Mark "Sy Sable" Merlino - founding furry who paved the way for furry conventions and original species - passes away

One of furry fandom’s original founding members passed away from liver cancer on February 20, 2024. Mark Merlino, alongside the late Fred Patten, were two of the six founders of the first anime club in the United States in May 1977. This interest and fandom evolved into a focus on the anthropomorphic characters which became large enough to grow outside into a tandem fandom known as furry.

This would culminate in the founding of the first convention exclusively for furry fans in Greater Los Angeles, ConFurence, which he co-directed with his mate Rod O’Riley. It saw yearly growth in attendance until Mark left the board at the end of 1998. Other conventions would grow to replace the founding convention that closed its doors in 2003. Its direct successor Califur started in 2004 and ran until its closure in 2017.

Merlino’s legacy has been well documented, featuring in Ash Coyote’s The Fandom and Joe Strike’s Furry Nation.

The fandom has been mourning and memorializing his passing with articles of his legacy, and fan art featuring his original species, the Skiltaire. Ren Tradewind has come forward with the suggestion of making his birthday of May 12th a sort of Fandom Foundation holiday.

Skiltaire - A vintage original species

Mark developed a weasel-like alien species that would become the first custom species devised by someone in the furry fandom.

As the furry fandom has been going strong for decades, many original species have been brought forth. From the techy visors of the protogen, to the quirky and bubbly Dutch Angel Dragons, the wedge headed sergal, or the crux with their stylings that would make Tim Burton blush. For the early fandom, the mascot of fandom creativity was the Skiltaire species.

The iconic species could even be seen embroidered on a sign on Mark’s property called the Prancing Skiltaire, where some of the first small furry meets were hosted. Information for the species could also be found on some early web 1.0 pages such as World of Skiltaire. They were also featured in some science fiction tabletop RPGs such as Other Suns.

Merlino’s own skiltaire fursona, Sy, started off as a character in fiction he had created prior to incorporating it as his own representation. Scar the Fur made a video on the history of the species you can watch that goes over the details of their origins.