Between May 30th and June 2nd, UK fans of comics and graphic novels can attend the BD (bande dessinée) & Comics Passion 2013, a series of events at the Institut Français in Queensberry Place, south-west London. [Facebook page]

The programme includes film screenings, artist talks and drawing workshops for children, teenagers and adults. There's not much on the menu that's explicitly furry, but the festival logo should appeal if nothing else! [Trailer]

Currently touring the United Kingdom is I Was A Rat!, a stage play based on the book by British author Philip Pullman.

Pullman's 1999 book opens with elderly couple Bob and Joan answering a knock at their door, and finding a boy in a tattered page's uniform. When asked who he is, the boy can only tell them, "I was a rat". Having no children of their own, Bob and Joan take the boy in and name him Roger. They soon find he has distinctly ratty behaviour - he cannot eat with a spoon and, on his first night, chews his bed linen to shreds.

Bob and Joan attempt to find Roger's parents, but find the authorities disinterested and unhelpful. After Roger runs away during an examination by the Philosopher Royal, he gets exploited as a sideshow freak, used as an assistant to house-breaking, and eventually takes refuge in the sewers. With the local newspaper The Scourge feeding the hysteria, he is eventually caught and, as "the monster of the sewers", put on trial for his life.

I recently attended a performance at the Liverpool Playhouse. The stage play follows the book fairly faithfully; it was extremely well done, and I had so much fun watching it that I returned to catch it a second time before the production moved on to their next venue.

Wired has an announcement of LOLCat: Teh Exhibishun, avant-garde and funky cat images by 45 artists at the Framers Gallery, 36 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JT, from 23 January to 15 February 2013.

Fortunately for those who cannot get to London, the Wired article contains 27 of the pieces, and the link to the Framers Gallery’s website shows 39 of them. Click on the Exhibitors’ names to see their websites which contain many more works, some anthropomorphic.

One of the most beloved Christmas animated TV half-hour specials, Britain’s Channel 4’s famous adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, directed by Jimmy Murakami and Dianne Jackson and animated by TVC London, with a live intro featuring David Bowie and the haunting song “Walking in the Air” (video) composed by Howard Blake, has been an annual fixture on British TV since 1982. The Cartoon Brew reports that, for its thirtieth anniversary, it is getting a Christmas Eve sequel, The Snowman and the Snowdog.

The CB announcement includes the trailer for The Snowman and the Snowdog (The Guardian has more), a 8’35” The Making of The Snowman and the Snowdog, and a link to the entire 26’09” The Snowman. Anthropomorphic snowmen at Christmastime are nothing new, but if you have never seen The Snowman, you have missed what is arguably the greatest of all.

Shota Ishiwatari, who worked on prototypes of the necomimi brainwave-activated cat ears for Neurowear, has turned to Kickstarter to fund a new, independent project, Tailly.

Attached to a belt, Tailly responds to the wearer's heartbeat to produce a wagging motion when a raised heart rate indicates excitement, slowing to a swing as the heartbeat drops. The tail comes with a white furry cover as standard; black, brown and grey are available.

Update (29 Jan): The campaign failed, but it's been restarted on Indiegogo.

UK furry convention ConFuzzled has named Kyell Gold as its second Guest of Honour for 2013. Gold is a prolific and popular furry author whose work includes the Out Of Position series and contributions to Heat. (See Flayrah's coverage.)

Gabapple, furry artist and creator of the webcomic Dangerous Cute, was the first 2013 GoH to be announced.

ConFuzzled 2013 will take place Thursday 30 May–Monday 3 June in Hinckley, Leicestershire.

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London have generated considerable coverage. The Cartoon Brew website presents “Olympic Vermin”, an animated anthropomorphic take of squirrels, pigeons, rats, and other urban wildlife running their own torch relay through the city.

Stylized angular animation overlaid on live-action footage, by Amaël Isnard and Leo Bridle at London’s Beakus studio.

Since we last covered MTV's True Life, the show has taken footage of several furs, but is seeking more. From an email:

This is a docu-series to chronicle the real life of a Furry. We have no intention of showing Furries in a negative light but instead hope to dispel some of the media myths out there about them.

The renewed casting call was recieved with scepticism on the furrymedia LJ community.

Meanwhile, UK-based Zig Zag Productions (whose shows are often "factual entertainment") hopes to contact a more rarified group – therians and otherkin.

The British magazine of anomalous phenomena, the Fortean Times, has published a three-page article about otherkin in its January 2012 edition (pp. 44–46). [Arethinn]

The article appears relatively non-controverisal, though some have raised concerns about a full-page spread of the Otherkin Alliance logo, used with credit but without permission.

Meanwhile, Evess Arudem - a member of the otherkin community - seeks to create a fan-sourced documentary, and is soliciting audio and video submissions. [Tsu]

British comedy puppet series Mongrels has been axed by its television station, BBC3.

The series, described as "Avenue Q meets Family Guy", centred on a troupe of five anthropomorphic animals who hung around the back of a pub on the Isle of Dogs in London.

Kristian Timmerman, a 32-year-old man who had a "fetish for dressing as a wolf", has been jailed for 22 months for the sexual grooming of a 12-year-old girl. [Ellonwye/Furrydrama2]

The Indonesian-born Timmerman made contact with the girl after she set up a profile on YouTube, where Timmerman hosted fan-videos relating to animated movie Alpha and Omega.

Timmerman spent months sending her flattering messages and cartoons, and moved from the Netherlands to Liverpool, England, where the girl lived. Although she did not reveal her exact address, he determined it by examining photographs the girl had posted of her dog.

The Huffington Post reports on a 2012 calendar in the United Kingdom which features cats playing musical instruments. The images in the calendar, released by Maverick Arts, were created by digitally altering photographs of real pet cats.

An examination of the publisher's website reveals several other calendars along similar lines, with such titles as Maverick Meerkats, Ferrets Go Fishing, Water Skiing Westies, and Ballroom Bunnies.

UK fur Snack Raccoon (aka. Dark Raccoon), reported to have died earlier this week, was experimenting with erotic asphyxiation at the time, former mate Ollie Pup has revealed:

IT WAS NOT SUICIDE! it was a sexual fantasy and a breathplay experiment that he did while we were out and went horribly wrong and resulted in what happened.

PLEASE if you are into breath control fantasies or have any kind of snuff fantasies or fetishes or whatever, remember what happened to him and think twice about what you do and for the love of Dark please just never try anything like that on your own.

Snack and Ollie co-hosted Furpile Radio, an online radio show which they founded in 2006. Snack also used to hold Super Smash Bros. tournaments at Eurofurence.

A new British "invisibility cloak" infra-red system, Adaptiv, makes it possible to disguise military vehicles as large animals such as cows, even while moving. This has the potential during warfare to get a lot of animals killed, just to play safe.

The RBW boat party on the River Thames will not be happening in 2011, according to an unofficial announcement by Miyabi on the UKfur forums (registration required).

Reasons cited for the cancellation include prior staff commitments and a lack of boat availability on the desired dates.

RBW, once the UK's largest furry convention, was cancelled early this year due to declining attendance. The boat party was originally intended to continue, and Miyabi has confirmed that staff still hope to put it on in 2012.