What's up with furries?

[Turnsky]

it's surprising that a topic like this hasn't descended into a flamewar.. this is good.

Anyway, i like drawing anthros, equally as much as drawing humans.

as for Kevin and Kell, it always irked me, i'm not expecting it to be logical, but some degree of overall sense would be nice, as for ramifications of eating your neighbor for sunday brunch.
Anywho, i honestly don't read that many 'furry' comics, only one that i read regularly, and only for a giggle now and again..
Really, i enjoy looking at artwork, i enjoy drawing it.
For the record, i do think a certain CSI episode had a lot to do with feeding the stereotype, and we all know how accurate CSI is, right?


Anthros and Furries, a really vague description i know, but i guess it really depends on what the author uses them for, and what key points of logic they completely ignore to do it.

[Chelsee]

Sometimes it's just a unique challenge! Try taking an animal, altering its anatomy so that it still 'is' the same animal, but with human-esk features. The more creative the better, I feel with the furry realm... Insects and turtles tend to fascinate me... and when they MIX animals... Hoo. I saw a spider-snake-bird furry once. Or there's the mythical ones... draco-lupin or something... People like being epic and mythical, I guess....

[The Neko]

Kevin and Kell always kind of disturbed me somehow on a vague level that's hard to define. Ever notice how all the animals who are eaten in the comic are less anthropomorphized than those that are not? And tend not to wear clothes as often? They're more 'animally.' They're just extras there to be eaten. And you know, I always did wonder what would happen if everyone in Kevin and Kell were human. I mean, when you stop an think about it, the world is pretty creepy. O_o Someone living in that world would have to constantly worry about not coming home to their family because of the high risk of DEATH and being eaten as they make their way home from work. "Sorry, little Billy, but papa was murdered by a large leopard today. But don't worry, it's all part of the circle of life. If you want, we can view his body in our neighbor's fridge."

See, that's what I'm thinking too. There are main characters in "Kevin and Kell" they are intelligent, wear clothes, act more humanly, and are always well-intended. There are extras who act more like animals, often are stupid and evil. The divite between those two types of characters is suspiciously strict, implying over and over again that the first type is superior to the second one, but things get more creepy because when a character of the second type gets eaten, that's no big deal, it's an event worth of two panels of comic, it's like squashing a big. On the other side, it's implied that characters of the first type never get eaten, or if they did, that would be a big deal, a tragedy.
One of the episodes that ring most unpleasantly (as far as I remember) was when Kevin took a loan, and then when he wasn't able to pay it up, his kid just ate sharks he took a loan from. If you think any more deep into it, you have to wonder, what right does it give him? Kevin is given a moral superiority by the author here, but objectively, he doesn't have it - he's the one who took the loan, he's the one who couldn't pay up. But author gives his loaners an "evil face", even though they did nothing evil, and with that justifies their killing. One also wonders how comes there's never any police to investigate murders.

I guess in that universe, it is not a meritocracy that defines one's place in the social order, but instead it is ordained by birth (by species). Not a very pleasant universe, really. You can't apply human intelligence, psychology and society to the predatory nature of the animal world, and it's really fuckin' awkward if you try, as evidenced by that comic.

I also find it interesting in that most/all anthropomorphic comics, humans are missing. Humans are living, mammalian organisms as well. If you raise these animals to the same biological, societal, psychological, and moral status as human, the distinction becomes moot.

[MixedMyth]

Pretty much, yeah. that was the other thing about K&K that I always found weird. It always went on aobut how humans are vicious and unnatural and, really, kinda evil...but the characters ARE basically humans who want to eat each other, and have all the capabilities (yay thumbs?) of humans. Hell, they even have a bunch of our problems- I remember mention of global warming and such. So...I'm not really sure why humans are supposed to be worse than semi-human animals with the same problems AND a society based on devouring other 'people.' I realize I'm thinking about this all much too hard, but I can't help it.

And yeah, putting K&K aside for a moment there is that sort of mindset that removes people from the natural world. You find this outside of furry comics, though. A lot of people sort of think that way. There's the natural world, and then there's the human world. It takes some effort to think that we ARE part of the natural world. I mean, we're animals. we came from the natural world. Just 'cause we modify our environments significantly does not change that.

[The Neko]

When you anthropomorphisize all the creatures to be on the same level of humanity, it becomes a matter of race and thus raises a lot more complicated issues.

I guess the long and the short of it is that we don't think the world depicted by most of these comics makes a lick of sense.

[Polerin]

This reminds me, I need to go catch up on Jack again. One who's world (sorta) makes sense.

[The Mortician]

This kind of thread make me sad. Just because its about furries, at least it hasn't gone to the point where I regret using anthro animals as a part of the world setting in my comic.

When you anthropomorphisize all the creatures to be on the same level of humanity, it becomes a matter of race and thus raises a lot more complicated issues.

I guess the long and the short of it is that we don't think the world depicted by most of these comics makes a lick of sense.

I personally would like to hear more, Neko.

[Turnsky]

When you anthropomorphisize all the creatures to be on the same level of humanity, it becomes a matter of race and thus raises a lot more complicated issues.

I guess the long and the short of it is that we don't think the world depicted by most of these comics makes a lick of sense.

true, what most people who write anthros into stories forget that if they're gonna be like people, they'd logically act JUST like people, not everybody's gonna play "happy families". one hasta factor various legal and moral issues that'd come along with supposed 'heightened intelligence', K&K for example, predators can happily feast on the prey without reprisal, in an intelligent and more well thought out setting, i'd imagine that there'd be repecussions for that such as police charges, lawsuits, and the ever-popular lynch mob.

[The Neko]

true, what most people who write anthros into stories forget that if they're gonna be like people, they'd logically act JUST like people, not everybody's gonna play "happy families". one hasta factor various legal and moral issues that'd come along with supposed 'heightened intelligence', K&K for example, predators can happily feast on the prey without reprisal, in an intelligent and more well thought out setting, i'd imagine that there'd be repecussions for that such as police charges, lawsuits, and the ever-popular lynch mob.

Yeah.

Imagine a world where, say, Asians arbitrarily have the legal and social go-ahead to kill and consume black people. They all have human intelligence, psychology, and basic rights, but one of them just gets to do that to the other because they happen to have a slightly different-looking physical exterior. See? That's all kinds of FUCKED UP. It's not any less fucked up if these people happen to be wearing animal costumes (aka, drawn as anthropomorphic animals with human society and physicality).

[MixedMyth]

Well...it started out with a Darwinian principle, natural selection, and by slapping intelligence and a 'human' face on things it suddenly became social darwinism taken very, very literally.

[Ewomack]

Humans can't stop anthropormorphizing animals. We seem addicted to it. One glance at cute overload reveals some people's inner drive to make animals into little sacks of "innocent" humanity. Anyone who's seen killer whales toss seal pups 30 feet into the air for no known reason knows that our percieved "innocence" of the animal kingdom is a cute illusion.

And I'm not sure about the furries... I've seen that referred to in some rather un-worksafe ways during my time on the net.

[RemusShepherd]

I also find it interesting in that most/all anthropomorphic comics, humans are missing.

If I may generalize, that's because the furry characters are stereotyped by their animal behavior into different roles within the story. Humans have no such stereotype, so they don't easily plug into the story anywhere. It amounts to either laziness in plotting, or artistic purity in theme.

[Sortelli]

Sure there's a human stereotype vis a vis a world of talking animals. We're the ones who smog up the skies while turning everything into plastic and are always thwarted by the clever rabbits we hunt for no reason at all.

[The Neko]

Well...it started out with a Darwinian principle, natural selection, and by slapping intelligence and a 'human' face on things it suddenly became social darwinism taken very, very literally.

That's a very good way of putting it.

[Grabmygoblin]

When you anthropomorphisize all the creatures to be on the same level of humanity, it becomes a matter of race and thus raises a lot more complicated issues.

Maus!

[Bohemian]

Maus is an absolutely FANTASTIC example of anthropomorphization done well.

It's when you get the WEIRD shit...
*jibblies*

[Jesusabdullah]

Come on in heeere!

[Dr Neo Lao]

It depends on the individual comic and just how much thought the author put into it. I thought DMFA handled it nice and simply, with the old "the powerful rule the weak" - or in this case, eat them.

That also explains why there are adventurers (out to slay the more powerful ones that snack on villagers) and there was another strip somewhere about a council that settled disputes between the weaker and the more powerful.

It's like the old actor's cliche - "what's my motivation?" I wish authors would put a bit more thought into why things are so in their comics. They don't need fifty pages of exposition explaining in detail to the reader, but little footnotes or an 'about' page (or a well-written entry in the CGWiki *hint hint*) to let the audience know what's what is always nice.

[KWill]

When you anthropomorphisize all the creatures to be on the same level of humanity, it becomes a matter of race and thus raises a lot more complicated issues.

Maus!

I had the same thought when I read that! =O

[Killbert-Robby]

Humans can't stop anthropormorphizing animals. We seem addicted to it. One glance at cute overload reveals some people's inner drive to make animals into little sacks of "innocent" humanity. Anyone who's seen killer whales toss seal pups 30 feet into the air for no known reason knows that our percieved "innocence" of the animal kingdom is a cute illusion.

And I'm not sure about the furries... I've seen that referred to in some rather un-worksafe ways during my time on the net.

Its still ungodly-ly cool. Like RAAAAAWR I'M A WHALE!