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Historical debates

Doctor Who and the Secret of Novice Hame hints at a furry Doctor Who?

Your rating: None Average: 3.1 (9 votes)

To help distract quarantined Doctor Who fans, there are Doctor Who: Lockdown! simulcast watch-alongs of popular episodes of the "New" series of the show, featuring creatives behind the scenes Tweeting along, as well as short videos to go along with the watch-along.

With the May 30 watch-a-long of the loose "trilogy" of episodes "The End of the World", "New Earth" and "Gridlock" a sort of illustrated audio ""The Secret of Novice Hame", written by Russell T. Davies, was attached. The titular character and narrator of the story is Novice Hame (played by Anna Hope), who appeared in the "New Earth" and "Gridlock" episodes and is an anthropomorphic cat. She tells the story of her life among the various anthropomorphic animals of the far future planet of New Earth, and is visited by David Tennant's "Tenth" incarnation of the Doctor.

An interesting implication of the short piece is that it opens up the possibility that the Doctor themself might someday become an anthropomorphic animal; Novice Hame notes that there are stories of the Doctor in various forms, including animals.

See Also: Flayrah's 2006 coverage of the the episode "New Earth"

Endgame

Your rating: None Average: 3.1 (10 votes)

endgamerocket.jpg"Oh, I'm definitely putting copyrighted Avengers music in this."
- Ceeday, "Heres The MF Endgame"

"I am Iron Man."
- Black Sabbath, "Iron Man"

As I'm writing this, Avengers: Endgame has made $2,272,706,419 in theaters around the world, according to Box Office Mojo, making it currently the second highest grossing movie in cinematic history, with the number one spot well within it's sights. It only has approximately half a million dollars to go to take that spot, and that's a lot of money, but it's been out only one full week.

Whether it ends it's theatrical run first or second, one thing is certain. A review on a small news-site (with readers in the high double digits!) catering to a niche demographic will not be the deciding factor. There is no world where I write a rave review that sends everyone back to the theater, nor is there a world where I so utterly critically destroy this movie that theaters empty like, well, like what happened at the end of the last Avengers movie. Of course, the real reason to review this movie is because I reviewed the last one, and I reviewed that one because it's got a talking raccoon in it, and the coming possibility that the biggest movie ever might soon feature an anthro character is something that should be noted on a furry site.

SPOILER ALERT: The Russo brothers say I can spoil the movie now, but don't worry, I won't. However, if you haven't seen Avengers: Infinity War and want to see it unspoiled, hold off on hitting read more.

Aggretsuko: More cute furry content dealing with Workaholism

Your rating: None Average: 3.5 (15 votes)

Aggretsko_0.jpgI don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get a feeling this year’s furry content is coordinating their themes. It’s always interesting when common threads start to show up near each other, especially when they were not intentional. I remember when Fred Patten’s anthology Furry Future was thought to have had prejudice as a subtheme by a non-furry reviewer. It might have seemed odd that all but one story in the anthology touched on the idea of social inequities without coaxing from the collection editor, but it was just coincidence that the writers felt like writing stories about that theme at the time.

It is surely strange coincidence that just after I played a game with a deeply ingrained theme of a protagonist diving head first into responsibilities to the point of self-detriment that there is an anime playing off this same subject released onto Netflix. However, unlike Yet Another Research Dog, which was a highly niche affair that probably only I had played of those I know, Aggretsuko was already slaying the fandom by the time I had gotten around to hitting the play button.

So what is all the hub about and is it worth the hype?

Review: 'Ghost of a Tale'

Your rating: None Average: 3.9 (12 votes)

Ghost of a Tale is described as an action-RPG game with stealth elements, dialogues and quests. Of particular interest to furs is that you play as an anthropomorphic mouse character in a world that's very reminiscent of Brian Jacques' Redwall series. Impressively, it is primarily the work of a single developer, Seith, and was funded via IndieGoGo. Ghost of a Tale was available in early access for a long time, although I waited until after the full game was released, in March 2018, before buying a copy.

 

Opinion: The top ten movies of 2017

Your rating: None Average: 2.8 (36 votes)

2017.jpg

Surely, readers don't need the rules for a simple year end top ten list explained to them, but in case someone does, you can find them in one of the older lists.

An Interview with Dark Blue Comics

Your rating: None Average: 3.5 (8 votes)

ABlueDeer is a gifted artist on Furaffinity, SoFurry, Inkbunny and other venues. He been a full-time anime, manga, video game, and anthro artist since 2007. Throughout his career, he has also diligently pursued a childhood dream to create his own ongoing webcomic series. With this goal in mind he created Dark Blue Comics, an illustration and writing production house a few years ago. It currently hosts The Depths, Moonlace, and Bethellium for free reading. Contributors to his Patreon page receive sneak-peeks of upcoming pages, high-quality art, pin-ups, scripts, and much more.

I have worked in the past with ABlueDeer and other professional artists as a writer and social media expert on several comic projects, including The Depths. With that I was fortunate to be able to speak to ABlueDeer recently about Dark Blue Comics, his artistic dreams, and plans for the future as an artist and a father.

Leilani: First, my thoughts and prayers to your friends and family caught in the devastating Mexico City earthquake recently. I'm relieved they're all safe and accounted for.

ABlueDeer(ABD): Thank you so much. Yes, I was able to visit mine and Shana, my wife's, families and check on them. There was another earthquake while we were there but luckily this one was minor. We also wanted to see if the houses had any cracks or anything. Apparently, most of the damage was done in the south, which is a little far from our families’ houses. Some areas had a lot of damage. Most buildings that went down were old and supposedly preserved because they were of Hispanic heritage, and they were in the very center of the city.

Andy Panda caught up in Trump/Russian collusion scandal?

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Panda gets scooped.jpg
Andy fears what Charlie found in his mail!
During the latest break in the Trump Russian investigations, an email was revealed to show a requested meeting between a Russian contact and President’s son, Donald Trump Jr, to discuss findings to help them against Clinton’s campaign on behalf of the Russian Government. This email has created yet another uneasy connection to the issue that the 2016 election could very well have been decided by heavy foreign influence and manipulation.

However, this is a furry news site, so what does this have to do with anthropomorphic arts or entertainment?

Well the author of the email sent to Trump Jr. to get this meeting set up was apparently made by an eccentric individual by the name of Rob Goldstone. The full story of their interaction and background can be read on Salon’s “Insane in Moscow”: The unbelievable but partly true story of the zany English publicist, the Azerbaijani pop sensation and the “high-quality” presidential offspring”.

Review: 'No Evil' animated video series

Your rating: None Average: 4.3 (16 votes)

A coyote shakes a fox by the shoulders. No Evil is an animated series of short videos by Betsy Lee (aka Warlord of Noodles), featuring a group of anthropomorphic animal spirits inspired by Aztec mythology and folklore from all across North and South America. Throw in the influence of literary, historical and folk heroes, and you've got a great mix of characters. (Click on the thumbnails for larger images.)

The story involves the spirits trying to deal with the return of a dark, spreading entity that causes a deadly sleeping sickness, which they call the Black Tezcatlipoca, or "black ick" for short, except it's just one problem amongst many that they're having to deal with, such as escalating tensions between the nearby villages.

What (new) animated film of 2016 has the most series potential?

'Watership Down' may be joining Criterion Collection

Your rating: None Average: 4.6 (9 votes)

Watership Down Criterion CollectionEarlier this month, Criterion released Watership Down to iTunes; a full Blu-Ray/DVD release has not been announced at this time, and Criterion's own site doesn't list it as yet part of the collection, even as "coming soon". [Tip: InkyCrow via Newsbyte]

If this does make Watership Down part of the Criterion Collection, it would be only the third animated feature in the collection, after Fantastic Mr. Fox and the no longer available Akira.

The movie is an adaptation of Richard Adams' bestselling novel; it's main competition was in the bestsellers list was Peter Benchley's Jaws, which it beat, despite being about rabbits. Though both novels were later adapted to movies, they didn't directly compete at the box office, which is probably a good thing for Watership Down.

It was directed by Martin Rosen, who went on to direct a second Adams adaptation, The Plague Dogs. It features the voice of John Hurt as Hazel. Hurt is probably best known for his memorable role in Alien as the ill-fated Kane, though he recently played the 8 1/2 incarnation of the titular character in the long running BBC series Doctor Who as the "War Doctor."

The rabbits of Watership Down speak their own language, words of which have been known to be repurposed by furries.

Update 2/1/2015: Watership Down will get a full Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray release on Feb. 24. [InkyCrow]