Some years ago, I received a collection of furry art from a friend. Within it were a number of black and white images, with a huge amount of emotion, that drew me in.

Those pictures were drawn by Ookami Kemono. Since then, he has continued to entertain his thousands of watchers and, on 31 August this year, began a webcomic entitled Lucid's Dream. I got in touch with him to talk to him about his art and his latest project.

The Cartoon Brew has an interview with Jordan Reichek, the director/producer of Animal Control! for Cartoon Network Asia, located in Hong Kong for broadcast throughout Southeast Asia. Animal Control! is a series of 1’47” dialogueless cartoons featuring Ya and Ba, two hapless Animal Control officers and the anthropomorphized animals whom they are supposed to control, especially surly, troublemaking Mr. Koala. Reichek describes it as “kinda like the Crocodile Hunter, but dumber.”

Animal Control! is produced by Reichek at his Perky Pickle Productions studio. What will really make the interview of interest to Flayrah’s readers is that links to PerkyPickle.com, where all ten episodes produced so far can be seen. Plus other goodies, such as the Invader Zim pilot, which Reichek worked on. Check it out.

Jordan Reickek is an animator and storyboard artist with a long and storied career to his name: He worked on the original Ren & Stimpy series as well as The Simpsons early on; he directed the pilot episode of Invader Zim for Nickelodeon; and he worked on storyboards for DreamWorks films like Monsters vs Aliens, Megamind, and Kung Fu Panda. Cartoon Brew recently interviewed Jordan, and he spoke about his newest creation: Animal Control, which he produced for Cartoon Network Asia. The series follows the adventures of a pair of hapless and not-too-bright game wardens as they try to keep a lid on the silliness of their animal charges. The premier episode is up on Vimeo as well. Recently Jordan re-launched his production web site, Perky Pickle, which includes production art from many of the projects he’s worked on over the years.

image c. 2013 by Jordan Reickek

A new art form is being developed in the furry fandom. It is like a soap opera in that a central cast of characters tells story arcs in chapters within a larger consistent setting. When one story arc is over, another begins. But unlike a soap opera, at the end of each chapter or episode is a covered song or parody song that relates to the chapter or episode. Each chapter averages eight minutes long. The production is titled The Beach Bears.

After listening to the a few chapters, I wanted to know more of the story, and more about how this exciting work came to exist. The Beach Bears was created and is produced by Max DeGroot. Mr. DeGroot was kind enough to grant me an interview to satisfy my curiosity.

TG: Could you tell us a little about yourself?

MDG: Well I have been active in the Furry Fandom for many years as a furry convention chair, a puppeteer, and a musician. One of my current labors of love is an audio drama series titled The Beach Bears.

TG: I have listened to The Beach Bears and I must say it is a very unique and entertaining format that has me hooked. How did you come up with the concept?

There's been much discussion and speculation about a casting call for Furries to appear on MTV's reality show, True Life. Erika Dobrin, casting VP at the show's producer Asylum Entertainment, was nice enough to give me 30 minutes to answer questions about it.

The phone app I used didn't record (I blame an app update), so this is paraphrased from notes and approved by Erika. I would say that the answers were very, very on-message. I did ask personal stuff to make it relatable - perhaps some responses would boil down to "just doing a job", or it might have caused shyness about getting personal. (Understandable, considering that the casting call has gotten hate mail.)

I aimed to ask tough questions, balancing sympathy towards the challenge of putting out professional media with being a Furry fan who's shamelessly obsessed with fursuiting.

There's a new blog about music by furries, that follows an ongoing podcast: Fuzzy Notes, run by Potoroo. This article led to an invite to contribute, so expect more there soon. (Can anyone suggest fun puns that cross furry animals and music? - like "fuzzbox".)

Part 1 talks about crossover between an odd pair. To continue, here's some chatting with Furry industrial music DJ's: 5arah and Quell Ironheart.

WeFurries interviews furry convention-runner and administrator Pablo Lemurr. Transcription: Solovari.

Nickson: Soo, Lemurr, hi!

Lemurr: Hi-hi, hello.

Nickson: OK, so, who wants to start?

Pillgrim: Lemurr, please, introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us what you do in normal life. When did you become a furry, how did you get to know about this sub-culture and so on?

Lemurr: I am a professional web designer and a programmer. I've been furry for, like, five years. I came upon the fandom from browsing some YouTube channels; then I saw the keyword, googled it and came up with some Polish forums. Nothing really special, I guess.

Nickson: Can you tell us more about your fursona?

Lemurr: I don't think it will be a surprise. My fursona is an anthro lemur. Nothing special or fancy like colored fur, just a plain lemur.

Nickson: It's interesting that you are a lemur because sometimes people choose different species.

Hi-jera: What's more interesting is that he pronounces it like l'amour.

Lemurr: I am sorry about the pronunciation, I just pronounce it this way - lee-murr. What's pretty annoying is that everyone thinks I chose this fursona because of Madagascar, but it's not so. I just like the stripy tail and stuff.

Further Confusion 2013 saw guests of honor Chris Savino and Ursula Vernon on the stage to answer questions from staff and attendees. Here are their responses:

Q: Could you give us a brief introduction?

Chris: [...rattles off storyboarding, animation, writing and directing credits for shows noted in his Wikipedia article, including Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, Dexter's Lab and The Powerpuff Girls...], written a few episodes of My Little Pony, which is probably what some of you care about - it's so cool to see people who appreciate what you've done; we're so sheltered by TV, we never get to see you, so for all of you, the full house.

Ursula: Ursula Vernon, artist and author; did finally finish the webcomic Digger, which won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Series . . . I do a series for children called Dragonbreath, 8-12ish, I also do a lot of art, I do furry art, I go to furry conventions, I love you people man . . . *applause* . . . and that's sot of what I do.

Sprout: So Chris, you've done a lot of awesome TV shows, so what exactly have you done for each of those throughout your career?

Isiah takes the opportunity to interview furry artist Kadath on several recent aspects of his career. Future plans for projects and characters are discussed, including some mature content.

MP3 Download (60 Mb; 1:04) - FA comments - on YouTube

In honor of the ten-year existence of SexyFur, and the recent publication from FurPlanet, Isiah interviews Jeremy Bernal about his career as a furry artist. Some mature topics are covered.

Isiah Jacobs: Hello, Mr. Bernal, thank you so much for joining me today! It's a great pleasure to have you on the show!

Jeremy Bernal: Thanks for the opportunity of the interview.

Isiah Jacobs: For the very few furries out there who have never heard of you before, you are the owner of two of the most well know furry porn pay sites, SexyFur and Tail Heat. SexyFur has been around for pretty much ten years now, and you just recently came out with your first official publication; a decade's worth of retrospective pin ups.

Jeremy Bernal: I'm not sure if it's the first official publication. We've done some other artist books and comics before the retrospective book. But it's probably the first "new book-like thing" I've put together in a few years.

Isiah had the chance to interview most of the contributors to annual adult anthology Heat 9, published by Sofawolf; some could not be reached. Related interviews: Whyte Yote & Alastair Wildfire – Camron & Vantid – Alopex – Huskyteer – Kandrel & Scappo – Tempe O'kun

Isiah Jacobs: Good evening, Ray! Thank you so much for coming on! It's nice to have you on the show!

RayFKM: Pleasure to be here.

Isiah Jacobs: You have a story in Heat 9 that you titled "Stupid". Could you please tell me a little about this story?

RayFKM: Oh, yeah. It's the story of a lonely guy who wants to find some love... and does not matter how!

Isiah Jacobs: And this guy is straight, but he convinces himself to be gay just for sake of companionship, is that correct?

RayFKM: Yes, totally.

Isiah Jacobs: Why did you decide on this story?

Some say there's no money in porn. But furry porn? That's a different story.

Crowdfunding has proven very popular, funding projects from digital aardvarks, roleplaying rats and space-abducted foxes, to fluffy ears, Furcadia's 'Second Dreaming' and seemingly every other work by M.C.A. Hogarth. Twokinds raised enough to buy a good-sized house.

Furotica is largely a no-go for industry leaders Kickstarter and Indiegogo. But it's become a lifeline for Ben Tao, Eric Lai, and Barry C, whose adult crowdfunding site Offbeatr (covered in August) lists five successful projects to date — all furry. [tip: Ripner Cabbit/EarthFurst]

So how can you raise $4000 (or $40,000) for your dream project? We asked those who've done it, while taking a closer look at this new funding platform and talking to its CEO.

Wildlife/fantasy artist Nambroth (Jennifer Miller), artist, costumer and sculptress Miss Monster (Melita Curphy), and fursuit builder and artist FirestormSix (Den Barrett) were interviewed last weekend at Midwest FurFest's "Meet the Guests of Honor" panel, hosted by Takaza and Perro.

First, they were asked to identify themselves, and the name of their microphones . . .

FirestormSix: I'm FirestormSix. My microphone is Spike.

Miss Monster: I make stuff in my basement, and it's awesome. My microphone is Applejack.

Nambroth: Nambroth, Jennifer Miller, I'm cool with either. I draw fantasy and wildlife professionally full time. I have Rainbow Dash.

Takaza: What brought you into the fandom?

FirestormSix: Basically the artwork, I started seeing the costumes a few years later; my first commission was six years ago, then I started getting a interest in building things, 4/1 2 years ago did a Dakota Wolf.

Nambroth: I got the Internet when I was 14 and was really into Gargoyles. I didn't know it was furries. I got into Yerf without realizing what I was doing, it was just "the animal people" to me.

This special report from VOM-DT: Channel Fur includes an interview between RingtailedFox and SWAT Kats blogger Rusakov Dekkamaster.

I was contacted by Rusakov Dekkamaster (RD), after he noticed I ran a furry-themed internet television station, and thought it would help to get the word out on a potential SWAT Kats revival. Being a fan of the SWAT Kats universe, I was more than happy to oblige, and gained permission from RD to interview him about the prospective revival.

Isiah had the chance to interview most of the contributors to annual adult anthology Heat 9, published by Sofawolf; some could not be reached. Related interviews: Whyte Yote & Alastair Wildfire – Camron & Vantid – Alopex – Huskyteer – Kandrel & Scappo – Kyell Gold & Nimrais

Isiah Jacobs: Hello again, Tempo! Welcome back to the show! It's been too long!

Tempo: Happy to be back. :)

Isiah Jacobs: So, you have a story in this year's publication of Heat. And you were actually able to get it illustrated by Blotch!

Tempo: Yep! The story behind that story starts a couple years back when Blotch and I were talking about what we liked in each other's work. I liked that Blotch's pics often felt like they had a world behind them, like there were stories behind them. They ended up asking if I wanted to write one of those stories and we paged through their prints until we found "The Prisoner". (NSFW)

Isiah Jacobs: That's the one with Drust tied to a tree or something, right?