Why furry fiction?

[altivo]

*taps keyboard to see if it is on*

I admit I'm not entirely sure whether to take the Amazon Author Central invitation seriously. I've been writing for quite a while, but only a tiny bit of my fiction has ever made it to general publication. I'm confident that most readers would have little interest in my non-fiction, and it's all out of print now anyway.

The question of why anyone would write anthropomorphic fiction comes up pretty regularly. People who devour Patterson, Higgins, and Grisham usually do not find fantasy or science fiction suited to their tastes. Those of us who write in this narrower genre have an equally narrow audience.

We do have some very well known writers as models, though. Richard Adams (Watership Down and other novels,) William Horwood (Duncton Wood and many others,) and Brian Jacques (Redwall and sequels) come to mind as modern exemplars. Looking back through the years, we can't omit Orwell's Animal Farm, or Salten's Bambi, or Grahame's The Wind in the Willows either. I find it interesting that all but one of these authors was British, and all but two of them wrote with an adult audience in mind rather than children. Critics and educators alike have a tendency to lump all fiction that features anthropomorphic characters into children's literature, just as they often assign all animated films to the children's audience. I think those critics and educators are short sighted and very unimaginative if they can't see the adult messages that underlie works like Watership Down or Bambi.

Human history and prehistory is filled with stories that use talking, rational animals as their enactors. There is something that links those legends and tales directly to our souls and makes them stick with us (or at least, with those of us who aren't critics and educators.) The Native Americans told each other about Coyote and Loon around the fire or under the moonlight, and Aesop taught his lessons of ethics and wisdom by using animal characters more than two millennia ago.

We are all animals, after all. No matter how much we try to separate ourselves from our animal brethren and cousins, they manage to remind us that they share a good portion of our heritage. When the protagonist in a story is a coyote or an owl, it lets us skip past some of the assumptions we make about humans, and see things in a different light. Or at least, I think it does and strive to make use of that leverage in my storytelling.

For those with deep curiosities (or idle ones for that matter) I can be found on Twitter (Altivo) and have an older website that links to some of my podcasts and reviews: The Clydesdale Librarian. I do try to respond to questions and comments when received.

Comments

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Critics and educators alike have a tendency to lump all fiction that features anthropomorphic characters into children's literature, just as they often assign all animated films to the children's audience. I think those critics and educators are short sighted and very unimaginative if they can't see the adult messages that underlie works like Watership Down or Bambi.

Hear, hear, yes. And those are probably also the same people who put all comics into the children's section - after all, there's pictures and drawings, so it's not for adults, right?

(Of course, my idea of comics tends to be more influenced by the Franco-Belgian comic scene than Marvel and DC...)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

As mine is influenced by Rabbit Valley and Sofawolf. Definitely NOT kid stuff. Circles is tame in the artwork but not in the concepts. Associated Student Bodies or Coyote River though... Even Fur-Piled and Dog Days Afternoon stray pretty far from the "funny animals" notion of what a comic book should be.

I can't comment on superheroes, they never did much for me at all.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Not for me, either. I did have a couple of Superman comics when I was young, and I did read them occasionally, but I was really just interested in them for the sci-fi aspects (such as futuristic technology), alien worlds and, shall we say, unusual villains. Today, though, they wouldn't do much for me anymore; even the better ones, such as Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", are ultimately predictable (in the sense that they all follow a certain basic pattern) and, more often than not, relatively interchangable art-wise.

Not that I have many comics, of course, or regularly read them - I really rather like the Donjon series, generally speaking, and there's also a bunch my local library had, such as the Acquefacques comics, Valerius - der Comic-Agent or Franquin's idées noires, and a couple I ended up buying myself, such as the earlier volumes of the de cape et de crocs series or Le Grand Pouvoir du Chninkel; I think I have a couple of issues of Schwermetall lying around, too, but I'm really not a comic buff. (In Germany, BTW, a lot of credit is due to Carlsen, a publisher who's been making many great Franco-Belgian comics available in German.)

But yeah, furry comics are another good example, too.

[flamekist.livejournal.com]

Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" hooked me instantly with it’s artwork and unusual storyline, but you’re right about it’s predictability. Halfway through the series I realized it really wasn’t too different than the horror comics I’d occasionally read when I was a kid, and at that point I started losing interest.

These days I follow a couple of webcomics. Some for the interesting artwork or storylines, others because the artist is one I remember from when I was a teen. What I find interesting is how much the quality of the artwork changes through the years. One of the artists is developing her style so fast that her work from five years ago is so different from her work today that you wouldn’t believe they were from the same person. But the artist I remember from 25 years ago is completely the same then and now. If it weren’t for his interesting storylines I’d have to say his work had gone stagnant.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, webcomics can be great (although not all are, naturally) - there's definitely a couple of gems out there. I'm curious, too, are there any you'd recommend in particular?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

My favorite is Faux Pas.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, that still exists? Neat - I haven't actually checked it out in goodness knows how long. :)

Hmm, no RSS/Atom feed, though, it seems - that's a pity.

[flamekist.livejournal.com]

My outdated office web browser won't let me insert links, so you'll have to do the old-fashioned cut-n-paste. I apologize...

Boy Meets Boy by K. Sandra Fuhr. Gay-themed, obviously. A continuous storyline but usually with a punchline at the end of each strip. Sandra's early work and the drawings are pretty sketchy. Good character development. This comic concluded several years ago but is still available online. http://boymeetsboy.keenspot.com/d/20000926.html

Friendly Hostility by K. Sandra Fuhr. Picks up where BMB left off. Two minor characters from BMB are now the main characters. Excellent character and artwork development. A continuous storyline but usually with a punchline at the end of each strip. Recently concluded a few months ago. http://friendlyhostility.com/d/20040108.html

5ideways by K. Sandra Fuhr. Extremely dark and surreal with amazing artwork. A continuous storyline with no punchlines. Currently on extended hiatus but Sandra promises to start again. By far her best artwork. http://5ideways.com/2005/20051013-1.php

Other People's Business by K. Sandra Fuhr. Picks up where FH left off. The two main characters from FH are back to being minor ones here. A continuous storyline with few if any punchlines. Just recently started. http://www.otherpeoplesbusiness.net/comic/issue-1/page-1

Girl Genius by Phil Foglio. I first found a graphic novel by this artist about 20 years ago and loved his artwork, so I was very pleased when I recently found him online with this comic. To my surprise, his artwork hasn't changed one bit in all that time. Interresting steampunk storyline with rich background artwork. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, Phil Foglio - that's a name I recognize, too. (He and his wife Kaja did a couple of Magic: The Gathering card illustrations, IIRC, and there was also the "What's New with Phil & Dixie" comic in the Duelist; that, and he put out his own card game called XXXenophile, IIRC, but I never actually got that, unfortunately.)