Historical debates
Streaming review: 'Zootopia+'
Posted by 2cross2affliction on Sun 20 Nov 2022 - 06:54
Oh, look, another Zootopia review!
It's been six years since Zootopia was released to theaters. In that time, a lot has happened. America has managed the change to two different presidents. Across the pond in the UK, where the movie was known as Zootropolis, they've managed to beat that turnover rate for heads of state with four new prime ministers, plus a new monarch. That's kind of prescient for a movie where the titular city burns through two mayors over the course of its plot.
In all that time, Zootopia has managed to remain popular with furries. It also, perhaps a bit surprisingly, has managed to remain popular with non-furries. It is one of only three Disney Animated Studio movies to break into the billion dollar club (the other two are both Frozen). It also managed critical and industry awards accolades to go along with the commercial success, giving it the hat trick of movie success criteria. So, a lot of people would probably not be averse to a sequel, right?
Well, how about a series of animated shorts released over half a decade later with little fanfare to a streaming service, instead?
Remembering Ian Curtis (1946-2021) - A founding father of the British furry fandom
Posted by gamepopper on Sun 19 Sep 2021 - 19:32
Ian George Stuart Curtis passed away some time in May of 2021. He was one of the founding fathers of the furry fandom in the UK.
Born in December 1946 in Hull, he grew up on Disney cartoons and funny animal comics like Bonzo the Dog and Rupert Bear. By the time he was in his teens, he also developed interests in wargaming, comics, science fiction and fantasy games as well.
While working as a writer for the military press, he travelled to the USA regularly and used his leisure time to frequent the comic book and science fiction conventions there. This was how he met early furry fans like Pauli Kidd and discovered furry fandom. By the 1990s, he was in contact with fans in the US, Australia, and the UK.
2019 Ursa Major Award Nominations open until the end of February 14th
Posted by Goldfur on Sun 2 Feb 2020 - 11:32
Nominations for the 2019 Ursa Major Awards are now open and will close at midnight on February 15th.
To submit your nominations in any of thirteen categories, everyone must first go to the nominations page to enroll for a key.
The categories are:
- Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
- Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series
- Best Anthropomorphic Novel
- Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
- Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
- Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work
- Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story
- Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip
- Best Anthropomorphic Magazine
- Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration
- Best Anthropomorphic Game
- Best Anthropomorphic Website
- Best Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)
Please note that the Fursuit category requires all of the following: a link to a good photo taken in 2019, where it was taken, and who made it.
If a nominee in the other categories is not listed in the Recommended List, please supply a link to it. It never hurts to supply a link if you are unsure if it is in the list.
Be sure to get have your voice heard prior to the deadline before February 15th and nominate your favorite items today!
'Detective Pikachu' becomes the first widely-released "fresh" video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes' history
Posted by 2cross2affliction on Mon 20 May 2019 - 11:19
No well-reviewed film adaptation of a video game has ever achieved a combined positive review score of 60%, the threshold needed to count as "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. Until now.
With 158 of 242 reviews from professional movie critics at least somewhat positive, the first live action Pokémon movie, Detective Pikachu, has managed to squeak into the "good" side of the Tomato-meter with a score of 65%. Its average critical rating is lower, at 5.97 out of 10 - not every critic assigns a movie rating. However, its Audience Rating is much higher at 83%! (Although the Audience Score is notoriously vulnerable to "review bombing", Detective Pikachu was never likely to be deliberately targeted.)
Review: Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Posted by Rakuen Growlithe on Sun 12 May 2019 - 12:18
My first encounter with Pokémon was when I borrowed a friend's copy of Pokémon Red for the Gameboy. I chose squirtle as my starter pokémon and I remember lying awake, wanting my own copy of the game so badly that I could feel it. Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back hadn't been released yet, so this was in 1999 at the latest. For at least twenty years since then, Pokémon has been a part of my life.
Although I never did get a copy of the first Pokémon game, I did get Pokémon Silver, collected the trading cards, watched the anime, memorised the pokérap, saw the films and played many of the spin-off games. But Pokémon's influence was far broader than all that; it gave me a world of creatures and possibilities to imagine. I took to writing Pokémon fanfiction which, in turn, led me to the furry fandom. Pokémon has literally helped create the person I am today, so it was disappointing when I felt myself drifting away from it.
Ursa Major Awards 2018 - Nominations are open until Feb. 16, 2019
Posted by dronon on Sun 20 Jan 2019 - 21:48
It's time to nominate the contenders for the 2018 Ursa Major Awards! You can send in your nominations until February 16, 2019. We'll see which of them get onto the final ballot in March, when voting opens, and the winners will be announced at AnthrOhio in late May.
If you really liked something in 2018 that had anthropomorphic content, either inside or outside the fandom, you can nominate up to five things in each category! Nominations are completely optional - you can even skip entire categories. All you need to do is go to the nominations page, click where it says "Enroll", and give it a valid email address. You'll be emailed a code, and you can use that to log in and fill out the nomination form.
Rat.org: the original fan repository returns
Posted by RingtailedFox on Sun 6 Aug 2017 - 20:40
After a 20-year hiatus, Rat.org has returned, at least as a read-only museum. Few today may remember it, but for some fans it was their first furry Web repository, and a launching point or inspiration for many other sites.
Rat.org was founded by Kilorat in the ancient stone-age year of 1994 as a combination Sonic the Hedgehog and Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron fansite. Later a Gargoyles section would be added as it grew in popularity.
This was the first home for many artists and fanfic writers, launched before Windows 95 came out (most used Mac OS 7.5.x or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to connect with dial-up), and before giants such as Yahoo!, GeoCities, deviantART, and Fanfiction.net took over.
The website was hosted on a humble 80386DX with a "gigantic" 500 MB hard drive co-located at MV Communications – the first ISP in New Hampshire, where Kilorat was working. Despite being one of the only sources for fan materials on the Internet [compare S'A'Alis' Avatar Archive], the server was able to handle the low levels of traffic of the day.
Update (August 2018): The domain name has been sold, and all links updated to kilorat.com.
Furry Event China: A review of my first Chinese furry con experience
Posted by TefPwoof on Sun 6 Aug 2017 - 00:15Furry Event China (referred to henceforth as FEC) is a number of firsts for me with regards to attending a furry convention:
- The convention itself was held inside of an event space of a public mall rather than the usual convention center
- It was my first furry convention experience not of a Western demographic
- It was the first convention I attended outside of North America.
- Actually, it was my first furry convention at an event that wasn't called VancouFur
Given this, and an assortment of other differences we will be going over, it was definitely an experience that I will never forget.
The full story of the lawsuit involving Peter S. Beagle, author of 'The Last Unicorn'
Posted by Equivamp on Mon 8 May 2017 - 18:02At the end of April, I posted a Newsbyte regarding a charity art drive to benefit “lifelong furry” and renowned fantasy author Peter S. Beagle, in order to fund his legal costs and living expenses as he litigates a suit against his former agent.
That was the first I had heard of the troubles of The Last Unicorn’s author. Upon seeing that Uncle Kage had tweeted about this situation in 2016, however, I learned this suit had been going on for longer than I realized, and I took the time to look deeply into the situation.
What I found was horrifying, and the rabbit hole seemed to go deeper the more I looked. Today I'm going to go into more detail about this shameful situation, bringing it to light in the hopes that the more people who know, the more help Beagle will receive.
Get ready, this is gonna be a long ride. If you don't want to read every single detail, I implore you to scroll down to the "How you can help" section, or at least spread this message as far as you can. Beagle needs as many friends as he can get right now.
Peter S. Beagle is suing his former agent for elder abuse, fraud, defamation, and breach of fiduciary duty, among other related allegations, which you can read in full here [PDF].
Editorial: Furry - Our deliverance or our destruction?
Posted by Sonious on Sat 28 Jan 2017 - 11:30When perusing written news articles about furries written outside the fandom you’ll usually run into the typical faire. Some articles will talk about furries and try and introduce their unknowing audience to what the fandom is. Others will talk about the local convention in town and why the denizens will be seeing all these costumes about. Heck, some will not even be about the fandom at all and will just be using the term to talk about pets or the band Super Furry Animals.
However, 2017 has started off on a very interesting foot as two articles showed up on the feed which don’t take the tired and treaded routes. Both looked at pieces of the fandom and their relationship to the recently inaugurated president, Donald Trump and what he stands for in society in general.
One article from Slate covered a Kyell Gold book and discussed how the virtues with in could counter Trump. The other, from Motherboard, describes another piece of fandom and their alt-right tendencies and pondering if crass anonymity can lead to crass actors acquiring power.
So let’s go over these two articles and what they have to say about furry fandom.