Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

Chalkdust · Recusant Joined: 16 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

So I just activated my account, and was thinking that I might make contributions. What upon? Why, not furries themselves (although I'm not eliminating that possibility entirely) but rather their creations: fiction, poetry, comics, music, drawings, etc. A while back I and some others had been planning a website similar to CYD called Hy00man.com, with a wider scope: fan fiction, furry, web comics, and any other bizarre practices cultivated solely by the internet. I had some articles on various comics written up, which I lost (the one on Sluggy Freelance was pretty good, sigh). But I remember enough about the one I did for Dave Kelly's Living in Greytown that I should be able to redo it.

I want to explore what exactly the furries are trying to express, and whether or not they really intend for others to understand it. I want to see if furries are truly capable of artistic expression, of deeper meaning, of something redeeming. I'm putting my mind on the line. If anybody has any suggestions for what I should be looking at, don't hesitate to tell me.

Some things I have set aside:
Gene Catlow
Jack
The Class Menagerie
Furry Music Archive

C|D

Computolio · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 349

Go right ahead!

RE: Living In Greytown- It'd be interesting to hear your take on Dave Kelly. He's one of those ambiguous folks who make their own rules and you can't tell whether he's a furry or not or something else entirely, etc. It's as if he aspires to become some sort of modern-day Robert Crumb.

Jack is also an interesting topic, because while it fails at just about everything it attempts, it does make an ever-increasing effort to break the "furry" mold.

-duncan

Chalkdust · Recusant Joined: 16 Jun 2003 Posts: 9

It'd be interesting to hear your take on Dave Kelly. He's one of those ambiguous folks who make their own rules and you can't tell whether he's a furry or not or something else entirely, etc. It's as if he aspires to become some sort of modern-day Robert Crumb.

Yes, he strikes me as trying to be the next Robert Crumb, but is trying too hard. He's taken things that Crumb did first and has attempted to amplify their edginess. As for whether or not he is a furry, I haven’t found anywhere he says for sure one way or the other. If one goes by his works, it’s fairly certain that he’s pro-furry, even if he doesn’t identify himself as one. That seems to be the message Kelly ham-handedly tries to hammer home in Greytown. When it bothers to tell a story, it’s of tolerance, by humans for furries, and not too much the other way around (I’m gonna have to go back and double-check that, but humans are by and large the EVIL PREJUDICED BLAH BLAH). Only problem is, this message gets lost, since roughly half the strip is about this struggle for civility. The other half is about a lesbian shitting her pants (an oversimplification, but well-grounded).

Another example re: his viewpoint comes from Dave’s now-defunct (so far as I know) otakufeh/Big Ones. In it, a group of thugs, led by a kid in a shirt reading “POE”, pummel somebody wearing a giant weasel outfit because he is presumed to be a furry. Meanwhile, at a Puma Middle School (HA HA GET IT PMS IT’S A JOKE LAUGH) basketball game, the cheerleaders wonder whatever happened to their mascot. Now, this all raises an interesting question: why is Puma Middle School’s mascot a giant weasel?
(Note: if anybody happened to save that strip, I would like it for my own collections. I believe it's dated 9/12/01. Somebody has their priorities a little out of whack. )

Conjecture: Maybe it was a furry after all, and the Puma Middle School situation is simply a non sequitur tacked onto the end of the strip to confuse the audience! I doubt it, though. This is the guy who draws Stile’s personal comic strip, after all.

This is all stuff I’ll go into in the article, as well as an in-depth analysis of that damnable comic strip. What a fun Thursday I’m going to have, re-reading that shameful Edda and scribbling notes regarding noteworthy strips, character problems, story problems, where he’s ripping off something else, etc.

C|D

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

so chalkdust are you doign anythign with this idea
it sounds really interesting

the only one of these that i read is jack

when i first started reading it i thought really cool (the 1st -maybe 4th chapters), later i found some stuff kinda shocking, but i figured thats what it was supposed to do. i was kinda thinking furry spawn, or a horror comic, something like that , but it throws all kinds of loosely conected stories at you. as times gone on tho, i felt kinda misled, just in the sense i wasnt familiar with enough webcomics (furry) to realise alot of these characters were not his, and he was sort of just showing how thier lives end up later or killing them off. not his fault, but there i was thinking he had just this HUGE cast of pretty well developed characters. (it never really occured to me why a character would show up with no explanation of who it was. so you can see why i had a completely different experience reading this comic than most people would ) jacks a real interesting comic in that sense, but i also like the way he draws his characters. i like characters that are more cartooney and weird looking, and that contrasted with the pretty gritty storyline really pulled me into it for a little while. everytiem he starts a new arc/chapter, whatever youc all it, im always hoping he would go back and tie up some loose ends , or finsih some stuf he touched on (fiver comes to mind)

i tried reading gene catlow, but i dunno , personalyl i have to read a comic from start to end , and it struck as a regular type of strip, then cotton (is that his name?) was using magic or lookign at auras and it threw me off. it seems interesting but i just havent had time to read thru all the strips (im ona dialup which doesnt help things) this is also why i havent read living in grey town ...i think i only got up march 2000, which is basically the beginning

i know youre probably coming from more of a "what the fuck are the furries thinking??" angle than i am, but i think these articles would be cool if they have some sort of critical analyses of storylines/characters etc if you werent already doign or going to do that

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

EDIT> I believe it's dated 9/12/01. Somebody has their priorities a little out of whack.

by the way, im not slamming you or anything
but everyone and thier mom did a 9/11 tribute in thier webcomic on 9/12
it got tired fast. everyone should have known is was gonna happen too

so i got no problem with it not being there

same goes for that fucking columbia crash

Jerry Collins · Coadjutor Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 162

I wish my old computor could have downloaded the grey town stuff properly(my machine is a bit like Mark Twain's mule,old,slow.deaf,and blind in one eye..but she gets you there.)what I could see looked intresting.oh well,another time I hope(Jer)

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

since he was being discussed before

check
dave kelly central (davekellycentral.com)

this news post is from 7/10/03 btw:

Dave Kelly Central
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEWS NEWS NEWS!

I'm going to Anthrocon.

Why the hell am I going? Well I would have gone to Comic-Con, but this is all I could afford. Besides, I'll make more money here. I live in Philadelphia so going to this con wont cost me much of anything. I went last year under stealth and people still managed to find me. Sure, it's a great ego trip to have all those fans slobbering over me like I was Christ, but the reason I don't like big conventions is because I'm scared of people. I don't even like talking to people online!
Anyway... while I'm there ask for commissions in Artist's Alley. I may even give you original drawings/comics if you ask nicely!... maybe.

http://www.davekellycentral.com/anthrocon.jpg

you were wondering if hes a furry, hes goin to anthrocon, you think the post is just him backfilling or not? same for the cartoon , it IS a jab at furry fans
in fairness to dave tho, living in philadelphia, why NOT go ?
especially to make money at a convention in your own city

seems this leaves the question still unanswered...oh well

(correct me if im wrong on this- anthrocon, it seems to be the most uhm......level headed (?) furry con, plus its getting REALLY big from the looks of things. im very curious to see if attendance this year is the crest , or if it continues to grow by next year)

Jerry Collins · Coadjutor Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 162

In the words of Artie Johnson's whermacht soldier"VERRRRY INTERESTINK!"