Go crossie! It’s your birthday! We’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!

Okay, that’s enough of that, then. On to the column.

The Species of Blessing Avenue consists of three short stories: “The Species of Alone” and “The Species of Rivals”, published by Smashwords in June and October 2010, and “The Species of Triumph”, published here for the first time. All three feature Israel Kevinson, a hunky and gay teenager who lives on Blessing Avenue.

From the start, you couldn’t tell that this was anthro fiction. And it isn’t, exactly.

Sometimes I get philosophical when I’m dealing with the jocks, especially when I’m holding one of them by the ankles, suspending them over the toilet. This is what my dad calls a ‘swirly’, but seeing as how he’s old I can’t hold it against him for knowing such a corny name. Anyway, the reason for my getting all Socrates-like is this: a bully is someone who preys on those who are weaker, right? Well seeing as how I’m preying on the bullies who think they can pick on my friends, does that make me a bully? I don’t think so, and neither do my friends. Maybe I’ll take a class on it when I go to college because questions like that make me think. (p. 3)

There are references to Izzy’s mothers blonde hair, and to bodybuilding and martial-arts videos with Arnold and Jet Li. It’s not until p. 17 that Izzy turns into a lion – he’s a werelion!

Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, May 2012, trade paperback $9.95 (78 [+ 1] pages)

I know this sounds hilarious, but in all seriousness, this is a nasty form of animal cruelty: duct-taping a little box turtle to some balloons, and then letting it go, to float who knows HOW high in the atmosphere. Thankfully, it was snagged a few feet off the ground by a eucalyptus tree in the San Diego suburb of Oceanside, California.

Local resident Chanelle Wright saw the trapped terrapin's balloons in the tree. She said she immediately contacted the Humane Society, and the local fire department, but it took them over an hour to respond. Just as the fire department's ladder truck moved its ladder into position, a big gust of wind blew the turtle free, allowing him to gently float back down to terra firma.

While neighbours initially told local television station KGTV that Wright and her family had perpetrated the turtle's airborne adventure, understandably upsetting and angering Wright, they later recanted their stories and apologized.

Local authorities are still looking for whoever is responsible. The turtle is currently resting up in the protective custody of the San Diego Humane Society, and will soon be up for adoption. Wright has stated that if no one adopts the little reptile, she will.

Turtles belong in the sea, not in the sky, anyway. Courtesy: Gawker.com and KGTV ABC 10.

A new ten-minute survey has been released, aimed at furry fans 18 and older.

The survey, which contains "items on personality, personal life, and basic demographics", was created to support research at University College Cork in Ireland, and is intended to "gather data on the kinds of people that make up the furry community":

The use of the internet to support a shared interest and activity is very interesting to me, and I also am curious about the more sexual side to the fandom.

My study will attempt to determine two things - 1) Who are the furries? (assessed by simple demographics) and 2) What is the place of the Furry fandom in the context of the existing literature on internet behaviours?

It was initially distributed on Inkbunny, where a researcher has been answering questions.

Compare: Latest survey results from the separate Anthropomorphic Research Project.

Animation Xpress #351 for 22 August announces that, “Chennai based HappyCloud Studios working on Talkative Tortoise, 26X11 Animated TV Series”, by Zeenia Boatwala. In the usual news story that looks just like a hyperenthusiastic press release, it is announced that:

With a mission to provide high quality animation content for all mainstream media, including Theatrical, TV, Web & DVD; Chennai based HappyCloud Studios is working on its In-house IP Talkative Tortoise, 26 X 11 CGI.

Talkative Tortoise is a humorous show which orbits around a talkative tortoise that always talks about the environment and educates about global warming.

I was recently asked to read and write reviews of two furry anthologies — The Ursa Major Awards Anthology, edited by Fred Patten, and Roar #4, edited by Buck C. Turner.

I’ll have to preface this with I probably wasn’t the best person to ask to do this – I virtually never read anthologies, and I don’t particularly like short stories. But seeing as I seem to be one of the few people out there who still reads and can put together a semi-coherent review, this makes me one of the go-to people for opinions about furry comics or writing.

Compare: The Ursa Major Awards Anthology as reviewed by Watts Martin, and by dronon.

Since a number of the stories in the Ursa Major Awards Anthology are part of longer series, Editor Fred Patten helpfully writes synopsis of each story’s background, which helps immeasurably if you’re not familiar with particular story world. I’ve actually read several of these stories when they originally appeared, including the first two:

An annual trip to Disneyland Paris for fursuiters and friends will not occur in 2012, says event organizer Timduru.

While the park's Halloween rules allow costumes, this year saw the addition of a clause noting that officials might reject:

[...] the wearing of certain costumes, such as those fully covering the face and the head (translation)

Fursuiters have taken trips to Disneyland since at least 2003; the event attracted 60 fans in 2011.

The status of amateur costuming in Disney theme parks around the world is mixed. Florida's Disney World has been known to turn a blind eye; California's Disneyland does not.

Despite the setback, French fursuiters can still attend several events, including Timduru's own Meerkat Manor dances (video - more).

So, I guess I am starting yet another series of articles; this time coming around whenever my mail order supplier decides I have a big enough pile of comics on my pull list to pack up and ship out to me, so the books reviewed can be up two months old.

These aren’t fandom-produced comics, but they obviously contain some sort of anthropomorphic animal.

This post covers 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #12', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series #5: Splinter' and 'Wolverine and the X-Men #13'.

It is not easy to tell the setting of Spur at first. It seems to be our world, but Merle Castison, the first-person narrator, is a talking Andalusian stallion which nobody seems to consider strange. Disreputable, maybe, but not strange. Merle has agreed to accept the curse to be turned into a horse of rich industrialist Arthur Beckmann, for $10,000 a month, upkeep in a palatial stable with phone, TV, and computer on Beckmann’s luxurious horse-farm, his oldest and best friend Cole as his personal groom, a customized spell to allow him to keep human vision and speech, and frequent visits from his human RPG-playing friends.

Merle’s workaholic father disowns him for choosing Easy Money over Hard Work, but Merle doesn’t see what’s wrong with taking advantage of a cushy offer that is honest, although he privately agrees with his father that he has not accomplished anything notable in his thirty-eight-year life. Nobody would want to become a horse permanently, but this is just until Beckmann dies; then Merle will revert to human with all the $10,000 monthly payments he’s saved.

Except that Beckmann dies and Merle stays a horse.

Melange Books, May 2012, trade paperback $14.95 (209 pages; Amazon), PDF or HTML $5.99.

The Cartoon Brew website has a preview of DreamWorks’ TV series sequel to its 2010 hit theatrical feature and Ursa Major Award winner: Dragons: Riders of Berk, a CGI series premièring on Cartoon Network on Tuesday, September 4.

The show will recount the further adventures of Hiccup (and Toothless) and his friends, and their dragons, of the Viking island of Berk, as they all learn to become expert dragon riders. (Comparisons with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern are already being made.) The movie’s principal voice cast will re-play their characters, and new characters will include Tim Conway as Mulch and Mark Hammill as Alvin the Treacherous.

Dragons: Riders of Berk will keep the series fresh until the theatrical sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (or whatever it will be named), is released in June 2014.

“Educated horses. Don’t you want to ride it?”
- Rob Zombie, “Foxy Foxy”

During a fairly routine to a local Wal-Mart, I stopped by the “Entertainment” section because, due to geographic isolation, Wal-Mart is the only source for new books and movies I have. You see what I have to work with here?

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of Mr. Zombie’s latest remix album, Mondo Sex Head in the new CDs display and a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic “Royal Pony Wedding” DVD in the television section. As these two unlikely cart-mates made their way to the checkout lane, I wondered what in my personal history could have led to this moment. I cannot remember any specific inciting incident, and do not have the scars necessary for amnesia due to massive head trauma, so I must have repressed it.

But perhaps there is some weird connection; after all, Mondo Sex Head features a kitten on the album cover, I have trouble remembering if “Black Sunshine” is a White Zombie song or a background pony, and that Queen Chrysalis is fairly scary, considering. Mondo Sex Head is good in its way, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is good in its own. However, despite song titles such as “Foxy Foxy” and “Superbeast”, and lyrics like “tender is the fur,” only one is furry enough to be reviewed on Flayrah.

The title and subtitle, Bronies: For the Love of Ponies suggests that this is an anthology of stories set in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic world. Not exactly. Oh, there’s no question that Hasbro’s mega-popular MLP:FIM October 2010 TV cartoon series is the inspiration for this anthology. But these fifteen stories go beyond what might be expected of your typical Brony fan-fiction.

“This anthology, then,” says Kij Johnson at the end of her Foreword, “is a melting pot for all these things. Bronies. Boys and ponies. Girls and ponies. Girls and bronies. Boys and horses. Humans and alien things remarkably like horses but not quite. Pubescent crushes on things that are not other pubescents. Adult crushes on intellectual properties. And so forth. Maybe even girls and their horses.” (p. 9)

Kazka Press, June 2012, trade paperback $13.99 (207 pages); Kindle/Nook $8.99. Edited by L. Lambert Lawson. Foreword by Kij Johnson. Illustration by Galen Dara.

The Cartoon Brew website posts this 2:53 minute TV pilot for “PigGoatBananaMantis!”, by Dave Cooper, Johnny Ryan (artists), and Nick Cross (animator).

Cartoon Brewmeister Amid Amidi describes it as “wacky”. It is also very anthropomorphic. Watch out for those gravity pickles!

Is 'anthropomorphism' too vague for you? Wired’s Matt Simon explains the real meaning of anthropomorphism, in the first 1:40 minutes of this August 15th “Footnotes” video.

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 – Kandrel & Scappo – Camron & Vantid – Huskyteer – Kyell Gold & Nimrais – Tempe O'kun

Isiah Jacobs: Alopex, thank you so much for coming on! It's a pleasure to have one of the Sofa Wolves here!

Alopex: Thank you for having me! It's not often the editors get the attention of the media. :)

Isiah Jacobs: I agree! I see interviews featuring films and you mostly see the actors. You never see the minds behind the magic, like the writers, the producers, the directors, etc.

Alopex: That's what the director commentary tracks are wonderful for...at least with films.

Isiah Jacobs: There is your "Afterglow" with Heat, but you're only given so much room to express your thoughts.

Alopex: Well, it was a good idea initially, but often I struggle to find something new to say that doesn't just rehash what the volume was about. Sometimes having a limited space to fill is a blessing -- especially when I leave that part until the very end. :)

Isiah Jacobs: And we'll be getting to that in just a bit. This is the ninth instalment of Heat, and the range of the authors and illustrators in this volume is amazing. Do you feel that you've come a long way since the first issue?