News from the World (June 2017)
Fred Patten’s latest book, which we reviewed in our previous article, begins with a dedication to Mark Merlino and Rod O’Riley for their involvement in the furry fandom. They’re two furries from South California, who are now 64 and 52 years of age respectively. They would host furry parties at sci-fi conventions in the 80s. But once it became clear that furries needed their own separate convention, they were up to the task. And so, they went ahead and organized the first furry convention, ‘ConFurence 0’, in 1989! It was a success, and they stayed in charge of further runs until ConFurence 10 in 1999, at a point when many other cons had sprung as well.
Mark and Rod live in a furry house, a private residence where a large number of furries live or gather, with furry decorations, furry media, and furry-related activities. Their house is called The Prancing Skiltaire, after Mark Merlino’s original fictional species the Skiltaire: an intelligent weasel-like alien race he came up with in the 70s. After so many decades of actively taking part in the fandom, The Prancing Skiltaire isn’t just a home, but a library / archive of particularly valuable pre-internet era documents, some not found anywhere else. Encouraged by public interest in the history of furry, Changa Lion, another furry living at The Prancing Skiltaire, has selected and scanned almost 2000 pages (so far) of these historical documents, now open to the public at The ConFurence Archive (ConFurence.com). The digital online archive will continue to grow as he scans & uploads more interesting documents. Great news for anyone interested in the history of our community!
Mark & Rod also host the audio series Two Old Furry Fans, where they speak about their personal experiences as growing furry fans since childhood.
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Sonic Team announces a striking feature to their upcoming game Sonic Forces, to be released the last quarter of 2017.
How many times have you seen fanmade OCs (original characters) drawn with Sonic-like features on art websites? Maybe you’ve drawn your own! Well, next Sonic’s adventure allows you to customize the main character of the game to your liking, effectively making original characters canon within the Sonic universe!
This is the customization shown so far on media released to the press, the species and traits selectable:
- Bear, blows away enemies with a homing attack.
- Bird, flies high with double jump abilities.
- Cat, keeps one ring after being hit.
- Dog, restarts with five rings after the player dies.
- Hedgehog, collects rings when getting damaged.
- Rabbit, has longer invincible time after receiving damage.
- Wolf, automatically draws in rings when near them.
- Upper headgear, which includes various hats.
- Middle headgear, which includes various styles of glasses.
- Lower headgear, with bandanas, mouthpieces, and mustaches.
- Gloves, there’ll be fingerless, knuckled and plain.
- Footwear, with option for boots, and sneakers.
- Custom body clothing, which includes various jackets, bow ties, backpacks, chains, and other items.
- Custom body suit (options not shown in trailer).
- Custom skin color (options not shown in trailer).
Sonic Forces will be multiplatform, available for Windows PC, and also PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Gameplay-wise, it’ll be most similar to Sonic Generations: players will run at high speeds in levels with elements such as spring boards, boost pads, and robots and other hazards, in a 3D back view and also in 2.5D side-scrolling fashion.
Joe Strike, a first-wave furry greymuzzle (in the fandom since 1989), has taken on the mission of writing the first in-depth insider book about the fandom, to be published October this year: Furry Nation. The book will include profiles of furry artists, published authors, and craftspeople. It’s a journey through the birth of animal anthropomorphism, from prehistoric cave paintings to the modern day; a very human story that takes many forms, from the joyfully public to the deeply personal. His writing style shows to be promising so far, and in his research he’s collaborated with many furs for a quality retrospective and present view. The publisher is Cleis Press, and it’ll be available on Amazon among other book stores. At Furry Chronicles we’ll be keeping a close eye on the work, and tell you all about it when it comes out!
And soon to be announced are the winners of the Ursa Major Awards 2016. We’ll be covering the event with an article very soon. Stay furry-tuned!
Main sources: Dogpatch Press, Flayrah.
