Organizers of Bay Area furry convention Further Confusion are looking to update its 16-year-old logo.

Entries should incorporate AAE's service mark, "FurCon", and must be "clean and easy to understand", look good in color and black and white, and be PG-rated. They should not use "specific critters or characters", and must be available in vector format.

Multiple entries may be submitted by 12AM PT, July 4; the winner will be picked by the end of July. The selected designer will receive a FC2014 patron membership and merchandise; there will also be five runner-up sponsor prizes. All six will be featured online and in the conbook.

Public response so far has not been positive, though a few artists seem interested. The submission deadline has been extended from June 14.

Update (14 Jul): The selection and announcement of winners has been pushed back to the next FC staff meeting (August 17).

I recently had an article, “The Furry Novel That Nobody Has Read”, published in Anthro #32, November-December 2011. It is about the Dutch About Reynard the Fox (Van de vos Reynarde), by Robert van Genechten, published in 1941. The reason that I had not read it is that it was only published in Dutch, which I do not read. (Yes, I once had a copy.) The reason I said that nobody else has read it is that it is a very anti-Semitic pro-Nazi talking-animal satire that equates rhinoceroses with Jews. There was never an English-language edition, and due to modern anti-Hate literature laws in America and most Western European nations, it could not be reprinted or translated today. (Correction: at least one modern Dutch neo-Nazi group is trying to keep the 1941 Dutch edition available.)

But what about other, modern Furry novels in foreign languages that have never had English-language translations? They certainly exist, and Furry fans in France, Germany and other nations can read them in their own countries; and they theoretically could be translated into English some day. What have we English-language readers been missing?

In my review of fluffy’s Unity Book 1: Ascent, I mentioned in the first line that I was dubious about furry science fiction. I gave that book a positive review, despite it being furry science fiction, because it was good science fiction. In concluding my opinion piece on furry criticism, I added as an afterthought that I am also dubious about the value of furry prose.

In both cases, Phil Geusz seemed to take these assertions as personal challenges. To the furry criticism piece, he suggested I try Watership Down, a book I was – to put it mildly – already familiar with. As readers had given me plenty more suggestions about what I could spend my spare time with that were not as friendly, I did not give it much thought.

But Geusz was more effective with his response to the Ascent review, offering up one of his own books in defense of the idea. I immediately plumped for another rabbit book, The First Book of Lapism, based on an earlier review by Fred Patten.

I chose this book for a variety of reasons, but the main one is the basis for this piece. Geusz’s story about a rabbit based religion is another good piece of furry science fiction, and it illustrates a need for “justification” in furry writing.

U.S. cable channel Adult Swim is showing an episode of Check It Out! about furries, entitled 'Animals', to be broadcast Sunday 11:30PM CST (10:30PM MST, 12:30AM Monday EST/PST).

Update (18 Apr): The full segment is now available, but has no more furry-specific content.

Interviewer 'Dr. Steve Brule' leads with such incisive questions as "How come you wanna be an animal?", "What kind of animal do you want to be?" and "How do you catch an animal?" Excited by the concept, he suggests "[turning] into some animals and see what'd happen!"

Brule (dressed in a donkey suit) was not impressed by the resulting mini-fursuit-parade, calling it "not that fun", but "what else are you gonna do, dressed up like a dang animal?"

The furs, Amy and Crash the Dog, were recruited after the producers had difficulty finding participants. [Higgs Raccoon]