Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

Since the dawn of times, men and women have worshipped, hunted, admired, envied, adored and hated animals. We ate them, worked with them, lived with them and even went to war with them.

It's no wonder why animals have been used on all kinds of artistical manifestations, from narrative to painting, from sculpture to architecture, from poetry to epics. In popular culture, animals have a preponderant role, like Aesop's animals, or Jonathan Swift's "houyhnhnms", those fabulous talking horses Gulliver finds on his travels; or even the absurd creatures Lewis Carroll's Alice finds on her trip to Wonderland.

In more recent times, animals have entertained us on newspaper strips, comic books, the theatre screen or the TV set. And they have been so succesful that they have their own denomination, funny animals, a sub-genre of comedy featured by talking animals, and featured funny stories with preponderance of slapstick humor.

However, the potential of animals as actors is far beyond entertaining children. Animals have an unmatchable ability to represent some aspects of our souls, and they also have a strong symbolism when used properly. When portrayed competently, anthropomorphized animals can reflect aspects of our souls like no other element on literature, and their usage can overpass the slight prejudices we all have within ourselves.

Is there room for an anthropomorphics (sub)genre, featuring such humanized animals, a step beyond the usual slapstick-esque comedy for children?

In my opinion, we were pretty close to have such a genre, but the furry fandom killed it, or at least, it is retarding its growth, and its influence will be harmful for many more years.

The usage of talking animals to express deeper issues than the average slapstick stories was introduced in the late 60s by Robert Crumb and his hedonistic "Fritz the Cat", a comic strip series that aligned on the contestatary underground movement of the time.

Crumb wasn't fond of "funny animals" in particular; instead, he used icons of popular culture with satirical purposes. Talking animals have been present on Western popular culture since last decades of the XIXth century, so they were an obvious target for Crumb's iconoclast pen.

During the late years of the underground movement, a few more comics poked fun from Disney's "talking animals" (lawsuit ensued), and although it portrayed Disney's funny animals making sex and smoking weed among many other raunchy things, the authors' purpose was to show make fun of them and deconstruct the genre. Nevertheless, those comics paved the way to the appearance of Art Spiegelman's "Maus", a superb essay about the relationship of the artist with own father, Vladek, mixed with the history Vladek had to live as a Jew on the Nazi-occupied Poland, narrated in comic-book format and starred by talking animals.

Spiegelman's comic started a new field on which anthropomorphic characters would narrate deep and complex histories as versatile vehicles of communication, leaving behind their usual role as children's literature. During the 80s, hundreds of independient authors repeated the formula on comics, from the insanely successful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the subtly ironical Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai (still in production) and the beautifully complex Albedo, by Steven Galacci.

Comics like Albedo were aimed to adults, not because of their pornographic nature, but because of their intrincated philosophy and complexity. However, the main character, Erma Felna, was created to -look- seductive and sexy, and Galacci added some sensuality within the comic's plot. This is probably one of the first times than a creator deliberately tried to make a sexy anthropomoprhized animal to appeal his audience.

It's in those times when the Internet evolves from an investigation network to a geeky community, shortly before it became in the mass media-like giant it is now. Back in the early 90s, Albedo's comic had a small following with administration privileges on some server connected to Fidonet (or was it Usenet?), so they decided to start a group called alt.fan.albedo, that would become later "alt.fan.furry". It's the beginning of the furry fandom, a group of fans originally gathered around the "anthropomorphics" concept. Note that in this early message, the author, an "Amateur Funny Animal Artist Dude", is already talking about a genre.

The sensuality present in some of those characters, like Edna Zelna, star of Albedo, made early artists start to experiment with erotic themes featuring anthropomorphic characters, but in those early times, that was the exception rather than the rule, as the artists were more focused on other qualities of their characters. Back by then, the "anthropomorphic" genre was seen as an specialization of something as mundane and habitual as funny animals.

However, some of the early "furry fans" wanted to go beyond "watching cartoons" and tried to transform "furry fandom" into something else. Some saw furry fandom as a haven from sanity, some others thought it was the ideal place to share "cartoon erotica"... and there was the odball who tried to sculpt furry fandom to their own will, and transform it into, let's say, a gay-related fandom.

By 1997-98, furry fandom was plenty with people who thought they were animals incarnated on the wrong body, people who drew not only pornographic pictures of talking animals, but vorephilic pictures of talking animals, pedophilic pictures of talking animals, zoophilic pictures of talking animals and so on. And, of course, that attracted people to the fandom who weren't so interested on the "talking animal" part but on the particle before: vorephiles, zoophiles, pedophiles and so on. The situation was totally out of control, and since furries still claimed (and still claim!) that "everything featuring talking animals" is furry by definition, the new, growing genre that featured such nice comics and literature was immediately identified with those depravations and many doors were closed for good.

Some artists saw their careers severed by their afiliation to the fandom. And many others have decided to leave the genre before was too late and the stigma of being a "furry artist" reaches them. The "Anthropomorphics" genre is scarce on professional-level artists willing to push the premises that made comics like Albedo or Maus recognized worldwide. Some attempts to clean the fandom from the inside have failed, like the infamous case of the Burned Furs, a clear example of how a good initiative is spoiled by the insanity of a few.

The "anthropomorphics" genre has been embraced by "furry fandom" and has soaked it with the awful reputation the fandom has created with time.

A damn shame, because I loved drawing my funny animals since I was a little kid, and would have loved it if they have had a bigger ground to grow than a bunch of people believing THEY are the characters I draw, or those drooling at them and requesting me for nude pictures of them. Things have gone horribly wrong, and they won't look any better for years to come.

(bonus link: a thread from 1991 gets messed with another from 2002! Note the slight change on contents. :)

Shmorky · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 182

I've tried and failed miserably to make serious funny animal comics, but it all looked too furry to me. That's why Purple Pussy is my only anthropomorphic comic now. Those characters are at least drawn in a way that doesn't even suggest they have genitals, plus it's more funny than it is serious.
Lizard had this problem. The characters were supposed to be like human beings that just "looked different." Unfortunately I'm not a very good writer, so it just turned out really stupid and I made every story in my season two strips a funny/goofy one. That still couldn't save the strip so I quit making it. I feel bad for the genuine non-furry fans of Lizard, but I'm sure they understand too. You just can't make an anthropomorphic comic anymore without it being compared to furries of today.

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

I've tried and failed miserably to make serious funny animal comics, but it all looked too furry to me.

<...>

I feel bad for the genuine non-furry fans of Lizard, but I'm sure they understand too.

You just can't make an anthropomorphic comic anymore without it being compared to furries of today.

First thing what do you mean 'looked furry'? That sounds more like a looking-glass-self than anything. In reality it doesnt work that way.

Why only non-furry fans on lizard. I identified with furry fandom because I tend to like funny animals..and similiarly thats why most furries like funny animal comics...so why are you drawing a line between your readers like that, when it really only exists a fraction of the time? (i personally did not like Lizard that much either though)

And then finally what difference does it make if you get compared to furries? Who's doing a comparison, and why would thier input and opinion carry any weight at all? Anyon could say anything at all. The fact that people would even make a comparision to a group that no one can seem to define is ridiculous in an of itself. The big picture is that furry fandom is a focus. nothing more. Some people went way over the edge with it. Lets not blow this up into something that its not.

Shmorky · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 182

You just can't make an anthropomorphic comic anymore without it being compared to furries of today.

First thing what do you mean 'looked furry'?
okay.

I guess what I mean is I can't do serious funny animal comics well.

When I talk about furry I mean horrible crap. Also, if it has a dick or tits or both it's furry. That's how I feel anyway. Jeez, I didn't mean to derail this thread so badly.

Charisma · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 158

yeah it was indeed around the 1890s that anthropomorphic creatures became popular to the masses, and Rupert the Bear first appeared in a London news paper cartoon around about then too.
Lets not forget that its not at all a new concept at all though. With greek and egyptian mythology illustrations and painted vases etc, depicting them as gods.

i have both the Fritz the Cat movies (are there any more? i dont know) and I found them entertaining because theyre so different and shocking so the usual adult cartoon.

Anthros/furries are everywhere now, and I have never come accross any bad press against them except from on the net. For example, I'm playing a game called Beyond Good and Evil at the moment and most of the characters in the game are furries. The game didnt suffer sales because there were furries in it, neither did it use the fact as a selling point of put any of these characters on the box cover.

I dont think furries in comics/books/games/cartoons make the product suffer at all. I dont even know anyone in RL whos even seen furry porn in their lives.

Shmeckopolis · Coadjutor Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 103

Personally I've always enjoyed cartoonish anthros (mostly from my love of the Disney Afternoon shows, which I still enjoy via Toon Disney's reruns), which is another reason I hate the furry community; it's spat on a drawing style I really like. And not just some dirty pictures (e.g. Hentai), but a whole perverse community based from it, devolving it and themselves.

Thankfully, though, they haven't devolved the style so much that the popular association with cartoon anthros is a guilty-by-association link to furries.

That's a nice lil' biography, Estrugo, though anthros aren't completely damned yet, just revered by a bunch of dregs to society. Like a perverted version of the Church of Tom Jones (yes, that is real).

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

(Just a quick note to say I've corrected and enlarged the original post)

eatenmyeyes · Recusant Joined: 23 Jan 2004 Posts: 18

(Just a quick note to say I've corrected and enlarged the original post)

Well done. I find it comparable to Doodles' short history. It is as it was.

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

(Just a quick note to say I've corrected and enlarged the original post)

Well done. I find it comparable to Doodles' short history. It is as it was.

Oooh. Thanks for pointing it out. I wasn't aware of Doodles' article until now. :)

Paul · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 138

Good article, m_estrugo. I think you have summed up perfectly what went wrong with "furry fandom".

I humbly beg to differ on the depressing conclusion, though - as I've written before in another thread, most people who make "anthro" art aren't furries, and most people who enjoy such art aren't furries, either. I think Charisma is right; the vast majority of people who watch cartoons or play Sonic the Hedgehog games have no idea that there's such a thing as furry fandom or furry porn. It's annoying how the furries appropriate the material and claim that "Maus" is "furry", or make their pathetic Fifi La Fume wank "art", but still, they're a tiny minority. The internet has merely made it possible for them to hook up and claim importance. It would be a shame for anyone who loves to draw animal characters to quit doing that just because the furries have run amok. Ignore the bastards; there are many good animal comics out there that have got nothing to do with "furry". (Some of my personal favourites: Blacksad, Chaminou, Donjon, Lapinot)

(PS: Charisma, just so you know - there are only those two Fritz the Cat films.)

Charisma · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 158

I wouldn't go as far to say that something classed as 'furry' instead of just normal funny cartoon animal stuff is always bad though.
There are some great and fun communities out there with tons of imagination...but at times the world of furry on the net can destroy imagination. You just have to get the balance right. I think I'll stay away from furry art for a while as I dont want to become one of those 'artists' that just draw a character with a white background. I need something more.

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

Here is a post and my response on Furcentral.net to a similar vein:

Fact is: "people" don't hate Furries. The vast majority don't know that such a thing exists, and even if they do, they don't really care unless they have an interest in it themselves. How many folks saw that CSI episode, and knowing that it's pure fiction, thought that "PAFCON" was purely the product of the script writer's imagination (if they even thought about it at all)?

However, the sad truth of the matter is that there are all too many people out there who can feel good about themselves only if they can look down their noses at others. I found one anti-Fur hate site whose founder claims: "...the sad reality of the defeated, pathetic and flat-out unhealthy 'lifestyles' practiced by the majority of furries." The majority of Furries?(!) Does that remind you of any of the Furries you personally know? (One of my favorite Fur sites was founded by a 16 year old kid. This individual: runs his own business (software), admins four other websites, gets mostly A's, with a few B's at school, still has time for a non-Furry social life. His assistant admin is 15, and yet has a good deal more maturity than some "mundanes" I personally know who are twice that age. )

Had the founder of this hate site been born 50 years earlier, we'd probably find him wrapped in white bed sheets and a hood at the foot of a flaming cross. These days, it's not "cool" -- or socially acceptable -- to hate others because of race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, and/or sexual orientation. However, the need for "inferiors" is still there. So they turn on Furries as a convenient target so that their major claim in life is: "I'm proud that I am not a Furrie".

Sad but true.

Some people prod at furries out of that sense.. needing to find someone to look down on. Most people, however, I'd dare say are simply put off by furries. They don't hate them.. they just don't like them. What many furries don't get.. not most.. but many... is that their behavior (talking about the real wack jobs here) earns the contempt of other people.

People are going to raise an eyebrow to anyone that uses a term like "furry" to identify themselves with their interest in something that is considered entertainment by most. Overall, furry could have had about the same level of derision and mockery as Trekkies or anime fanatics if they had been willing to keep the spooge to appropriate channels, rather than linking the two so closely. But, this has happened as a result of the people in the fandom, not the fandom itself. Furry has attracted so many people that want to parade the "darker" side of themselves that funny animals and fetishes have been forever linked in the minds of "mundanes."

A lot of the "anti" furries that are very vocal on the net are actually former furries, rather than "mudanes." Or, it might be more correct to say they used to be fans of anthropomorphics. But, a lot of people that weren't really furries, but found furry to be a haven for their interests, flocked under the umbrella. Zoophiles that didn't have much of an interest in Disney cartoons or Wyman's Xanadu found a place where they could talk about sex with animals and have other people pat them on the head and tell them that was part of the utopian future. People with all sorts of fetishes found a place where they could not only indulge them, but parade them in the public eye. People looking to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame found a place where their limited artistic skill would actually earn them a following by the simple fact that they were willing to draw Talespin's Baloo bending Kitt over his knee and cramming a watermelon into his rectum.

I'd dare speculate that a lot of people that have contributed the most to the downward spiral of furrydom really aren't into furries. They're simply into what furrydom has to offer them.

IceCat · Coadjutor Joined: 31 Oct 2003 Posts: 81

Yes I was the orignal "Dead Skunk" from way back when, It just seems the more things change, the more they stay the same, AFF is still a sewer of people who still live in denile, if not that then they just have'nt changed all that much over the years, and the comments I made then still apply today, I saw some of of this shit hapening back then, this was before the "Burned Furs" disaster. Oh well..
Nobody wanted to listen then, and it seems that outside of CYD, nobody want's to listen now.

Later

IceCat

Donotsue · Coadjutor Joined: 17 Jan 2004 Posts: 106

I confess... I confesss, Aaagh!

Purple Pussy kicks ass.. I wish I could make my stuff that crazy! =)

But....Guess I just haveta settle for my class-teacher and lame toon parodies... =)

M0us3_Zero · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 209

You see, I have to sort of clairify something here.

Furries are the new "pissed on" group. Because of that "10%" that causes 100% of the problems.

Anime Fans are becoming more accepted because it's becoming mainstream, and it's cleaning it's image fast. (The local anime convention started this year and had 3x as many expected attending.)

The unfortunate thing is, is that even normal "mainstream" furries will never be accepted into the whole because of the stereotype they have.

Enough of my rant. >.<

Shmeckopolis · Coadjutor Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 103

It's alot more than 10%, and while anime has its porn (Hentai), it doesn't have a community based around it. That, and Furry porn dives into sickening depths that Hentai hasn't even neared yet, and may never come close. That's good, though, because Hentai getting too deep and too public, like the furverts and their "art", may ruin this whole mainstraming of anime. Funny animals used to be mainstream, before Quozl and his ilk began stepping out of the basement.

M0us3_Zero · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 209

Of course, I don't look for the ugly stuff. Not my bag, so I might actually be semi-innocent. I know it's there, but I choose not to look.

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

That, and Furry porn dives into sickening depths that Hentai hasn't even neared yet, and may never come close.

Thats incorrect. In fact the ONLY thing I've seen in furry that seems to have no Anime/Hentai counterpart is the thing with the eggs (oviposition?)...thats about it.

Most of the fucked up fetishes you see in furry are coming from anime fan furries slapping animal heads and tails on plain ol' hentai.

Furry unbirthing fetish??

Why, anime fandom had that six years ago!

edit:

I think I mentioned before, one of the things I find most incredible about furry fandom is just how completely incompetant and impotent the whole scene is. it would really be great if original stuff came out of furry fandom but it so rarely does. Even some goofy fetish is a rip off. so sad.

Furry porn should be in 500 page hentai phone books by now just like the real hentai - but the fandoms too half assed even for that. Hentai has animated cartoons and games and whatnot ? Furry fandom will be doing shitty webcomics like Stalag 99 until at least 2024 AD at this rate

Shmeckopolis · Coadjutor Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 103

Didn't knwo that, but I don't look at Hentai, so no suprise I got it wrong. A buddy of mine collects hentai pics, so I know of what he gets and what I read about in Ecchi Attack. Though I don't know if vore shit is in any Hentai (though it may be inspired by Uziga).

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

Actually, most of the really nutty fetish furs I've seen don't even look at anime, so I don't think you can accuse hentai of inspiring furry weirdness. The folks were screwed up to begin with... some were drawn to anime, and some were drawn to furry. Sometimes there's a crossover, but not enough to blame furry fetishism directly on hentai. The only ones I've seen a link between are the whole tentacle thing.... which actually pre-dates anime/hentai (shunga prints depicting squids and octopi molesting women).... and maybe the amputee fetish thing. Other than that, I think the crossover is just coincidental, rather than one resulting in the other.

Michael Hirtes · Coadjutor Joined: 04 Aug 2003 Posts: 519

Yes I was the orignal "Dead Skunk" from way back when, It just seems the more things change, the more they stay the same, AFF is still a sewer of people who still live in denile, if not that then they just have'nt changed all that much over the years, and the comments I made then still apply today, I saw some of of this shit hapening back then, this was before the "Burned Furs" disaster. Oh well..
Nobody wanted to listen then, and it seems that outside of CYD, nobody want's to listen now.

Later

IceCat

All Hail Icecat, the first CYD-er! :)

M0us3_Zero · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 209

Zen, in my experience with geek social dynamics, I've learned there's no such thing as coincidence.

I've seen alot of anime fans get into furs through Anime and Manga. Of course, I've seen furs get into Anime and Manga just as easily. Must be because of all the funny animals.

Of course, not knowing the complete spectrum between "poseur" furs and the downright hardcore lifestylers, I may need to wallow through the miasma of furry culture to get a bead on the whole situation.

I based my opinion from experience, not hard fact, so my post may be sort of inadequate.

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

I'm just saying that I don't think anime hentai can be blamed for all of furry's fetishistic ills. I think it's more a case of parallel evolution.