March 2008
Comic review: A Doemain of Our Own
Posted by The Chained Wolf on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Welcome to the first of what I personally hope will become a series of comic reviews. When I say "comic", I mean comic and webcomic strips, not comedians. After all, there is only really one comedian in the furry fandom that I am aware of and I have already made clear my dislike of this particular ranting moron in previous issues of The Furtean Times.
The first strip I am reviewing is A Doemain of Our Own. Last year, the first collection of strips printed in "dead tree format" entitled simply A Doemain of Our Own: Volume 1, consisting of strips between 1999 and July 2002 won the Ursa Major Award for "Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work", beating other respected webcomics such as Ozy and Millie and Gene Catlow. The second collection of strips titled Shift Happens, with strips between August 2002 and mid-November 2005, will no doubt be one of the favourites for the award this year as well.
Finding fursonas
Posted by Anon on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00One of my favourite topics to discuss amongst other furries is that of fursonas. I find that for most furries, the choice is immediate when they enter the fandom - an instinctual choice that is put in place at the beginning and rarely undergoes change. It seems to me that it's my fellow furry artists that have the harder time. With pressures to stand out, be original and make a name for ones self often results in constant redesigns, multiple fursonas, frustration and accusations of copy-cat 'sonas.
My personal fursona has had many an incarnation; certain elements remaining static, while others pull complete 180's. One may ask why I am a good candidate to discuss fursonas then, and my answer is simple. Although my fursona's changed a lot since it's beginning, right now I believe I've come to achieve a something that so many strive for - a fursona that's one of a kind, visually interesting and an accurate depiction of my personality.
Life on the furry front line
Posted by Anon on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00A boy is considered strange, atypical, and is thus distanced from humanity. This boy finds himself up against a wall at knife point of a disgruntled peer. This young peer brandishes his blade and thrusts it wildly in intimidation. The boy responds to this intimidation and willingly withdraws from the junior society. This secluded safety allows him to uncover places and things unknown to him. The boy is amazed and the sky opens up. The world is his and his is shared.
Years later this boy, now a man, comes across the same peer, now a man as well. The peer from so long ago now brandishes an even bigger knife and is just as disgruntled. The peer once again starts to back the man against the wall and thrust his blade, but the man is unharmed. The man is happy and proud in his life and lifestyle! He walks right past the dagger and it's keeper smiling! The peer now has to go find another person to corner, and that new person may have a knife as well.
Hemms is a proud furry from America who's rather fond of freedom of expression and the Furry Guru series.
Furry guru
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00T.D. Wolf: Hello Tori this is T.D. Wolf your polythiest fur dude. I first off want to thank the trolls, that's right, THANK the trolls. It was them in the beginning that had made the furry population so popular for even though their advertisement of us is bad it allowed the intelligent ones to actually look up of what the fandom is. If it wasn't for them many of us would of stayed in hiding instead of took step and stood up for what we believe in. They complained saying that we shouldn't be out here spreading the word when in fact they themselves our the reason we stand out. Our population has been growing and its thanks to them and their prejudice. I may have just stated the obvious but its one more thing we can laugh about.
Tori: Indeed it is true that all the bad attention the furry fandom gets can have positive effects! Not only does it give us something to all have a titter at (like the infamous CSI episode), but it has created a good number of good and bad furs! There are the bad, that will see the shows and go "Hey, sex in animal costumes! Kinky!" and start going around calling themselves a fur without knowing what it's really about; the more intelligent ones will see the episode and look it up on such handy resources as Wikipedia and wiseGeek. Trollers themselves are a world of contradiction and hypocrisy, but that's just more to joke about!
Interview with Shirik Draguinea
Posted by Anon on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Hi, Noodles Husky here, you might remember me from the fur fandom, well this is my first time interviewing a lucky furry on IMVU. You can call me freelance, crazy, cute, faggy, I don't really care what the chaff (or chav) says and I'm not good at introductions, so, here it is, the interview!
Shirik Draguinea is a UKFur.org moderator and ex-organiser of the WelshFur furmeets and events.
Mediaphile for January-March 2008
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00A whole bunch of media links from this quarter!
Channel 4 documentary
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Convention news for 1Q 2008
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Recent news from conventions near and far.
Yiff!: the musical, Ursa Major Awards and the passing of Steve Gerber
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Yiff!, the new British musical hoping to take London for a fuzzy whirlwind ride has updated it's cast and crew last January for it's latest showcase reading at the Kingshead Theatre. New characters include Samba - a lion cub, ishi_qweek - a dolphin, and Robodog who's... well, a robot dog. New songs range from the mundane to the rude ("The Ultimate Yiff" a good example.) Videos of both stage readings to date can be found on Tim Saward's YouTube channel. yiff.org.uk
Ursa Major Awards
The Ursa Major Awards - an annual award given for work in the anthropomorphic fandoms - has opened for final voting to decide the 2007 winners! Those up to grab the award include mass media and fandom regulars fighting side by side. Those to look out for include Ratatouille, Doctor Who, Blotch, Lackadaisy, Newshounds and Ozy & Millie.
Steve Gerber
Steven Ross Gerber, the legendary Marvel comic writer best known for creating Howard the Duck and more recently Stewart the Rat, has passed away in hospital while awaiting a transplant for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Sources say he continued to work until he died on February 10th, 2008 - aged 60.
Furtopia hacked
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Free furry web-hosting group Furtopia has been hacked and "destroyed" according to the website's administration. The website purportedly fell into the hands of splinter group LOLfurries, whose website was later suspended and reinstated by it's host a few days later. The forums were the only area of the website affected, the hosting remained unharmed.
Yiffy.tk launch new image board
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Yiffy.tk, one of the furry fandom's largest web portals and databases, has launched a new furry-orientated image board. Named Ychan, this mature-art only image board attempts to take on the giant that is fchan - either that or it hopes to replace the Yiff Image Board, which closed in February 2007.
FA, fchan and e621 attacked
Posted by Alexander Grey on Sun 23 Mar 2008 - 12:00Furry art communities Fur Affinity, fchan and E621 all went offline just prior to Christmas following an early morning distributed denial of service attack (commonly called a DDoS) against the three websites. Fur Affinity was back online by the evening of the same day, fchan was running with degraded functionality for roughly 24 hours and E621 was back online a few days later. The source of the attacks remains unknown.