furry food for thought

Fred's stories

'Sing' first teaser trailer

Tue 16 Feb 2016 - 12:29

Here is the first teaser trailer for Illumination Entertainment’s Sing, from the studio that brought us two (so far) Despicable Me features and one (so far) Minions feature, and that is going to bring us The Secret Life of Pets.

Despicable Me, Minions, and The Secret Life of Pets are all set in the human world. Sing takes place in a totally anthro world, like Disney's Zootopia. Are any of us planning theater parties, like there are to see Zootopia, when Sing comes out on December 21, 2016?

18 comment(s) – read more

2015 Ursa Major Awards: Only two weeks left to nominate

Mon 15 Feb 2016 - 11:06

Have you nominated your choices for the 2015 Ursa Major Awards, for the best new anthropomorphic releases of 2015 in eleven categories? Nominations close on February 29, in only two weeks.

The categories are Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture, Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series, and so on for Novel, Short Fiction, Other Literary Work (anthologies, collections, non-fiction and art books), Graphic Story, Comic Strip, Magazines, Published Illustration, Game and Website. Works first published or released during the 2015 calendar year are eligible. You may make up to five nominations in each category.

Nominations opened on January 14 (the first day of Further Confusion 2016) and have been going on for a month. The nominations will be tallied between March 1 and March 14. The final ballot, consisting of the five titles in each category that receive the most nominations, will be announced on March 15, and voting will take place until April 30. All those who send in nominations will be registered as eligible to vote on the final ballot. Those who did not nominate but wish to vote on the final ballot may register to do so.

8 comment(s) – read more

'The Little Prince' fox plush doll

Thu 4 Feb 2016 - 05:10

The French 2015 animated feature of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince will be released in America by Paramount on March 16, 2016. Its associated merchandising includes a plushie of the book and film’s talking fox.

The illustrated announcements on Amazon.com imply that the plush fox is poseable. One shows it standing on two feet next to the film’s Little Girl. Another shows it on all four feet.

The latter is priced $80.00 marked down to $19.99. The former is $14.99, and the order is for both figures. A foreign imported fox, clearly a different plushie, is currently unavailable and unpriced.

If you want a plushie of a talking fox (but how will you know it’s supposed to be of a talking fox?), here you go.

3 comment(s) – read more

Two more anthropomorphic animated features

Wed 27 Jan 2016 - 00:10

The Cartoon Brew website has just announced two new animated features with anthropomorphic animals coming later this year.

Last year’s Japanese cartoon animation The Boy and the Beast (Bakemono no Ko), directed by Mamoru Hosoda, will be released on March 4 “in selected theatres” by Funimation, in both subtitled and dubbed versions. It’s about a Japanese homeless boy, Kyuta, who goes into “the beast world” and becomes the apprentice of Kumatetsu (“Iron Bear”), a martial arts warrior. Tickets will go on sale on the Funimation site on February 5. The Cartoon Brew announcement includes the new American theatrical poster.

3 comment(s) – read more

Review: 'Monster Hunt'

Sat 23 Jan 2016 - 16:15

I originally intended to add this review as a comment to the story that I remembered, but when I looked for the story, I couldn’t find it anyplace! It must have been on one of the animation websites. Monster Hunt, a 2015 Chinese animated feature, does not have any anthropomorphic animals, but it is full of anthropomorphic monsters.

Since this apparently hasn’t been on Flayrah before, here’s the background: Monster Hunt (Zhuo Yao Ji in Mandarin Chinese), is 111 minutes and directed by Raman Hui, the Hong Kong-born co-director of Shrek the Third and several animated shorts or TV series for DreamWorks Animation. It was released throughout China on July 16, 2015, a Thursday. It grossed 172 million yuan ($27,700,000) on its first day of release, and $72,000,000 by Saturday. That’s not only very, very good, it’s a world record. American theatrical distributors who had been ignoring it scrambled to license the American rights, dub it (the Chinese producer had already subtitled it), and get it into American theaters.

The American release in 3D was yesterday. My sister took me in my wheelchair to see the dubbed version at a theater in Burbank, California.

1 comment(s) – read more

Tunturu

Tue 19 Jan 2016 - 07:43

For the record, funny animals in Kannada (that’s Kannada the language, not Canada the country) can be found in Tunturu, a children’s magazine published since January 2000, originally bi-monthly but semi-monthly today.

Tunturu has been able to carve for itself an identity of being the most sought-after children’s magazine across the age-groups of 5-14 in Karnataka.

If you don’t know where Karnataka is, you can look it up. Reportedly an English-language edition is coming soon.

It’s ₹8 an issue, but you can subscribe to it in America for $5.99 for three months.

And that's probably more about funny animals in Kannada than you want to know.

2015 Recommended Reading List closed

Sat 16 Jan 2016 - 03:48

Ursa Major Awards banner by EosFoxx The 2015 Recommended Anthropomorphic Reading List is now closed.

Many nominations for the 2015 Ursa Major Awards are likely to come from the 2015 Recommended Anthropomorphic Reading List, which has been built up through prior recommendations. The awards are selected by a two-stage process of nominating and voting. Members of the public send in up to five nominations in each of the eleven categories. The top five nominees in each category (more in case of a tie) are then presented on a final ballot for a public vote. Inclusion on the List is not necessary for nomination if a work is otherwise eligible; first published during January to December 2015.

Nominations take place between January 14 (the first day of Further Confusion 2016) and February 29. The nominations will be tallied between March 1 and March 14. The final ballot will be announced on March 15, and voting will take place until April 30. All those who send in nominations will be registered as eligible to vote on the final ballot. Those who did not nominate but wish to vote on the final ballot may register to do so.

The voting will be counted, the winners’ trophies prepared, and the results will be announced at the Ursa Major awards presentation at a ceremony at What the Fur 2016, at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, Pointe-Claire, Montreal Airport, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on May 20-22.

The Ursa Major Awards and Recommended List are administered by the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA). For information, and to nominate beginning on January 14 and to vote beginning on March 15, go to http://www.ursamajorawards.org/.

1 comment(s) – read more

'Furry Fandom Conventions' needs information

Thu 14 Jan 2016 - 16:29

Fred Patten says:

This is a last call for information about furry conventions. For the past two years, I have been compiling a history of all furry conventions throughout the world from 1989 through the end of 2015. My book, Furry Fandom Conventions, has been accepted by an academic publisher, McFarland. It covers 113 furry conventions in North and South America, Asia, Australasia and Europe. The manuscript is currently up to 278 pages. My deadline for finishing is March 1, 2016.

Most of my missing information is for details that happened at the conventions, such as attendance totals, the number of fursuiters in the Fursuit Parade, or the amount of the charity donation; therefore what was published in the conbook before the convention is of no help. Many convention committees have given full information, but others have not answered at all. I suspect that some lack of replies are due to my requests going to a minor committee member who is not answering or passing them on to the chair. So a public announcement might reach a chairperson or another committee member who wants their convention represented in my book with all questions answered.

Also, I am trying to get at least one illustration for each convention — art such as website logos, conbook covers, posters, illustrated membership badges, illustrated hotel room keys; whatever a committee wants to submit. McFarland says that none of the illustrations on the Internet are of high enough resolution for book publication, so I cannot just framegrab an illustration from the Internet. They need a high resolution electronic file of 300 DPI or better.

1 comment(s) – read more

'Cats and More Cats' anthology to launch at Further Confusion 2016

Wed 13 Jan 2016 - 23:42

Cats and More Cats; Feline Fantasy Fiction, edited by Fred Patten, is launching at Further Confusion 2016 in San Jose, California over the January 14-18 five-day weekend. The book can be pre-ordered online from FurPlanet Productions. It will be for sale on the FurPlanet online catalogue afterwards.

Cats and More Cats is a reprint anthology of 14 short stories and novelettes of feline fantasy fiction (“the best of the best”) from 1989 to the present, most of them out-of-print today, plus a new essay and an extensive bibliography of cat fantasy books. This is designed to appeal to both science fiction and fantasy fans, and all cat-lovers.

FurPlanet Publications, $19.95 (261 pages). Wraparound cover by Donryu. ISBN 978-1-61450-297-5

13 comment(s) – read more

Insult the king's dog, go to jail

Thu 17 Dec 2015 - 05:44

I don’t pretend to know what this Thai film, Khun Tongdaeng: The Inspiration, is about, but it’s partly animated, it’s partly anthropomorphic, and it shows Thai King Bhumibol Aduyadej’s pet dog, Tongdaeng (Copper), as a canine superheroine.

Thailand has the strictest laws against lese majeste (insulting the king) in the world, which have been interpreted to prohibit any news criticism of the king’s government. Recently Thanakorn Siripaiboon, a 27-year-old man, was arrested on charges of violating those laws for possibly insulting the king’s dog by posting a “sarcastic” photograph of her on Facebook. The 88-year-old king is in a wheelchair, and in the photo it looks like the happily-panting dog is pulling the wheelchair. Siripaiboon’s lawyer says that the charge is ridiculous for several reasons, including an absurd stretching of the laws against insulting the king.

Here is a trailer for Khun Tongdaeng: The Inspiration. Nothing wrong here; this is approved by the Thai government. The movie, a live-action/animated adaptation of a book about Tongdaeng written by the king, is #2 on Thai box office charts at the moment.

Tongdaeng was a stray rescued by King Bhumibol Aduyadej in the late 1990s, so she must be at least 16 years old today. She doesn’t look it.

3 comment(s) – read more