This morning, user "Quexinos" (formerly known as Sonique) reported to Saturday Morning Sonic that Ben Hurst – Chief Writer and Director of ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog (1993-1995) – died several weeks ago after fainting and falling into a diabetic coma.

Ben has a page on Facebook, which will probably be made into a memorial.

Furry art gallery Inkbunny says it is covering hosting costs from sales after three months of operation. The maximum file size of free works has also doubled to 20Mb. The site, launched this June, helps artists sell prints and digital downloads for a 20% cut.

Meanwhile, all-ages art site ArtSpots has undergone a complete redesign – much to the surprise of users. While many praised the new layout, not all like the "blog-like" artist homepages, and some feel the new site lacks useful features like sketch chat.

The changes come not long after Fur Affinity updated its own menu style, providing slightly cleaner visuals and more horizontal space, but also more prominent ads.

Mature furry imageboard e621 has apparently closed its doors:

Thanks to numerous threats to our host, false claims of illegal content, harassment and a few things that are much worse, e621 is being closed down permanently. It's been fun running it.

The closure is likely the result of allegations made earlier today that e621 hosted cartoon child pornography.

Update: All is impermanent. Varka (CEO of Bad Dragon) intends to take over the site.

Voting for the 2010 Fandom's Favorite Fursuit Fracas has concluded with a clear winner: Flux.

The self-made blue kangaroo spared no expense in promotion, going so far as to hand out personalized energy drinks at Anthrocon 2010. He won with 350 votes to Frisbee's 281.

This year's competition attracted 384 entrants. Voting was open to all LiveJournal users. Both finalists had a single nomination, and received a bye for one single-elimination stage.

The battle for third place was closer, ending 309 to 296. Per prior arrangement, Clementine may now pie Greifer at next year's Doo Dah Parade.

When airport officials in Bangkok decided to X-ray a woman's luggage they were surprised to see a beating heart. It looked like the woman had a cat in her bag but in truth it was an endangered baby tiger. The 2-month-old cub had been drugged and put in her luggage with a number of toy tigers in an attempt to disguise it.

The cub is now in care of the department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation. The woman, who was bound for Iran, is being interrogated to discover their final destination.

See more: Pictures of the rescued cub at National Geographic

This is another good month for furry stuff beyond the usual periodical pamphlets. The Saga of Rex is the standout but there’s plenty more, including a couple of interesting comic strip collections.

Kotaku spotted a couple of fursuiters at a Gamescom demonstration of Microsoft's motion-capture system, Kinect (previously "Project Natal").

Shivon is taking his turn while Keenora grabs a break after the previous dance.

Police know drug users, dealers, and traffickers use elaborate methods of protecting and concealing their illegal goods, but this one is a first in Canada: thirteen black bears, found by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a marijuana plantation in Christina Lake, British Columbia (near the US-Canada border).

The bears were apparently trained to guard two fields of marijuana plants and fed to become docile and trainable, defending the hidden plantation containing over 2300 plants.  The closest past parallel was police finding a two-meter (six-foot) crocodile at a grow-op in 2003.

Read more at WDIV-DT - ClickOnDetroit.com and The Windsor Star.

Furry-friendly browser-based MMO Earth Eternal is up for sale after its organizers ran out of money. [tip: lupine]

According to CEO Matt Mihaly (Aurelius), the company has already recieved a few offers, and will keep the servers up for now.

The game – featuring a variety of anthropomorphic animal characters – is free to play, and entered 'open beta' last October.

Urlesque recently held Catfight to find the Internet's most popular cat.

The contestants were from the various famous Lolcats residing on Icanhascheezburger.com. The cats are an internet sensation of various felines in user-captioned pictures meant to entertain people.

The final battle was between Ceiling Cat, the cat god who divinely inspired the lolcat bible and Japanese YouTube star, Maru.

See also: MSN Today features cats in hats

Boomer The Dog is attempting to change his legal name, as reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

I want to have my own identity. Everyone should have their own, and if it means having another name than what they were given, then they should go for it.

At the courthouse, Judge Ron Folino warned that he might veto the change if it "causes confusion in the community" or would be "seen as bizarre."

Update: Boomer's petition was denied; Judge Folino ruled the change to "The Dog" could risk public welfare. His closing statement: "Although Petitioner apparently wishes it were otherwise, the simple fact remains that Petitioner is not a dog."

In an hour long interview, the Nostalgia Critic celebrates the Animaniacs, with guests Tom and Nate Ruegger, Sherrie Stoner, John P. McCann, and Paul Rugg.

The Nostalgia Critic covers a fair amount of ground with the crew, including the abundance of freedom granted to the writers, sneaking jokes by the censors, the music, the differences between animating studios, creative influences, and Cartoon Stars' addictions. Unsurprisingly, there is also a lot of ribbing and joking around to be had.

Animaniacs ran to 99 episodes from 1993 to 1998, and one movie, Wakko's Wish, in 1999. The series also produced a spin-off: Pinky and the Brain.