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Doug Winger's passing
10 years ago
I had been following dustmeat and bobguthrie's updates about Doug's health, and it saddens me to know that he passed away today (well, yesterday, at this point). As so many others have said, his art was arguably the first furry art I ever saw.
When I first got internet access at my parents' house, back in 1997, I was a member of SciFi Channel's Palace chat, The Mother Ship, which was populated by all sorts of different fans of scifi and fantasy. It was common to edit various graphics and digital photos into custom avatars, and people would sometimes even customize them, cross-pollination style, with other things they liked. Different Palaces also had different "prop rooms" where you could try on free avatars in related themes, and new friends would tell you where to look for interesting bases. On one of these explorations, in the dungeons of a Palace called Leonesse, I found an avater that I eventually learned was made from this image:
http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/.....nger/erika.gif
and ended up using it as a base to create this:
http://scullyraptor.com/temp/borg_vixen.gif
(It had been animated in the chat, but I don't have the other frames extracted)
At the time, I had no idea furries were a thing. I just thought it was neat because I liked animal people, and didn't realize other people drew them too. It was a result of using this avatar occasionally that other visitors at The Mother Ship asked me if I did any MUCKing, and eventually sent me on my way with links to FurNation and the Transformation Story Archive, a vector that would end up having a profound effect on my life.
Reading other things that have been written about Mr. Winger today, I am truly disappointed that I did not get a chance to meet him in person. He sounds like he would have been a very interesting individual to talk to.
It is sad to lose such a pillar of the original furry fandom, but I am grateful that his suffering has ended. I wish him peace, and that the fandom remembers him and his contributions to our art and culture.
When I first got internet access at my parents' house, back in 1997, I was a member of SciFi Channel's Palace chat, The Mother Ship, which was populated by all sorts of different fans of scifi and fantasy. It was common to edit various graphics and digital photos into custom avatars, and people would sometimes even customize them, cross-pollination style, with other things they liked. Different Palaces also had different "prop rooms" where you could try on free avatars in related themes, and new friends would tell you where to look for interesting bases. On one of these explorations, in the dungeons of a Palace called Leonesse, I found an avater that I eventually learned was made from this image:
http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/.....nger/erika.gif
and ended up using it as a base to create this:
http://scullyraptor.com/temp/borg_vixen.gif
(It had been animated in the chat, but I don't have the other frames extracted)
At the time, I had no idea furries were a thing. I just thought it was neat because I liked animal people, and didn't realize other people drew them too. It was a result of using this avatar occasionally that other visitors at The Mother Ship asked me if I did any MUCKing, and eventually sent me on my way with links to FurNation and the Transformation Story Archive, a vector that would end up having a profound effect on my life.
Reading other things that have been written about Mr. Winger today, I am truly disappointed that I did not get a chance to meet him in person. He sounds like he would have been a very interesting individual to talk to.
It is sad to lose such a pillar of the original furry fandom, but I am grateful that his suffering has ended. I wish him peace, and that the fandom remembers him and his contributions to our art and culture.
It is far too easy to be a quiet lurker. These days, we at least get faves/watch/comments/notes/reblog feedback easily, but back in the vcl days (and presumably the bbs/mailing list era prior to that), obviously a person had to go through all the effort of sending you an email to let you know how how they felt about your work. I'm sure it was even more vague when it was paper 'zines and mail order catalogs, but who knows, people may have been more accustomed to writing letters back then, too.
His passing definitely leaves a hole even some hyperfurs couldn't fill (try as they might; I'm sure there's a Wingeresque joke in there somewhere).
was one of the first furry artist i discoverd
RIP
I wish I had met him that one time under better circumstances.
I never got into the hyper, but I knew his name. It's really so surprising because I hadn't heard much about him in recent years until this.
That's about as close a contact as I ever had with the guy, myself. I'm right with ya. Would've loved to have met him, at least once. But, I'm certainly fortunate enough to have met the ones that I have. Yourself among them. :) Let's try to cross paths again someday soon, huh? Miss ya!