Week of June 14, 2004 (Posted at 2004-06-13 12:45:03)
I'm delighted to announce that "Kevin & Kell" has won the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip. This award is the Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom's equivalent of s-f fandom's Hugo Awards, mystery fandom's Anthony Awards (of which my wife Teri has been nominated several times), horror fandom's Bram Stoker Awards, and so forth. The Ursa Majors are administered and presented by the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA), an organization dedicated to promoting anthropomorphic literature and arts both within and outside of the fandom. Its website is at http://www.ursamajorawards.org/.

The bad news? Well, I know things are tough all over. The past few years have been particularly harsh on "Kevin & Kell's" core audience in the tech field. We've seen drastic, marked decreases in support across the board, which is understandable in an uncertain economy. For those of you who have already contributed, or have preordered the next book collection, I thank you. You've already done your part. Now I'm deputizing you to find more people to become Kell's Angels and hopefully to also support the strip. Please spread the word! For those of you who haven't yet contributed, any kind of support, any amount, no matter how small, is sincerely appreciated.

I had my first chance to meet Trace Beaulieu at a Sheraton hotel in sunny Orlando, Florida. Dubbed the "PawPet Megaplex," the offbeat conference assembled puppeteers as well as professional and amateur mascots from Florida and from as far away as Great Britain and the West Coast of the U.S.

I'm definitely not screaming "FURRY IFIDEL!" and rejecting his strip or anything. I still view it as a non-furry anthropomorphic comic. And I won't fault anyone for milking furries for every cent they'll blindly shell out. I'm curious if anyone has similar or contrasting observations on Holbrook's apparent increasing involvement with furry fandom.

And suppose Bill Holbrook actually doesn't care about furry fandoms reputation. He goes to the cons all the time, I know that much. What if he becomes more of a 'furry' and doesnt even change his comic strip, you gonna suddenly pull the old "uhm...well...gee, I never really liked the strip that much anyway" just because you don't want to be caught looking at something that certain people might associate with furry fandom (even remotely)?

That's the sense I've gotten from his write-ups; he has a kind of gleefulness about the accolades he's received at Antrhocon and such. I'm sure he's aware of furrydom's underbelly, but maybe manages to stay removed from it enough to not care about it.

Holbrook is a business man, simple as that. He's done what few have, rung money out of the furry fandom.

He was invited to Memphis Furmeet and made a killing selling his books, so ever since he has been going back and I think he has even been to Anthrocon. Eitherway, because of that the Plan 9 people set up at pretty much every furry con out there.

Holbrook, shmolbrook, I'm more worried about Michel Gagne, who's already mentioned browsing Yerf somewhere on his site, and drew up flyers for at least one Anthrocon. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to get sucked up into the raging maelstrom of pathetic that is the furry fandom, and I don't foresee him doing hyperphallicbabyfurmacrovoreskunktaur commishions any time in the near or distant future, but still, it's pretty disconcerting.

Like others have pointed out above, some artists simply have some part of their audience among furries, and they treat them like they would any other fan: show up at book signings, make drawings for the fans, etc. I see no problem in that.

I don't know anything about Gagné,

but what I do know about Sakai says he is not even remotely connected to anything "furry"; he's just way too cool and laid-back for that. But heck, even if it did turn out that he drew skunkhermtaur porn under the pseudonym BASF, so what? It doesn't influence Usagi Yojimbo.

The furries that do bother me are those fucktards that can't keep their fucked-up-ness in private, and those artists that cater to said fucked-up-ness. I'm well aware that such a place as Anthrocon to a certain extent caters to these deluded dipwads, but that doesn't mean good artists like Sakai can't or shouldn't sell their books there.

Well, Stan Sakai has ties back to the early days, as do many artist who use cartoon animals a lot. Most of it goes back to Fantagraphics it seems.

There are also a bunch of spineless hack columnists out there that didn't feel like commending or even mentioning Usagi Yojimbo simply because it was a funny-animal comic, and also that it may have been 'furry'. Thats really the only mindset that I am defiantly, 110% against. I can't really understand it. If its good, its good, if it aint, it aint. And fuck public opinion. Its like some pussy DJ that will kiss ass on any band that sells records, and flip-flop on thier opinion depending on whats going on.

From what I've read on CYD and elsewhere, furry fandom basically started in the early 80s, with Steve Gallacci's Albedo as one of the focus points. Usagi Yojimbo debuted in Albedo no. 2, of course, but Sakai quickly moved on to Fantagraphics, and that company's only tie with the fandom seems to be the publication of some titles that may have had lots of furry buyers (apart from Usagi Yojimbo, mainly Critters). But Fantagraphics didn't seem to actually direct products toward furries in the way that, say, Radio Comix does. Kim Thompson, who edited all Fantagraphics' "animal" titles, very clearly wanted to do "funny animal" books, not "furry" books.

As it's been discussed before, most people who are interested in "anthropomorphics" aren't furries, they're just people who like to read a good story/watch a good cartoon or whatever, and if it happens to have animal characters in it, either that's just fine, or they might think it's an added little bonus because they like that idea. If some columnists won't write about a funny-animal comic because of the reputation of the furry fandom, that's just more proof how fucked-up the fandom has become.

BTW, speaking of Albedo - does anyone know what Gallacci's doing these days? I used to read Albedo, liked it a lot, but stopped buying it what with its increasingly erratic publishing schedule. Google searches only yield old hat info.

I'm more disturbed by the fact that Trace "Dr. Forrester of MST3K" Beaulieu was a GoH at a recent furry con.

There are certain rabid Pawpet fans who've become almost a secret police unto themselves in their own minds, ready to spread nastiness about any furs who dare to criticize Pawpet openly, doing their damndest to get such different thinkers ostracized.

Well, theres a couple things going on here. First, at that time period there was a less cohesive group. Fury would have been 'fans of anthropomorphics' Now furry...its still a fucking mess, but its 'there'. We are talking about social constructs here, not physical clubs. And what 'furry' is by thier own definitions is vague. I like cartoon animals/funny animals and I hang around furry fandom. Thats mainly because I don't give a fuck, and its going to take more than a large handful of perverts to scare me off.

Anyway, some of the people that contributed to Critters, were Steve Gallacci, Stan Sakai, J.P. Morgan, Mike Kazaleh - they were involved with furry fandom.

A new volume of Albedo (5, I think) is coming out thru Shanda soon...It might even be premeiring at Anthrocon. Gallacci wrote it, and I think Shawntae Howard drew it. Gallacci still posts to AFF occassionally and the Albedo Yahoo group. I think he is on Yerf as well.

There are certain rabid Pawpet fans who've become almost a secret police unto themselves in their own minds, ready to spread nastiness about any furs who dare to criticize Pawpet openly, doing their damndest to get such different thinkers ostracized. The Pawpet people if not actively contributing to this, do absolutely nothing to discourage this. I know more than one fur who's been essentially done-in socially by these deranged assholes.

There are certain rabid Pawpet fans who've become almost a secret police unto themselves in their own minds, ready to spread nastiness about any furs who dare to criticize Pawpet openly, doing their damndest to get such different thinkers ostracized. The Pawpet people if not actively contributing to this, do absolutely nothing to discourage this. I know more than one fur who's been essentially done-in socially by these deranged assholes.

Do you mean pawpet police do that to people who try to criticize pawpet... like in a "oh pawpet sucks"-type criticizing, or "try to lump pawpet in with nasty pervo furries"-type criticizing?