Another artist we ran into at WonderCon this year calls themselves Thousand Skies. Simply put: Their products are adorable. They’ve got stickers, enamel pins, plushies, fashion accessories, even squeaky toys for your pets… Corgis, ducklings, red pandas, tiger cubs, whatever is cute and rounded it’s their specialty. Take a look at their web site and you’ll immediately find just their most recent offerings — with much more to be found if you dig.

Image c. 2024 by Thousand Skies

Does this sound familiar?

Pixar's newest movie is a woman-directed, coming-of-age film where a red-headed daughter finds herself rebelling against an overbearing mother during the course of an adventure involving human-to-animal transformation of a bear-like nature; that worked out so well for all involved last time.

Let's see: they replaced Brenda Chapman half-way through production, and her career still hasn't recovered; the movie was the first non-Cars Pixar movie to not reach a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes; and, most importantly, readers didn't like my review of it very much. Seriously, the best thing to come out of Brave was the line "She's from the other studio." in Ralph Breaks the Internet, which unfortunately was the best thing to come out of Ralph Breaks the Internet.

And now for something quite a bit different… A popular and award-winning anime series takes on a classic of European fantasy with Aggretsuko: Down The Rabbit Hole. “When Retsuko attempts to go on vacation with Gori and Washimi, she’s pulled into a terrible world where she’s forced to work for her freedom. Featuring all of the fan favorite characters from the office in twisted versions of themselves, Aggretsuko must navigate the twists and turns of a world gone mad!” Written and illustrated by Patabot, this new hardcover graphic novel from the folks at Oni Press hits the shelves this October.

image c. 2021 Oni Press

Disney announced some furry bait titles coming to a screen near you in 2022. One is Turning Red, a movie about a girl who is cursed to transform into a red panda when she becomes too excited. Along with this is a new animated series around the 2016 movie Zootopia, called Zootopia+, which was covered in Rod O’Riley’s In-Fur-Nation. It seems to be set up as a slice of life, reality format that will follow the lives of side characters.

But for Nick’s partner in crime, their voice may be missing from any side cast shenanigans. After showing symptoms for COVID-19, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister passed on. The wrestler had many roles in show business. They wrestled Hulk Hogan and were featured on Star Trek, but most furries would know them as the voice of the diminutive fox with an attitude that will “bite your face off.”

It seems 2022 can’t get here fast enough, and not just for the sake of furry films.

Aggretsuko has launched its second season on Netflix. The first season won an Ursa Major, and the show has become a hit among the fandom with its theme of worklife in the modern era. Will the second season be able to retain its title?

In short, I personally found the second season to be a bit tamer than the first as far as content goes. The red panda, Retsuko, seems to have adapted more to her stresses in life and the duality of her underlying rage seems to have been numbed a bit. When she did do a scream-fest, it seemed more forced and circumstantial than prepared and thought out. It also looks to be that the season focuses on the social obligations outside the workplace this season. Items such as friendship, family, and the future of Retsuko’s life outside of work seem to be the focus of her stresses.

Given this, those that like the first season may have differing feelings of the direction of this one. My thoughts are a bit complicated. I think the first season was far punchier and excellently paced, whereas the second had good moments but also some questionable decisions on character usage.

Spoilers ahead.

Yes, there certainly is a wide variety of stuff we come across in Furry Fandom. Things like… Forest of Love. It’s a new on-line game of a decidedly Adults-Only nature, currently being developed by Carrot and Vixel. A young raccoon fella, new in the forest, gets to meet all the neighbors… and find out just what they’re into… Visit their web site to try the demo game, find out how to join their Patreon, and check out other ways to get involved. They even have an available option to code your own custom character into the game!

image c. 2019 theforestoflove.com

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get a feeling this year’s furry content is coordinating their themes. It’s always interesting when common threads start to show up near each other, especially when they were not intentional. I remember when Fred Patten’s anthology Furry Future was thought to have had prejudice as a subtheme by a non-furry reviewer. It might have seemed odd that all but one story in the anthology touched on the idea of social inequities without coaxing from the collection editor, but it was just coincidence that the writers felt like writing stories about that theme at the time.

It is surely strange coincidence that just after I played a game with a deeply ingrained theme of a protagonist diving head first into responsibilities to the point of self-detriment that there is an anime playing off this same subject released onto Netflix. However, unlike Yet Another Research Dog, which was a highly niche affair that probably only I had played of those I know, Aggretsuko was already slaying the fandom by the time I had gotten around to hitting the play button.

So what is all the hub about and is it worth the hype?

New Zealand furry fan Colin Palmer died unexpectedly on November 15, aged 39. He is survived by his partner, Nipper.

Colin maintained several furry websites, including furry.org.nz and the NZfurry mailing list, and (as Nicol Firefox) furry image and story archive Cub Central. He featured prominently in media coverage as a New Zealand fursuiter, provided hosting and IT support for FurcoNZ, and participated in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Colin received a BSc in Computer Science from the Victoria University of Wellington in 1997, and worked for over twelve years as a systems programmer and Linux server administrator for the University of Waikato; in March 2013 he moved to Mako Networks.

Colin's funeral will be at 3PM on Thursday 27 November at the chapel of Morrison Funeral Directors at 220 Universal Drive, Henderson, Auckland. A memorial for friends and family will be held 29 November in the Wellington area.

Update (21 Mar): The website Colin founded, Cub Central, is set to close after his death.

How would you like to appear as a red panda character on Skype, Twitch, or other services that use a web cam? That’s the idea behind FaceRig, a new program under development at Holotech Studios which allows anyone with a web cam to appear as an animated character. In addition to the red panda, the current characters available include a leathery demon, an anime girl, and a beefy human soldier — but they have plans to add more characters as the program is developed further. It all works through cutting-edge face-tracking technology that the developers have created. Check out the demo video over on YouTube. Meanwhile the developers have an IndieGoGo campaign started up to help them get the venture capital they need to bring this program out on the market.

image c. 2013 Holotech Studios

The Mozilla Foundation has adopted two baby red pandas, a move intended to highlight the species' threatened status.

The red pandas, or firefoxes, were born at the Knoxville zoo in Tenessee and can be observed 24 hours a day through a dedicated webcam. The cubs also have a Twitter feed. They are currently unnamed, but you can submit name suggestions.

Two rare Red Panda cubs have gone on show at Bristol Zoo Gardens in eastern England after spending the first four months of their lives hidden away in a nesting box with their mother.

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The deaths of two Red Pandas is being investigated at the National Zoo, with rat poison coming under suspicion. Three zoo-keepers who entered the exhibit also fell ill after removing the pair, aged 5 1/2 and 7 1/2, from their exhibit.