is hard to call a mistake. Was 2 Gryphon being a blubbering, sobbing child about consequences?

That's exactly my point. Everyone is making up bullshit. Nazi this and pedophile that. Oh, look! There's a witch! ...We don't know shit. https://t.co/wvjHS59u0Q

— 2 Gryphon (@2_gryphon) April 11, 2017

From April 10, 2017, the day I published about RMFC and Kahuki and the con closed 12 hours later. We know this shit:

From 2’s defense story.

Furry Raiders at Kahuki’s house.

To recap: ex-CEO Kahuki and his partner Ivan Otter and the Furry Raiders and their founder Foxler and admin Dionysius and their defender 2 Gryphon and his partner Toast Rabbit were all vocally excusing or involved in child exploitation. Furries may oppose it and understand consequences, but something smells bad with a fringe group that has shady fascination with teens and does projection about others excusing it. It’s like they come with problems as firmly attached as their armbands.

To clarify the question about fandom connections: the issue isn’t whether someone is popular, or even has a bad past if they make amends. The issue is how it’s treated by a group ethic and it’s leadership.

2 Gryphon’s “Kill yourself” message (which he often denies making) brings up a footnote. In September 2017, yet another furry was implicated by a suicide note describing being caught for illegal files and having no escape. There’s a topic for another day about better solutions that allow redemption, but in this case, the guy didn’t stick around to lie about it.  It seems that even dead people understand cause and effect better than one small fringe of fandom.

What a web it makes when altfurries, the Furry Raiders, and friends keep springing to the defense of exploitation and child pornography. It’s more than relatively petty SovCit contrarianism like refusing to register your car.  It’s more than just loyalty to their own friends who keep getting caught up in it. While they conflate “SJW’s” and things being “too PC” together with the issue of respecting laws, what’s behind it all is a stance that only their rights matter, and nobody else’s. Including children’s.

This isn’t about furry fandom, but it’s in the shadow of it. If you love furry stuff and don’t support this, make your voice heard with your local meets and cons. And consider using the Altfurry Blocklist as a pro-active solution. Times are changing while the fandom is having healthy growth, and the too-small-to-bother, stuck-in-the-90’s ways are passing.

Perhaps I will be attacked for naming a group who troll for attention until it’s more than trolling. So let me add a personal note about why I don’t care if they try. While researching this I found dark stuff I won’t link because it adds no new info, just a risk of misuse. There was a 2009 news article with many furries saying “we’re not like that” about a predator, which seems unremarkable, until you realize the cover photo is someone else named here who just went to jail, pictured years before they were caught. Then there’s a closed gallery of photos I was able to get in and look at. Nothing explicit, just pictures of a child victim at their birthday party, surrounded by fursuiters and in their own small suit being carried by the abuser. Those 1s and 0s hurt me a lot and it wasn’t even someone I know. Now consider attention-getting power and what it’s good for.

UPDATE: click through for an excellent thread about child grooming by the Furry Raiders.

off and on I've spoken to a 16 year old they brought into their fold to try to coax him out and the shit they've put in his mind is scary

— delay enthusiast (@edgedestroys) October 23, 2017

Thanks for reading and supporting the site. Come back for lighter stuff soon like a TV animator interview you should see if you like cartoon werewolves.

R.C. Fox arrested for child pornography, furries question fandom connections.

Welcome to guest poster Summercat! October is Furry Book month (better late than never). -Patch

Started in 2016 by an alliance of Furry Publishers, Furry Book Month is about showcasing the written word from the Furry Fandom. To support the efforts I decided to write up a list of Furry books I’ve enjoyed in recent years that are currently available for sale. These are just short blurbs rather than full reviews, and are in no particular order. 

Otters in Space, by Mary Lowd (Furplanet, Rabbit Valley)

Otters in Space was suggested to me a few years back at Further Confusion, and I picked up the first book in the series then. After reading through it that night, I went back the next day and picked up the sequel. The books are an enjoyable action-mystery where anthropomorphic animals are living in a world that humans left behind, with Cats and Dogs living on Earth, and Otters in space.

Sixes Wild, by Tempe O’kun (Furplanet, Rabbit Valley)

While I am friends with Tempo, our relationship started out as fanboy and author as I sought to praise him for his wild west novel Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny. While the first book in the series has some rough edges, they are not so rough as to detract from the interesting world and characters that Tempo has created. The second title, Echos shows a lot of improvement and polish, as well as going into a bit more detail about the wider world. For more details, you can check out Fred Patten’s review on Echos.

Windfall, by Tempe O’kun (Furplanet, Rabbit Valley)

Another Tempo novel, this time an Adult Paranormal Romance. Windfall manages to weave the growing relationship between the two main characters alongside the investigation of weird happenings in the town. Also it has an otter as a main character. I can’t resist that! For a second opinion, Fred Patten reviewed it as well.

Intimate Little Secrets, by Rechan (Furplanet, Bad Dog Books)

I recently reviewed Intimate Little Secrets and gave it a positive review, so it is no surprise I would again recommend this collection of slice-of-life stories with erotic heterosexual scenes.

The Tower and the Fox, by Tim Susman (Furplanet, Rabbit Valley)

I called this the novel from Kyell Gold I’ve been waiting a decade for, and I was not let down. Set in the late 1700s in a magical alternate New World, I recommended it in my review. I want to encourage Kyell to write more non-erotic fiction, so please go buy it!

Freelance Familiar, by Daniel Potter (Amazon)

One of those “The magical world is just hiding behind a veil” settings, the series follows Thomas Katt after he ends up on the wrong side of the Veil and transformed into a non-anthro mountain lion familiar, and his attempts to going back to being human – oh, and solve some mysteries and stop the end of the world. Fred Patten called the first book a “winner”, and I enjoyed both it and the second book in the series.

The David Birkenhead Series, by Phil Geusz (Amazon)

The David Birkenhead series is a military scifi series following the titular main character – a genetically engineered rabbit – through his career in his nation’s navy, facing prejudice along the way.

What about you? Do you have any recommendations? We welcome your feedback in our comments section! – Summercat

Very good recommendations!

Most of em are available from us with 15% disscount too: https://t.co/ChUFWsCLPn #FurryBookMonth https://t.co/KdWz7oQ3Q2

— Fusselschwarm (@Fusselschwarm) October 22, 2017

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

Sabrina Online: The Tail of Two Decades, by Eric W. Schwartz. Illustrated.
Keston, Kent, UK, United Publications, June 2017, hardcover, $22.95 (unpaged [148 pages]).

This large (8½” x 11”) collection presents the last half – the last ten years — of Eric Schwartz’s Internet Sabrina Online comic strip: four strips per page from November 2006 (annual collection 11) through the end of the annual collections with #14, and the following individual strips through the end of December (Xmas) 2016. “835 strips in 20 years? I guess it’ll have to do.” But wait! There’s more! The last 24 pages of this book are Schwartz’s history of Sabrina Online, gag strips of Sabrina’s Transformer toys, and some of the better art tributes by Sabrina’s fans like gNAW, Steve Gallacci, Shawntae Howard, Max Black Rabbit, and Brian Reynolds.

Schwartz explains in his “Brief History” that he began Sabrina Online in September 1996, after becoming a Big Name Fan in furry fandom thanks to his animation short films produced on his primitive Amiga computer (done partly just to prove that he could create animation on an Amiga). This is where his first popular character, Amy the Squirrel, appeared. He had ideas for a more detailed, continuing storyline featuring Amy and her best friend and roommate, Sabrina the Skunk, so Sabrina Online was born. It was a monthly comic strip in an unusual presentation; all four weeks online together on the first of the month. It was basically a comedic slice-of-life rambling story about Amy and Sabrina. Amy gets married to Thomas Woolfe and has a son, but Sabrina remains sharing her and Thomas’ apartment; Sabrina gets a secretarial job with Zig Zag, a producer of adult entertainment; Sabrina develops a long-term relation with her boyfriend, R.C. (a raccoon), and eventually moves in with him; and finally Sabrina and R.C. get married. Sub-themes and characters include Sabrina’s parents, R.C.’s parents, Sabrina’s collection of Transformers toys (which are often anthropomorphized), Zig Zag, an extroverted zebra-striped skunk (a tiger-skunk hybrid – Schwartz doesn’t have any trouble with interspecies romances and hybrid children), Amy’s infant son Timmy who Sabrina often babysits and Sabrina’s little sister Tabitha, Thomas’ workmates, R.C.’s workmates … lots!

“I created the Sabrina Online comic strip to tell the story ideas I had built up. These were used up after the first few years.” After that he continued the strip on a day-to-day basis for a long time. “That was when I noticed that the twentieth anniversary of the first Sabrina Online comic strip from 1996 was on its way, and looked into the prospect of finishing the strip. Suddenly I had a definite purpose and goal again.” Unfinished story ideas were finished; floating story lines were tied up; and Sabrina Online was brought to a final conclusion with Sabrina and R.C. (Richard Conrad) getting married.

For those who want to read the first ten years of the strip, Sabrina Online: A Decade in Black and White is still available from United Publications. Or it can be read free on the website’s Archive; but reading it in the book is so much more convenient.

This book begins with Chapter 11, “The Robot Movie”, in which Sabrina’s conservative mother meets Zig Zag, Sabrina’s boss – a pornographer. Her mom is broad-minded, but is she that broad-minded? Zig Zag proves to be a master of euphemism in describing what her company does. The strip had previously established that Sabrina was a collector of Transformers toys. The strip segues into Zig Zag taking her staff to a screening of Michael Bay’s 2007 Transformers movie, which is Schwartz’s critique of the movie.

This chapter is 12 pages, 45 strips. It is typical of the book’s further chapters. Chapters 12 through 20 are “Peace, Love & Understanding”, “Protecting the Children”, “The Internet is for Porn Stars”, “A Visit from Tech Support”, “Worlds Within Worlds”. “Shadows of Darkness”, “Change and Circumspection”, “Delving to the Depths”, and “Flash-Forward to Finale”, followed by Schwartz’s history of the strip, the gag strips, and the tributes to Sabrina Online by other furry artists. The strips’ stories empathize the humor of a straight person working for a professional producer of adult entertainment, Sabrina’s starting a web comic (Schwartz getting mileage out of what he does), the drama of Sabrina getting stabbed by a mugger, Zig Zag’s tracking down the mugger and taking revenge on him, Zig Zag’s arrest for assault/vigilantism, and Sabrina’s hospital recovery, and the shock of Sabrina’s assault finally leading to hers and R.C.’s wedding.

Schwartz notes that when he began Sabrina Online in 1996, he never imagined it would go on for twenty years. During that time furry fandom changed and he changed. Friends and relatives matured and died. His fictional cast also changed in ways that he never originally planned. So Sabrina Online has been brought to a conclusion. But she will still appear occasionally at Schwartz’s whim. (In her latest online appearance, not in this book, she’s pregnant.)

Sabrina Online was one of the first furry Internet comic strips. Aside from its historical importance, it’s been one of the most enjoyable, with some of the most memorable characters. If you are not familiar with it yet, now is the time to remedy that. If you are, you will want to get this memorial collection, with its original bonus material.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon
• Buy on United Publications

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

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

Back in April 2017, I reviewed Foxhunt! by Rich Hanes, a 2009 337-page science-fiction novel set in a largely-anthropomorphic “Wildstar Universe”. Foxhunt! is primarily about an interstellar nation of anthropomorphic foxes, but it refers to many other species. I was very favorably impressed by it, ending my review saying, “Foxhunt! is superior both as space opera and as furry fiction. Don’t miss it!”

Rich Hanes, the author, e-mailed me to thank me for my review. I took the opportunity to ask him about Foxhunt! and his Wildstar Universe; how he came to write the novel in 2009 and why he hasn’t followed it with more Wildstar Universe stories. This has led to this interview, for anyone who is interested in anthro fox Captain Sebastian Valentino’s adventures in Foxhunt!; in Hanes’ larger Wildstar Universe; and in Rich Hanes himself.

FP: Let’s start with some basic information; date of birth, when & why you started writing, and so on.

RH: My name is Rich Hanes, which is my real name. I’m 32, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, earned a degree in Computer Drafting from ITT Technical Institute in Canton, Michigan at the age of 23, then moved to Seattle to work for Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner for 6 years until being laid off. Now I live back with my parents in Detroit while searching for adequate employment, and earn money right now through writing and my YouTube channel,  L-1011 Widebody

FP: Your email address is richard.harlan.hanes, which I assume is your full name. How long has your YouTube channel been going? Is its main focus on your Wildstar Universe?

RH: No, it’s focused primarily on retro-gaming — a lot of it is doing Let’s Plays of games that I owned as a kid and still have the original CD for. But I do have two short videos there that I put together as an ‘introduction’ of sorts to my concept for Wildstar.  About 7 minutes in total. Perhaps that will help answer some basic questions, or if you want to link to the actual videos.

FP: Since this interview is mostly about your Foxhunt! and its whole Wildstar Universe, why don’t you tell us how you came to develop its galactic civilization and the Star Nation of anthro foxes?

RH: It really started with MechWarrior 2, a video game in the BattleTech style. Way back in 1995, when I was only ten years old, my father won a copy of MechWarrior 2 as a prize for some sports trivia thing. The game had a real sense of depth to it, a feeling that it wasn’t just giant robots battling for some shallow reason. It had many cut scenes, and a backstory. I was impressed that so much detail was put into it, to make it feel so immersive. Its manual was even made to look like some pages had coffee-cup stains on them, and hand-scribbled notes.

It’s important to note that the two factions you could play as in MechWarrior 2 were named Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon. And all the other Clans had animal names. The entire centerpiece of the Clans in the BattleTech universe is that they are genetically engineered to be superior soldiers and warriors. So this got me to thinking, why not combine the two? If we’re already doing genetic engineering, why not literally engineer humans with wolf features, or wolves with human features?

My parents had a timeshare in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Right on the ocean, it’s a great place. Since this was back in the old-timey days before cell phones and even laptops, I brought along books to read. This would’ve been around the early 2000s, I believe. So I read through many of the BattleTech novels. At some point, I had a eureka moment. Like, ‘I can write better than this.’

2006 is the earliest I can trace back any files. That was when I started creating the idea of Wildstar. The idea behind it at first was basically ‘What if Clan Wolf mechs were piloted by anthro wolves?’. So the earliest drafts of Wildstar were basically furries in battlemechs. A lot of that real early stuff was garbage, before I knew what I was doing. I had about 40,000 words written about a Chihuahua infiltrating the Canis Dominion, and being some kind of rebel on a starship, stealing a starfighter. It just didn’t work out.

About this time, I entered college; it would’ve been 2007. I went to the ITT Technical Institute in Canton, Michigan. I needed a laptop for studies. It was right around here that things really started developing for Wildstar. I started honing down which factions it would have. At the same time, I was doing some pre-engineering courses in college, so I started to think like an engineer for my Wildstar universe.

This is how I came up with the concept of ‘practical’ animal-human hybrids. Because I was developing an engineering sense, I thought, ‘Well, these different animal races should have a role to fulfill, otherwise why would you make them?’, so I tackled the Wildstar setup as if it were an actual scientific project. What purpose does uplifting such-and-such species serve? Well, I think through my research into animal behavior and social dynamics, that I have crafted a universe of diverse races that all act logically and rationally and as realistically as possible.

I wanted my universe to feel like it was an already established setting. This is one thing I like about Star Wars, the idea that the future has had past events in it to bring us to this narrative point.

So for a practical answer, there never really was a time I wasn’t developing Wildstar. But I’d say about 2006 to 2009 was when it really honed in. And I’m still working on it today. Really, there is ever so much to explore.

FP: Foxhunt! is set in the fox-dominant Star Alliance, but you refer in it to the Canis Dominion, the Pan-Atlantica Federation, the Balkany Democratic Republic, and the Lupine Order.  Duel of Honor, your 15-page short story (which I haven’t read yet), is apparently set in the Lupine Order.  To what extent are these just names, and to what extent have you developed extensive backgrounds for them?

RH: The short answer is – yes, the various factions are fleshed out in my back-story. CenCon, the Central Concordinate, holds all the animal races together. As it’s primarily human (with some Created ambassadors), CenCon establishes the rules and law of interstellar conflict. Like the U.N., but with more power. The Canis Dominion is an authoritative state, socialist and strictly regimented, a sort of analog of the Soviet Union but played more practical. The Pan-Atlantica Federation is a much more democratic society, much less rigid than the other states, with a lot of freedom for any one of any species to do anything. It’s subsequently weak on military matters, however.

As for the Balkany Democratic Republic, and other smaller lesser nations of concern, I haven’t quite fleshed those out yet. The idea is more that they would just be too far from the Capital planet to really be governable. They just sort of were like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna do our own thing, okay?’. When you think about it, there’s really not much necessary to holding territory in space.

The long answer is….

After the Great War, which is when Foxhunt! takes place, there are four remaining interstellar nations – the Star Alliance, the Canis Dominion, the Lupine Order, and the Pan-Atlantica Federation. At least, these were the nations that withstood the Great War, which was a really awful thing culminating in the nuking of entire planets — this is what would be called the Alienation Zone, no ownership or treaties apply there. I could write something fun for the post-apocalypse sometime. The Caledon Republic broke up because of the Great War.

But if you would like to hear more backstory, I would love to expound upon the politics of the Wildstar universe!

At first, before the Great War, the foxes controlled most of the galaxy (I’ll just use ‘galaxy’ as a short-hand for the group of star systems that surround Planet Genesis), through their sheer numbers and adaptability. As they expanded, they took their various Volpa House factions with them. This led to the obvious strife and discord one would expect when societies clash. Various canines were brought along with the foxes as ‘servants’. Eventually the canine species had enough, especially the wolves, and thus began the Contraction Wars around 300 years post-Founding. The canines united, rebelled, and drove the foxes out, sometimes into another House. This led to fox-on-fox wars. The foxes were still divided amongst their Houses. So when the big dogs united into the Canine Confederation (which was really just an alliance of convenience between the various smaller dog and wolf nations), it put up a strong front against the disorganized foxes, and the foxes were driven back quite easily.

The Canis Dominion was formed sometime between the third and fourth Contraction Wars. The Canine Confederation could not hold up as a real state, with it spread across so many systems and so many species. Thus a group of smaller canine-dominated nations united into the Dominion, sort of Soviet Union style. The Canis Dominion at this time was composed mostly of Wild (canids like African wild dogs, coyotes, and jackals) and Wolves, since they were the strongest and most willing to fight for more space. So the Canis Dominion became a rather rigid, socialist, hierarchy-based society.

Around this time the more familiar canine (and other species) states decided they didn’t really want to live with socialist dogs (is that a funny phrase or what?). While they were invited to the Canis party, they declined. So thus sprang up the more democratic/republican type representative nations of the Pan-Atlantica Federation, and the Caledon Republic.

So when the Canis Dominion ran over the fox-held systems in the Fourth Contraction War (it’s called that because the foxes believe they were being contracted into a smaller space), it triggered the initiative to form the Star Alliance. The Fourth Contraction War saw the foxes finally begrudgingly uniting under one nation, the Star Alliance, which is composed of ten of the remaining twelve Volpa Houses. Houses Murrel and Wallace elected to remain independent. So now the foxes finally have a cohesive bond that they can use to stop the Canis Dominion intrusion, who were invading mostly because they could.

This led to a more-or-less cold war (it is very cold in space) between the Star Alliance and the Canis Dominion. It didn’t last for very long (this would be around 415 post-founding), when the wolves in the Canis Dominion began to feel that they were being held back by their ‘lesser’ canine brethren. Thus would enter the prime, the super-alpha-wolf, the Alpha General Luc Vurren, who would establish the Lupine Way of order and honor and the constitution and things like that. Thus the splitting off of the Lupine Order, becoming their own pro-lupine state. And the fun things that happen in the wolf nation…

The Canis Dominion is at first somewhat rattled by the exodus of so many of their most useful citizens. But things settle down peacefully as wolves transition to wolfspace, and the canines in wolf-held territories are given the option of serving in the new Lupine Order or being deported. Many of them choose deportation. The wolves do not think lesser of these dogs, though; they simply view them as not fit for their society… all the practical pragmatic rationalities here.

Anyway, the wolves sit around for a while and get great at what they do (because they are wolves). Eventually they will invade the Star Alliance. Which will be quite exciting I think, I’ve already started on a new story about that.

Duel of Honor is set during the oncoming Lupine Order invasion that is to take place just after the events of Foxhunt!. The Lupine Order wolves will invade fox space, not because they want their territory or any grievances, but because they desire the challenge of the hunt. I am currently working on a new story to portray that bit. It will let me breathe so much life into the lupine culture. I have a lot of writing projects to go through, again, mostly inspired by your wonderful review.

FP: If you write more Wildstar stories, will they be more adventures of Sebastian Valentino and his Star Rangers, or will they be completely different stories in the Wildstar Universe?

RH: I have many stories to tell, about many interesting people. I am working on the prequel to Foxhunt!, that shows Sebastian and Adrian in their academy days. Really, I have just been so inspired thanks to you!

FP: Foxhunt! was published in June 2009 and reprinted in 2014.  It must be selling steadily.  But the only other Wildstar story that you’ve published is Duel of Honor, a 15-page short story on Kindle in April 2015.  Why haven’t you written more?

RH: The reprint is due to some changing configurations or something on Lulu’s behalf. To be completely honest, my world all but imploded around me about 2013. I lost my job, my home, my car, and then various health ailments have caused me to be more or less handicapped now. For obvious reasons, the span there wasn’t very conducive to writing. But I am back in the game now, I am actually working on several new stories, thanks to your review as well as positive comments and feedback from others. Another reason for not writing more is that depression is a hell of a thing, and it will suck the will to live out of you. So I have been dealing with that as best I can.

FP: What is Arkham Bridge Publishing, your publisher?  What else have they done?  How did you get associated with them?

RH: Now here comes a bit of a confession. Arkham Bridge Publishing is me. I was afraid of the stigma of ‘self-published’ novels. At the time (around 2009 or so) there were really bad vibes going around about self-publishing. Eragon [self-published by Christopher Paolini as Paolini International LLC in 2001 when he was 18 years old] was still fresh on people’s minds.

But I actually did want to be something of a publisher myself, with print-on-demand titles, and Lulu doing the legwork. This was when disposable income was great to have. I registered Arkham Bridge Publishing as a real sole-proprietorship business, and paid business licenses and taxes even. I purchased my own ISBN, I even had an employee for a time. But things just didn’t work out. Arkham Bridge Publishing is essentially defunct.

Mostly, I thought it would look more professional if I had a publisher name on it, rather than self-published. I admit it is rather sneaky and dishonest, in a sense, but really, it fits with what my fox species would do in the situation. [Many authors who self-publish through CreateSpace or Lulu have their own imprints. Some that furry fans may be familiar with include Steven Hammond’s Rockhopper Books, M. C. A. Hogarth’s Studio MCAH, Paul Kidd’s Kitsune Press, and Daniel Potter’s Fallen Kitten Productions.]

The other reason for self-publishing was because I wanted to get the starmap in the back of the book just right. There were a few printers who refused to do overlapping printing.

– Fred Patten

• Buy Foxhunt on Amazon
• Buy Duel of Honor on Amazon

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Furclub: A repeat/regular nightlife event by furries for furries. The linked survey may be the only complete list for independent furry parties around the world. The concept has been spreading since the late 2000’s – it builds on the growth of cons, but it takes things farther. It’s more ambitious than informal or one-time events. It brings partnership with new venues, and crosses into public space, so a stranger can walk in and find their new favorite thing. It encourages new blood and crossover. It makes a subculture thrive – it’s a movement!  There’s many one-night events, but Baltimore has the first all-weekend one yet: 

• FRIDAY 11/10 – FUR-FRIENDLY DRAG SHOW (FUZZY PARTICIPATION ENCOURAGED)
• SATURDAY 11/11 – PROTOCOLLIE & ABLE (DJ SET WITH LIVE DRUMS), BEARS DOING MURDER (LIVE BAR ROCK), I’VE MADE TOO MUCH PASTA (SCURROW’S ACOUSTIC SET), DANCE PARTY FROM 10PM TO 2AM THE NEXT MORNING
• SUNDAY 11/12 – ALL-DAY FURRY HAPPY HOUR

See the website for more info – (they have a hotel block!) – or follow the hashtag #FurUpBmore. 

Any party that sends a Q&A gets a featured article, and organizer Seiko generously sent me lots of info. He started “Furry Night” at the Baltimore Eagle and I’m happy to see this rising up. Baltimore tried a furclub party in 2011, early on when only a few existed, but it was short-lived. Now it sounds like the venue and the local scene is coming out in full force to support this, more than almost anywhere, even in San Francisco with “the original” Frolic Party!

I see high-profile names attached – Duke Doberman‘s kink modeling has a massive Twitter following, and what better than having a top quality documentary photographer to catch the action? That’s @atty_boy, AKA Tommy Bruce of Furry Doc (he was interviewed here, and in my post “Five pro photographers advancing the art of furry documentary.”) It sounds like a dream team for event promotion.

Even more impressive is organizing a whole weekend of variety with a hotel block. It almost sounds like a mini-con out of the box in the middle of a city, not stuck inside a hotel. It’s something I’ve been suggesting and hoping to see with these parties. Organizing it around a hashtag on Twitter seems like an excellent promotion approach, as open as the party itself.

Congrats to Seiko for building this with the awesome energy that keeps raising furry subculture. Here’s his reply to the survey questions:

The Party Launch

We first ran the Furry Night at the new Baltimore Eagle on March 5th, 2017. I (Seiko/John Lucia) had been working with the Eagle quite a bit in my role as an event photographer, originally getting pulled in during the Mr. Maryland Leather competition of 2016 to photograph the place while it was still under renovation. It quickly led to more work with Eagle staff and eventually strong relationships with the owners. When a couple Baltimore-local furs expressed interest in a “Frolic-alike” event there, I popped the question to Chuck (one of the owners who manages events there) and he was all about it.

Who

Largely the event is a community-based thing, with no direct hierarchy of organizers. Given my rapport with the Eagle staff, I headline communications with the venue, and with some background in marketing and graphic design I push advertising on my own. For supplies to operate the party such as fans for fursuiters and long straws and cases of water to cool down, if I can’t get it myself, I ask and get help from Baltimore-local attendees directly. Otherwise, the event shares the space with the Eagle’s own T-Dance event, so they provision their own DJ, and set up a couple podiums on the dance floor. Suiters are more than happy to play go-go dancer for a more than enthusiastic crowd!

#FurUpBmore this Sunday! pic.twitter.com/n4qNzLTNCF

— BaltimoreEagle (@BaltimoreEagle) August 4, 2017

What

It’s a very informal sort of meet-and-greet event, but given that it co-opts the same time slot as the Baltimore Eagle’s T-Dance each Sunday, a DJ is always around to spin fun disco tech live (none of the pre-recorded stuff!). No cover charge for the event at all, but the venue is strictly 21+. We get the Nest space upstairs, a dance floor styled after an old 1920’s speakeasy, for use as a headless lounge/community room to hang out privately and/or get in and store suits. Never made a formal headcount, but we typically get around 10 to 12 fursuiters and their respective menageries, probably in the headcount range of 40-50 furs. On top of the attendees of the T-Dance, it ends up being a crazy crowd!

When

Always on the first Sunday of the month. (Our third event on May 7th was also on the Grand Opening weekend of the Eagle – they were been running on a soft opening since January). Time is set at 4:00pm to 9:00pm so people can come early for a relaxed time, or swing in later on when the craziness kicks up. Typically, suiters start parading around closer to 6:00pm, and frequently folks stay well past the 9:00pm end time which the Eagle folks don’t mind at all. They’re very flexible about our use of the Nest space!

The reaction when you see a birdsuit in Baltimore #furupbmore at @BaltimoreEagle @SuitADile as the bird ! pic.twitter.com/rB9hrJoBBM

— Dᵘᵏℰ????Dᵒᵇᵉᵣᵐₐᵑ⛓ (@Duke_Doberman) September 3, 2017

Where

The Baltimore Eagle is a renovated re-imagining of the Eagle formerly occupying the same building. It closed some years ago with a reputation for being a seedy joint, but under the new owners the venue has changed dramatically and in a very progressive direction, not beholden to historic tropes of Eagle venues (basically men-only). Instead of shunning anyone outside the classic overplayed masculinity of the gay male leather scene, they are open to the full LGBTQ+ rainbow, frequently hosting drag shows and Ladies of Leather events. Adding furries into the mix seemed all too logical!

Baltimore has always had a disjointed furry community, with plenty of furs in and around the city but often not co-mingling. This event seems to have helped close some major gaps in community building. And with the help of @duke_doberman, word got out to a large scene of furs in Northern Virginia who have made it a point to come each time the event is held. @JL_wol even managed to drag along some Bostonites!

How

The story is almost hilariously disappointing, really! Quite simply, I had the connections, and I heard from @JL_wol and @atty_boy that there was interest in having a furry night at the Eagle some time. They were intent to ask themselves, but I stepped in with my connection to Chuck and quite lackadaisically made it happen!

Vibe

While the venue is quite tame, it’s also very gay, very flirty, and even if it’s only subtext the place is definitely adult. Crowds quite readily engage with suiters on the main floor and LOVE getting group photos, and are giddy voyeurs when some of our more “animated” attendees put on a bit of a show on the dance floor. (It’s not THAT bad, just very friendly). Furs also seem to enjoy themselves either putting on a show by the floor-to-ceiling windows on the front of the venue, or hanging out on the ramp leading into the Eagle. It’s drawn a lot of street traffic into the venue that otherwise wouldn’t have considered going in – (based on conversations I’ve had with some of those random visitors, and on reports from Eagle staff, who were a bit taken aback that we drew in such a broad crowd).

People of course like to dance, but personally I enjoy hanging out and getting fun photos in front of the venue – Last time around @blueberrywuff rode in on his motorcycle, and we got some top notch shots of the “Furry Gang” that were just great!

Promotion

Ad graphics are original photos and layouts of my own making, which both get posted to Twitter, and shared around and played on the TV screens at the Eagle that run advertisements for various events. With a couple ad graphics as a foundation, the rest of the interest drummed up requires “word of mouth” via Twitter shares. Some fursuiters have tremendous pull that way.

Reactions

Reception has been crazy positive all around. The Eagle staff are in love with the character and playful attitude of our crowd. They’re super appreciative of the added traffic we’ve inadvertently encouraged into the bar. During our April event, the leather shop incorporated in the venue even dolled up @duke_doberman with $600+ in leather gear and attire, excitedly parading him around like a billboard with his permission.  A local liquor vendor was invited to set up a specialty “Furry Shots” booth we just loved! @duke_doberman has also been a huge support in bringing in the NoVA crowd – He’s very much into supporting his local furry events, and he counts Baltimore as local. There was even some discussion among the Eagle owners about moving our event to the first Friday each month, a coveted time slot. Sticking with Sundays for now, but if we get invited for a Friday night showing that would be pretty amazing.

Nice tweet tweet. Pretty bird.... @MidoriGator #furupbmore #partihund pic.twitter.com/JcBesChK36

— Dᵘᵏℰ????Dᵒᵇᵉᵣᵐₐᵑ⛓ (@Duke_Doberman) September 12, 2017

Business

We’re still very informal, so no money is made.  So long as people keep spreading the word and folks are adventurous enough to try out a venue historically on the far fringe, we’ll keep growing!

Video/Pictures

Lots of stuff is available on the #furupbmore on Twitter (the reason I set it up).

Thank you so much for your interest in covering the event in Dogpatch Press! So exciting to see this thing grow and get noticed! (- Seiko)

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Part of furry is "If you got to choose your own body, gender, beauty standards, etc. this is exactly what the world would be like."
Politic.

— Liam Anne of Oz (@Anxiousounce) October 5, 2017

“We Want Politics Out” is politics.

It’s a popular complaint. This fan group is supposed to be for interest in anthropomorphic animal media and nothing more. That boils down to lowest-common-denominator consumerism. It’s like everyone is a bottom-feeding plecostamus in their own fish tank, and what they consume is just random scum growing on the bottom. Who cares where it comes from? Just be a dumb fish.

An unpopular fursona.

The problem is, reductionism doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a community attached to the way members consume things. And the complaint often comes with attacking care about how things work there. (Stop asking questions about the delicious scum!)

Everyone who’s here in good faith has some kind of care beyond themselves. It can range from management of websites or cons, to health and safety, or being a loose support network. You see it whenever a member gets help with money or a place to live, or even with complaints about FA’s management. When it’s time to talk about bigger stuff, complaining against politics is half-baked activism for the status quo. Here’s why.

Furriness.

Even as a pure hobby or interest, there’s something unique about furry.  It’s one of the only crowdsourced fandoms, even when it’s inspired by central media power of others. Members build it every day. A sort-of comparison might be the Ren Faire community. Both are creatively self sustaining on their own terms.

Some people claim furry is capitalist because of art business, as if everyone’s a Monopoly man with a tail. It’s supposed to be some counterpoint about how things work.  I run a business (when I’m not being a raffish sparkledog) and I think the point sucks. It’s shallow about terms like “industrial” versus “cottage industry”.  Making bespoke art doesn’t scale, and meets and cons run on volunteerism. Fandom is less about profit than direct relationships of “furriness”. There’s numbers for it – look at labor that goes into expensive fursuits. Makers can earn under minimum wage for doing what they love doing for others.

“For others” is why calling it just a plain interest is a partial truth. In other words, an omission. More accurately, it’s part genre fandom, part DIY sub/counterculture, and part kink community. The people in it meet in real life, not just online. It brings them together for relationships and homes. It’s made of people, not anthro animals. And any community of people has politics.

Concentrated gay, tastes like a rainbow.

Not just random people.

This group isn’t just an unremarkable little slice of the mainstream. Surveys show a strong bias towards an identity for many members. Nearly 2/3 of members are LGBT. It’s a super fabulously queer number.

Skip asking why and take it for granted that many members are non-LGBT (which nobody ever debates).  It’s still impossible to call it a neutral number. It’s undisputably an association. Queerness isn’t neutral in the mainstream, and even less in a subculture where it’s so concentrated that it colors whatever is said about the group, like calling it “accepting.”

Saying it exists isn’t saying what politics should be. How you vote is up to you – when beliefs are in question, it calls for discussing issues first (especially with an international group).  Of course, some issues are no-brainers.  Some things are simply right or wrong. Not everything is a football game.

For example, in this particular community, being anti-gay is pretty close to being anti-furry. There are very few standards for being welcomed, but that’s a good one. It’s reasonable to expect every member to treat a certain 2/3 of the group as human. There isn’t middle ground or a debate about it. No hate is a basic reasonable standard. Unless you ask hate groups.

That includes their collaborators who refuse to repudiate real fascists among them, while pretending to be as neutral as the scum that bottom-feeders exist on.

The basic standard looks like this.

Dear everyone screeching about "you can't day who is and isn't allowed to be furry":

Nazis. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Be. Furry.

— Victory Dance @AWU (@VictoryDanceOfc) October 4, 2017

"Furries can't say they're welcoming and be mean to nazis! Philosophical checkmate!" No, kid. That's not even chess. That's not even Go Fish

— Arilin Thorferra (@gc_arilin) June 3, 2017

They say, “You call everyone nazis and you’re hateful too!” Well if it quacks like a duck, call it a duck. (See Take Them At Face Value below). One can’t play both sides and pretend to be separate while being their support network. And calling the response “hate” is false equivalence about identifying a problem.

Some people hate crime, disease, or poverty. Others hate fascism. Nazi isn’t an identity – it’s about issues they support. Dead discredited dogma deserves zero benefit of the doubt. Rejecting it is just what normal people do.

It only barely counts as politics.

You can pick a fursona, but you can’t pick whether someone else is human. Having such a basic standard isn’t like putting on a hat for some candidate. It leaves voting issues as a whole other topic. So here’s a slightly more real example of “fandom politics”.

Furries are super-sensitive about media scapegoating, but there’s a love/hate relationship with the media. After all, it’s called a fandom. That’s why a personal motto for me is Be The Media. If you need a label for that, call it a DIY ethic. When I practice that with a site I built, it’s a statement. Furry and DIY go together. It’s part of building a whole community. Anyone can do it if they try.

For people that've taken such pains to call themselves a separate ALTERNATIVE group, AltFurry sure does whine when barred from Furry spaces.

— [No Subject] hi! (@WhiteClawE) October 4, 2017

Altfurry can’t DIY. That explains the shitty stolen memes.

There are also loose “politics” about being extremely inclusive and open to free expression. (Even physically, like Hugs are the handshake of furries” – Artists explore cultural meaning of touch.) 1960’s hippies had it as part of their politics too. It even makes furry a counterculture sometimes. DIY creativity and inclusion goes with the top quote:

“Part of furry is “If you got to choose your own body, gender, beauty standards, etc. this is exactly what the world would be like.””

OK, if it’s about power to be anything, how can there be standards? Because hate is antithetical to “furriness”, and moderating the group keeps it healthy to have that pawsitive power.

“Get Politics Out of Furry Fandom” undermines integrity.

A community has integral parts. Genre fandom, DIY sub/counterculture, and kink are glued together by acceptance to make a community.  Without them it might not be one, and definitely wouldn’t be the one you know.  The consumerist, lowest-common-denominator, Just Anthro Animal Media kind might be more of a corporate-run Mickey Mouse club. 

Integral parts doesn’t mean every part is inherent to everyone. There’s a weird duality in accepting everything from Disney to Dirty, but you don’t have to be personally involved with kink at all. It’s like how cars are integral to modern society, but not everyone drives and you don’t need a car. However, if there were no cars it would be a very different world. Get it?  

There’s a real community with parts that can’t be removed without changing everything. The Burned Furs (the previous generation’s altfurry) found out when they failed with puritanism against “perverts”. It’s part of furriness. So when there’s a complaint like “Get Politics Out of Furry Fandom”, it often means “get fandom out of furry.”

It can be a simple minded wish to boil things down to mere consumerism. Or it can be a more evil agenda to make you surrender to this toxic garbage:

A push to inject fascism into geek communities.

Nazis have learned geek communities are a super easy recruitmebt base. pic.twitter.com/wmZAkNlV0u

— Grant but Spooky (@GDRaycroft) October 7, 2017

Read about newly-exposed proof of white nationalists behind the alt-right. Altfurry is just one fizzled attempt among many to attack so called “SJW’s” to inject their own politics. They’ve tried with gaming, metal music, sci-fi, comics, and furry. The term is Entryism, and the same haters feed it all.

Perhaps their hate will always be around.  So will crime or cancer, but people don’t act helpless about it. Sane politics means just standing for a basic standard. That’s all it is – a line for all sides, not liberal or conservative; just the furry side. And don’t buy apathetic acceptance like this:

Two faced. Art: @Rattusdingus

But are they really nazis? Take Them At Face Value.

As a subculture, Furry shares something in common with DIY Punk. Old punks had advice about fascists worming in to their scene – Take them at face value.

That refers to acting edgy/provocative/trolly, until they flip around and excuse it. Like pretending it’s just joking or for looks.  Or denying being a member while collaborating.  Or refusing to own it, and moving goalposts to pretend like rare card-carrying “real nazis” are the only issue. There’s equivocation about how “we’re diverse”, “gays can’t be nazi” or “some of my friends are black”. They love pedantry about “it’s not illegal” and doing an endless-prove-it-loop. There’s nothing they won’t do for plausible deniability about wrongdoing and manipulating. If they can’t hide it, they deflect with Whataboutism. They love acting offended at reactions they provoke, to gaslight and project problems at you. Games Nazis Play are a form of two-faced, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too.

Whether they even understand it or not, it opens the door to the real thing, as ones waiting behind the door know very well. So is trolling like a nazi as bad as bringing real nazis in? …Does a bear shit in the woods?

When they do edgy nazi trolling, withhold benefit of the doubt and let them prove they’re not. When they flirt with fascism, don’t let them off the hook while they try to squirm away. They made their bed, so let them lie in it. It was foretold in this 2008 FurAffinity post about Furzis:

You want to call yourself a Nazi, I’ll treat you like a Nazi. And don’t gimme bullshit about how “we don’t call ourselves nazi’s” your wearing the uniform, your name is a play on “nazi” don’t give me weak excuses.

You don’t think the American Diabetes Association LIKES diabetes. The Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t like poverty. Jonas Salk hated Polio. I hate Nazis. If you have to be intolerant of something, Nazis are a great choice.

Intolerance of intolerance isn’t liberal or conservative, it’s humanist.  And fascism isn’t strictly right or left either, it’s a two faced chameleon. It incrementally worms into power through brinksmanship and playing many sides. It devours from within to destroy what lets it grow. It cons you by syncretizing elements of right and left. Their left side might be pandering to workers, nerds or people who feel powerless, and their right side is nationalism or supremacy. They say whatever sounds good to manipulate, but it’s consistent to nothing but power. That’s what makes gay nazis and non-white collaborators. It’s always two-faced.

Can confirm. Having been one and got out - white nationalists ALWAYS lie. They ALWAYS lie about what they believe.https://t.co/uLy5qutkFb

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) June 12, 2017

By the way, it's often tempting to point out to these absolute cretins the absurdity and hipocrisy of being a nazi furry, but don't bother. https://t.co/ZCZjU9FhuR

— Spooky Boogie (@CaseyExplosion) October 16, 2017

Some people expect to change minds with nice words. That’s fine when you aren’t talking to trolls. It helps trolls to be deliberately exhausting, it’s not the responsibility of targets to change haters, it doesn’t scale, and it legitimizes bad faith when there isn’t something at stake. For those who try, call it a matter of multiple approaches that depends on others firmly rejecting them.

But the furry fandom really is one of the most accepting places (that’s what they exploit.) Sincere change of heart is how to get acceptance back, and it’s not hard to get for those who choose to leave for real. Click through for three excellent threads:

I used to low-key subscribe to white nationalist views, back in my early 20s. Not going to make excuses for it, I should have known better.

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) April 20, 2017

What's important to getting people out of shitty ideologies like that is the knowledge that they CAN go back. They CAN rejoin society.

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) April 21, 2017

Hey furries, I've been doing a lot of serious, heavy-going takes for a while. Here's a change of pace:

THE FURRY FANDOM IS FUCKING AWESOME

— Vex the Scarewolf (@andreuswolf) May 19, 2017

When you hear a complaint about politics in fandom, point out that it is politics. It’s as likely to undermine as to reduce conflict. It’s merely a thought-terminating cliche when everyone does politics sometimes.  And you don’t have to listen to everyone because some things aren’t debatable.  Don’t waste time on bad faith and discredited falsehoods, or half-baked oppositionalism that stands for nothing but freedom to be selfish at best.  There aren’t “two sides” with parasitic, two-faced trolls who pretend to want an “alternative” without creating anything, who take advantage of the one great fandom. There already is a group for the acceptance they pretend should extend to haters; the basic entry requirement is just getting along with others. It’s something so basic you learn it in kindergarten. Or maybe as soon as people evolve beyond fish.

The best response is: Don’t look for middle ground where there is none.  Just have a spine and stand for something better.

pic.twitter.com/3MKl83ucB7

— Werewolf Chewtoy -;) (@XydexxUnicorn) April 16, 2017

Update. “check it out guys, I found a living example of why @DogpatchPress‘s article about “apolitical furry” is so accurate!”

“People who are fine with Nazis when it’s “just talk” aren’t going to do anything to oppose them when it becomes more than just talk.”

“How to find nazis: 1) Post “fuck nazis” 2) watch for the “don’t call people you disagree with nazis!” comments 3) You found the nazis.”

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.