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SkunkDecember 1993 |
This landmark black-and-white comic about the furry fandom (whose title is an abbreviation of the bestiality-leaning anti-furry epithet "Skunk Fucker") was published three months before the first bad press about the furry fandom (the infamous Wired article) appeared. It caused quite a scandal, and there was an effort in some quarters of the fandom to avoid mentioning this comic for fear of it becoming too public. The irony is that the very problems and attitudes that are depicted in these pieces, called "unfair and one-sided" at the time by many furry fans, are still quite prevalent over seven years later, if not worse. The usual "similarity" disclaimer on the index page is appended with "...but if anyone seems familiar, I would worry if I were you!"
The only really "erotic piece" in the set, and the inspiration for the cover, this is the longest story in the comic. A furry artist gets his dream as his trio of furry-women come to life and sexually service him. Predictably, his fantasy runs afoul of unforseen consequences of things like sharp teeth, allergies to fur, and suffocatingly huge breasts. Uneven and somewhat reaching, it eventually ends on a simple point that people who have unrealistic expectations of women are unlikely to know the company of a real one.
Donna Barr's rough-edged, scrawling style lends itself to the harrowing tale of an equine female character who does not share the same aesthetics desired by the mobs of goblin-like furry fans who approach her with sketchbooks in hand, complaining about her lack of huge breasts and a tail, and demanding questionable things of her for money -- likely an episode lifted from attending a convention as a guest artist. The doodles of the goblin-like fans clearly are drawn from first hand experience, as the final panel even has a caricature of a furry artist (note the hat) who appears later in the last story, "The Fur Flies to France".
The most objective piece in the set, "Sim" wordlessly and elegantly portrays the sharply contrasting double-life of an online furry fan, the marvelous wonderlands in which he exists online evaporating to a dark, melancholy existance between connection attempts. It speaks the most universally and fairly of all these stories, and its relevance today is only strengthened by the explosive growth of the sedentary internet culture.
This story requires a fair amount of knowledge of the personalities involved in the furry fandom around the early 90's to appreciate who is actually being represented. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Canadian comic artist in the company of a boorish, loud, complaining, and perpeptually conniving American furry artist (whose identity can probably be guessed from the species he's depicted as, and the phonetically similar title of his comic series, "Dred Sheep Shark"). While the story itself is not really about "furry fandom", it does, in the best quote in the comic, comment rather strongly on the feeble state of the genre compared to the much stronger and more publicly respected comic standards of France.
If there is any doubt as to the exact goal of this comic, it is dispelled by the color back cover image of an angry "Spumcoesque" cow, udders swinging wildly as a tornado of art depicting large breasted furries swirls about it, yelling "Get a *@/\/\/\!i! LIFE, you schmucks!"
Copies, suprisingly, are still apparently available at Donna Barr's "Stinz" website for the original cover price of $2.95.
It's enlightening to compare this comic to the much more recent work "Shawn Keller's Horrifying Look at the Furries". While the message is similar, the differences in approach, and the differences between the fandom of 1993 and the fandom of 2001 that are reflected, are interesting.
ER, "Fear of Commitment"May 3, 2001 |
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The incorporation of a pair of rather stereotypical furry fans into the plot of an ER episode came as a shock to the furry community. However, while it was no doubt embarassing to many people, it wasn't as apocalyptically bad as one would think from the reactions it got in furry forums.
In fact, considering it was a small sub-plot of a weekly prime-time TV drama, it was surprisingly well researched. The plot line of the furry-related sections mostly focused on the furvert/non-furvert split in the fandom. Most of the furry-related dialogue is by a man in a kangaroo suit, who has a Burned Fur-like tendancy to constantly draw attention to the very things he doesn't want to be associated with. He keeps insisting that he's not like those furverts and plushophiles, then finds himself having to explain exactly what a "furvert" or "plushophile" is. He's his own worst enemy when it comes to trying to get respect for the fandom.
The only truely disturbing moment comes at the end, when a nurse finds a cat puppet given to her by a friend is missing, then discovers the "furvert" character holding it while masturbating.
