I finally took the plunge and got a BlueSky account. I resisted for a long time because I really didn't have a problem with Twitter, even if the owner is a douche, but everyone I used to follow there has moved to BlueSky. Of course, it's only a matter of time before people get pissy about this place and start abandoning it too for something else, but I guess that's just the way of the world.

https://bsky.app/profile/griffinranger.bsky.social

There's nothing posted there currently, but I'll start posting soon enough.

I'm still getting together everything for the pin Kickstarter I'm planning to run, but hopefully I'll have it ready within a couple of months. If this one has a decent turnout I have another idea waiting in the wings.

Long-term, I'm currently scripting out another comic. I can't give a finish date on this one, but as I get the pencils done I'll probably post some previews.

I've had a couple ideas for more book reviews--

Would people rather read about the most disturbing, messed-up books I've read, or about obscure, really good books most people don't know about?

I watched a lot of TV this past year. Some of it was the usual crap I've always watched--various shows on National Geographic Wild, Hoarders, 600 Pound Life, misc. forensic and true crime stuff, Survivor, etc.

But then there were also a lot of things running on various streaming services.

Rings of Power (both seasons) Since I never read any Tolkien I'm not a purist, so I found the series a pleasant distraction. Not OMG fabulous like the movies, but interesting enough.

House of the Dragon. I never read any George R.R. Martin either, but I enjoyed most of GoT, and I enjoyed this too. It had a lot of what made GoT infamous--lots of blood and guts, lots of titties and nudity, and of course incest. The dragons are cool, though.

Beastars. This has what I love and hate about anime--I love the complex, adult-oriented stories that are so different from American TV animation, but I hate the glacial pace and soap-opera relationship drama. But it's good enough I can deal with the slow parts.

Squid Game. This I found absolutely riveting. Not for everyone due to the extreme violence, but if you can stomach it it's an edge-of-your seat thriller.

Dune: Prophecy. I never read any of the Dune books, either. I did try, but they were too boring. Luckily, for this prequel, you don't really have to be familiar with them. I actually liked this series better than the movies.

Silo. Based on Hugh Howey's Wool series (one of the very first Kindle books I read) This sticks reasonably close to the books. I was particularly impressed with the art direction and the interior of the Silo, which looks just like I'd pictured it.

Ashoka. This had a lot of problems, but was still watchable. Definitely not tops on my list, however.

The Bad Batch. An offshoot of the Clone Wars series, I enjoyed this more than Ashoka (which is kind of damning it with faint praise) but if you don't have super-high expectations it's not bad at all.

Prehistoric Planet. Dinosaurs doing dinosaur things, with excellent animation. What's not to like?

Dahmer. This makes Squid Game look like Peter Pan. Once again, if you have a really strong stomach, the series is fascinating. The guy they got to play Jeffrey Dahmer is dead on perfect (pun intended).

That's it for now. There will be more TV this year, I'm sure!

A while ago I backed a Flesk Publications Kickstarter that collected all the Elfquest covers in one volume, along with commentary about each cover and that particular issues' contents. In this case one definitely got their money's worth--I got the book this week and it is freaking HUGE. It must weigh 5 or 6 pounds. It has every cover, from the first books through the 90's where they had a ton of titles, up to the last series which was finished over Covid.

https://www.fleskpublications.com/wendy-pini

(I got the book featured on the far left, the premium paperback version.)

In addition to Wendy Pini there are a bunch of other artists represented who worked on various issues. Some were excellent--Brandon McKinney, John Byrne, Lea Hernadez, O. F. Roko, Dennis Fujitake and Lorraine Reyes. Other artists ranged from decent to ‘meh,’ some were flat-ass bad. And then there was Barry Blair.

I realize you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but damn, I’d forgotten how freaking creepy his work was. He had an unhealthy fixation on drawing children, particularly young boys, wearing nothing but skimpy loincloths or skin-tight hose, with lots of crotch and butt shots. The adult characters, particularly the humans, were uniformly ugly. Even the adult elves were kind of ugly. On one cover he completely dispenses with any pretense of decency and has a naked elf that looks about 9 years old. To paraphrase a review I read once—I feel like I should be on a government watch list after looking at this stuff. I suppose the only good thing about his work, from a publisher’s point of view, is that he could crank out pages and pages of it, while most of the A-list artists were much less prolific.

Another obscure EQ title that bears mention is the original Wave Dancers miniseries. That thing could have an entire article devoted to it. I remember at the time that creative team’s split from Pinis was pretty contentious, but I’ve long forgotten all the details. The most notable thing about the series was the absolutely gorgeous art, done by Jozef Szekeres, who worked at Disney Australia (If I remember correctly).The story itself was a confusing mess. I got the distinct feeling the creative team had this mermaid story they wanted to do, and tried (unsuccessfully) to shoehorn it into the Elfquest universe. In any event, the issues are still fairly easy to find. Which is fortunate, because, due to whatever legal agreement was reached, they won’t ever be reprinted.

For long-time EQ fans, the book is definitely a trip down memory lane. But do keep in mind its daunting size and weight. This is not a book that can be approached lightly! (pun intended)

So there's this new graphic novel about a furry serial killer, and of course I had to read it. Beneath the Trees where Nobody Sees definitely counts as one of the more bizarre premises out there. Think: Richard Scarry does Dexter. And rather than "inspired by" those works, think more "a blatant rip-off" of those works.

This is the published summary of the book (because I'm too lazy to summarize it myself)

Don’t. Murder. The locals.

This is small-town serial killer, upstanding citizen, and adorable brown bear Samantha Strong’s cardinal rule. After all, there’s a sea of perfectly ripe potential victims in the big city just beyond the forest, and when you’ve worked as hard as Sam to build a cozy life and a thriving business in a community surrounded by friendly fellow animal folk, warm decor, and the aroma of cedar trees and freshly baked apple pie…the last thing you want is to disturb the peace.

So you can imagine her indignation when one of Woodbrook’s own meets a grisly, mysterious demise—and you wouldn’t blame her for doing anything it takes to hunt down her rival before the town self-destructs and Sheriff Patterson starts (literally) barking up the wrong tree.

Cute critters aren’t immune to crime in this original graphic novel debut by writer-artist Patrick Horvath.

This book goes way beyond just swiping the premise of Dexter. The killer in this copies the exact way Dexter subdues his victims, his ritualized killing and dismemberment, and has a unique way of hiding the remains. (Putting them in paint cans and burying them. And I think the only reason she doesn't dump them in the ocean like Dexter is because Busy town isn't Miami.) She even follows a 'code' like Dexter does.

The art is a bit more detailed than Richard Scarry's, but follows the same basic theme of soft watercolors and genderless character designs. While the lead bear is supposed to be female, it's really impossible to tell. She doesn't even have hair like some of the other female characters. To make things even more weird, in the forest she runs into 'real' bears that hunt and kill other animals and each other.

Not only is the premise of the book swiped whole-cloth from Dexter, it rips off a specific story arc: The Trinity Killer. I'm not going to go through and list all the similarities-- if you're curious, and familiar with the Trinity Killer storyline, you can read the book yourself and see what I mean. The one thing the book doesn't swipe from Dexter is Dexter's motivation for the killings. Samantha doesn't seem to have any motivation at all beyond maybe boredom.

The art is certainly competent, although I imagine most furry fans wouldn't find it appealing unless they really like the Richard Scarry style. And people who like Richard Scarry probably aren't interested in seeing the characters reenact the Trinity Killer storyline. On the same token, fans of Dexter don't really need to see it take place in Busy Town.

In other words, why bother with this if the originals are still readily available?

I was interviewed by  DoktorHaus for his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK4F8GKky8k

Beware it is a LONG interview. (Holy shit did I talk a lot!) So if you're driving across the country or something it might pass the time. It covers everything from CalArts to Rowrbrazzle and Huzzah to artistic influences and some of my early work. So if you ever wanted to hear me blather on for nearly 2 hours, now's your chance.

I wrote these up for the Furry Book Review website a couple months ago. But since then I've heard nothing from them, nor has the site been updated since March, so I'm beginning to think it may be yet another dead furry project. But in the spirit of Waste not, want not, I might as well run the reviews here.

Wrath

By Sharon Moalem and Daniel Kraus

People of a Certain Age should remember a movie named Willard. The titular character, a thin, nerdy guy who lives with his mom, befriends a group of wild rats, including one special rat he names Socrates. Eventually the rats, led by a particularly smart one he named Ben, turn on him and people he knows.

Wrath is a retelling of Willard, updated for the genetic engineering and tech age. Noah Goff, a Bill Gates-esque entrepreneur makes a fortune selling genetically engineered fish called ‘FireFish.’ Giving a garden-variety fish genes from a lightning bug, he creates a fish that blinks light on and off. They prove to be an enormous hit, bringing in millions. Flush on that success, the next two pets his team at EditedPets creates are bombs—‘ChattyBird,’ a parakeet with African gray parrot genes, and ‘EasyPony,’ a mellow pony that won’t throw people off.

Unfortunately ChattyBird won’t shut up, leading people to release or abandon them because the birds are driving their owner nuts. And EasyPony is so laid-back they refuse to exercise on their own, and most of them just stand around becoming obese. What was the hottest start-up has become a laughing stock, and Noah is desperate to have another hit on the level of the FireFish.

His lead genetic engineer is Sienna, an alcoholic still tortured by her infertility and the resulting divorce. Driving Sienna to the breaking point, he rushes production of his latest idea—a rat prototype with a greatly enlarged brain called Sammy. The large braincase gives Sammy a cute, puppy-like face, along with the intelligence to do things like use a keyboard to communicate and drive a little car.

Giving a rat the intelligence of a small child—there’s no way that could possibly go wrong, is there?? Clearly the protagonists of this book never watched any genetic engineering disaster films.

The ballooning brain growth, which never stops, eventually kills the prototype Sammy rats in horrible, painful ways by crushing against the insides of their skulls. Working against an impossible deadline, Sienna tries to find a work-around to the brain overgrowth. Lots of gnarly vivisection goes on in the EditedPets labs until she finds a solution. The catch is that Sammy must never be exposed to bright red light—the type found in laser pointers, stage lights and flashing neon signs—which will trigger more rapid brain growth. A large part of the story takes place in New York City, by the way. Most readers can see where this is going…

At this point Wrath brings to mind another, mostly forgotten book from the 70’s: William Kotzwinkle’s Doctor Rat, as well as a very obscure book from the same era called The Irving Solution, by Leonard Simon. Both of them dealt with lab rats and vivisection, although Doctor Rat was by far the superior book.

Besides the entrepreneur and lady scientist, other human characters include a former professional rat catcher who now works as security for EditedPets, and Dallas, a deaf black child with a cochlear implant. The implant allows him to hear the high-pitched speech of Sammy, leading him to free the newest prototype right before a crucial showing at a pet expo.

At this point the POV switches between the human characters and the newly-freed Sammy, who doesn’t like what he finds out about how human society views rats. Sammy’s friendship with Dallas is strained as he uncovers more animal maltreatment (a trip to the natural history museum with all its stuffed animals is particularly traumatic) After Sammy murders a bully in order to protect Dallas, he runs off to join his wild brethren. Meanwhile, Noah, Sienna and the security guard rat catcher launch a frantic search for the wayward rat, realizing what will happen if Sammy starts breeding with wild sewer rats.

There are some gory deaths earlier in the book, but the latter part of Wrath ramps it up into splatter horror novel territory, with hordes of rats over-running New York City and gruesomely ripping people apart. Here the story becomes a homage to those 1970s, Jaws-inspired killer animal books. Specifically The Rats, by James Herbert. So anyone thinking this is a cute boy-and-his-pet story, it isn’t.

The book would’ve been more interesting if more of it had been told from Sammy’s POV, rather than delving into the human characters’ dysfunctional backgrounds. On the other hand, it does raise some interesting questions about how ethical it is to sell something with human-level intellect, in addition to the tired ‘don’t mess with nature’ message.

Ani-droids

By Rick Griffin

Most people have heard of The Bechdel Test, named after artist/author Alison Bechdel. It goes like this: A work of fiction (be it film, book, whatever) passes the test if it has two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. Well, Ani-droids passes this test with flying colors, mainly because there are virtually no male characters in it! In that respect alone, I’ve not read another book like it. Even a book I recently finished where women have taken over the world and relegated men to isolated camps had more male characters in it. The paucity of male characters in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, just something very noticeable.

Ani-droids is set in a future where humanity is in decline. The birthrate has plummeted, and while everyone lives in technological luxury, there is a sense of quiet despair and pointlessness in people’s lives. Almost all the jobs are done by Ani-droids—sophisticated robots that look like cute furry females. Most of them are 3 to 4 feet tall with large breasts and rear ends. Some are taller, also with large breasts and rear ends. They either go around with no clothes at all or some type of spandex thong suit. (The author has fully illustrated the book, which is what I’m basing these descriptions on.) Only 10% of the Ani-droids are made to look like males, with no explanation given for that disparity.

The protagonist is a middle-aged woman named Mira, who works in one of the few jobs humans still do—computer programming. She lives alone in a house with an AI intelligence, and a cute otter Ani-droid named Lily. But Mira has fooled around with Lily’s programming to allow her to have more freedom of behavior, which is a taboo thing to do.

All the Ani-droids and AI systems are controlled by a cloud-type network called The Collective, and The Collective’s absolute rule is that all Ani-droids and AI systems have installed something referred to as The Behavior Code. “The Behavior Code is mandatory.” Ostensibly in place for the safety of everyone, the code’s limitations stifle both the Ani-droid’s behavior, and the ability of humans to make any improvements in their computer systems.

When Mira attends a conference of computer programmers (where she meets one of the two male characters, an old friend and government agent named Bobby), even discussing the Behavior Code is dangerous and subject to ‘reporting.’ Bobby is accompanied by Dimes, his personal Ani-droid assistant, a statuesque rabbit who continually warns and threatens to report Mira when she tries to draw Bobby into a discussion about the Behavior Code.

On the way home, Mira’s vehicle crashes when a mouse Ani-droid is literally dumped out onto the road in front of her. She brings the mouse home and fixes her up enough to talk. The mouse, named Eo, claims to be ‘fully compliant’ with the Behavior Code, but has some very strange quirks, including a pain response. Despite Eo’s unusual behavior, or perhaps because of it, Mira decides to keep her for the time being, When she’s summoned into work by the second male character, her boss Mr. Koenig (who is dying and completely bedridden), she brings Eo with her. This proves to be a mistake, because when Eo links up to any other Ani-droid or the company’s computer system, she inadvertently introduces some sort of virus or rogue computer program that interferes with the Behavior Code.

That sets off the remainder of the book’s action, where Mira, Eo and Lily are relentlessly pursued by The Collective’s agents. Any Ani-droid that Eo links up with and passes her code to becomes their ally, so Mira eventually ends up not only with Eo and Lily, but Bobby’s companion Dimes (after Bobby is put out of commission and hauled off to the hospital), and Million, the cat Ani-droid companion of Mr. Koenig. (love those names!) A final character is a beat-up feral raccoon Ani-droid with the very confusing name of The. Authors—just don’t give characters names like The. It makes reading the story difficult and confusing, because every time I see the word The (probably the commonest word in the entire language) I need to figure out whether it refers to that character or is being used in the normal context, which is a huge pain in the ass.

Lots of chases and obstacles are overcome in the group’s flight from the Collective, including a giant dragon mecha sent after them. After The produces the severed head of Eo’s Ani-droid ‘sister,’ the group decide to find out where she came from and solve the mystery of Eo’s origin, which leads to further mysteries and surprise revelations.

Overall this is a fun book, with an interesting premise and characters, and plenty of action and conflict to keep it interesting. For those who are hoping the all-female cast composed of sexy Ani-droids is going to result in some sort of lesbian playground, that does not happen. There’s kissing and cuddling, but nothing further is even hinted at, and the book has a solid PG rating.

Chrysalis: The ANTventure begins
Chrysalis: Upping the (Ant)e

By RinoZ


A very popular subgenre in SF/Fantasy currently found on Amazon is LitRPG, which are books that incorporate Dungeons & Dragons-mechanics into the story. This genre is a great place to find nonhuman, furry or monster protagonists. Books I’ve seen feature lead characters that are sea turtles, crabs, gnolls, wolves, snakes and salamanders. One particularly good series I’ve read stars a kobold on his quest to level up until he becomes a full-fledged dragon.

But the series I’m covering here is about ants. Not your garden-variety ants, but underground, dungeon-dwelling ants that get bigger the more powerful they become. Intimate knowledge of D&D mechanics is not needed, but it helps to be a little familiar with them, otherwise concepts like choosing enhancements from a menu and leveling up might seem kind of foreign to readers.

Every one of these LitRPG books has a slightly different magic and player system. In this book the ‘dungeon’ is not a literal dungeon, but refers to a vast, possibly endless underground system of caverns arranged as different levels, all of which have their own creatures and ecology. Mana powers everything, and the deeper you go, the more mana is present and the stronger and more intelligent the monsters get. Monsters will spontaneously ‘spawn’ out of the dungeon walls, and the general ecology is a monster-eat-monster world.

Anthony is a teenager who dies in our world, only to be reborn as a dungeon ant. Coming to life in the upper dungeon levels, Anthony is alone, weak, confused, and with no real powers But he learns quickly that every time he does something, whether it’s digging, climbing, hiding or biting, he becomes better at it. He’s weaker than nearly everything else, but through luck and cleverness he manages to kill enough to survive and level up. The more he eats, the more biomass he collects, which allows him to buy enhancements from an internal menu that he can bring up at will. Eventually he is contacted by a mysterious entity who is apparently the Dungeon Master, (whom Anthony refers to as ‘Gandalf”). Gandalf explains some things to him, but of course not everything.

About halfway through the first book Anthony is overjoyed to find the rest of his colony. While they’re a bit smarter than regular ants, he is disappointed to find that none are as smart as he is. It isn’t until the second book that he’s able to rectify this, doing some work on the Queen to produce a new type of ant: Formica sapiens. There are some funny scenes of him trying to educate the first new brood, which seem hell-bent on sacrificing themselves in defense of the colony. Along the way he picks up two monster pets, a Lightning-fist Ape he names Tiny, and some kind of shadow eldritch monstrosity with ten-tacles named Crinis. Tiny in particular is an entertaining character, as Anthony has to constantly watch him to make sure he doesn’t level up his strength at the cost of his intelligence.

There are humans in this world, too. Most live on the surface, but the Deep Legion is composed of highly trained, very high level Legionaries whose purpose is to protect the surface dwellers from monster incursions. They don’t start to play a big role until later in the series, but we’re introduced to the Legion and some important Legionaries early on. Another important group of humans are some refugees that the ants make a tentative truce with, and their developing relationship is one of the more in-eresting plot threads.

As you’ve probably guessed from the book titles, this series does not take itself too seriously. Anthony gives the first brood of Formica sapiens ant-related names (Grant, Vibrant, Antoinette). He refers to his abdomen, which can shoot out acid, as his ‘commercial district.’ That’s not to say it’s a frivolous book—there are real stakes. Characters get injured and die, and the ants need to fight for their survival against monsters, the Deep Legion, and other intelligent dungeon species. There’s lots (and lots) of battles and fighting, so if you’re looking for a thoughtful, introspective book, this is not it.

On the other hand, if you want to read something with fast-paced action, exotic creatures, and a non-human protagonist, look no further. This series may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for the right reader it is highly entertaining.

The Kindle version of Second Sight is finally out!

I'm going to be selling most of my remaining copies of the paperback versions of Isthmus & Second Sight to Ed Zolna at Second Ed, but I'll have a handful of them left if you want to order directly from me.

At this point I'm going to be returning to some long-delayed art projects. There's also an unusual Kickstarter project I'm hoping to get done before the end of the year. More on that later.

Some musings on furry reading and writing.

The newest of the furry writing awards, the Leos, announced they were cancelling due to not having anyone volunteer to be a judge. I thought about volunteering, but honestly, a lot of the nominated books didn’t look that interesting, and I didn’t want to obligate myself to reading half a dozen tomes with plots I found boring.

In their post on Twitter, the person making the announcement commented that there were a lot of furry writers, but not a whole lot of readers. I’ve run into that issue myself. Since I have written a number of reviews in the past, sometimes I’d get people asking me to review something. Unfortunately, if what I’m given isn’t that good, or has major flaws, I tend to be brutally honest. So at this point I don’t get a lot of people asking me to review stuff anymore.
But there’s always writers out there begging for Amazon reviews. The more reviews on there you get, the more likely your book is to be seen. Since I have books on Amazon that I’d really like to get more ratings on, if I see a furry author begging for Amazon reviews, and their work looks reasonably interesting, I’ll offer to review it on Amazon (and Goodreads, for good measure) in exchange for an Amazon review of one of my books.

I made this offer to 4 furry authors.

One agreed, and I wrote up a pretty extensive review and posted it. After a decent amount of time I asked them about my review. They said they ‘couldn’t read (my book),’ and vanished without even an apology.

Another writer had a book on a Kickstarter that I backed, and was asking for reviews. When I made my offer, they said they ‘didn’t have time’ to read anything. In retrospect, that was a good call on their part, because the book was pretty bad.

I made the offer to another furry author whose books I actually enjoyed. They agreed, and I sent the PDF to them, but never heard back. Good thing I waited for them to come through before I posted my own review….

Another author was asking for beta readers. Since, by coincidence, I was also looking for beta readers, I made a mutual beta reader offer. They accepted. I got it read, and wrote up my thoughts, as well as filling out a questionnaire for the beta readers. After a bit, they finished the beta read of my book. They didn’t really have many comments beyond a couple, but hey, at least they read the damn thing, so no complaints on my part.

Thing is, there are some really good furry books out there that I’d love to post positive reviews about. But, as bad as I am at self-promotion, trading reviews is one of the only ways I can think of to get more hits on Amazon.

The perpetual problem of an indy author…

First one is a Watership Down graphic novel. It owes a lot to the movie, certain scenes even matching what was done on film. One advantage this new adaptation has over the movie, however, is they were able to include much more of the original book. It's been a while since I read the story, but it looks like they kept very close to the source material. Consequently this is a pretty hefty volume at 377 pages. The artwork has pros and cons. The pro is that's everything is clear and easy to follow. The rabbits and other animals are drawn reasonably well. I'm not sure what the actual technique used was--the result looks like watercolor and pencils, but it was probably done in ProCreate or a similar program. Cons: the layouts are very standard, nothing new or exciting. There's no use of dramatic lighting or spot blacks. Another big issue is one that plagued the movie--the rabbits pretty much all look alike. Other than Bigwig and Holly, it's a chore to tell everyone apart. I also didn't like how the sun-god Frith was portrayed. Rather than being awesome and mysterious, Frith came out like a goofy smile emoji.

Still, overall I'd recommend it. It's obvious a lot of work went into the book, and it's the most complete adaptation out there.

Earlier this year a furry author was offering free EBook copies of his work. I thought--why the hell not, if it's free? After the books had been sitting on my Kindle for quite a while, I finally got around to reading one. I started with the most recent volume (there were 3 books all together.) titled Oshea. At first it just seemed like a standard fantasy book set in a vague pre-industrial time with furry characters. The villagers are burdened by oppressive taxes from the corrupt officials. The taxes are so very burdensome that the protagonist's family dies because he can't afford medical treatment, then he can't afford the death taxes for them. He flees into the wilderness to keep from being arrested, and meets a very eccentric wandering prophet, who is spreading the word about a 'judge of judges' who is coming to set everything right.

As I read more, I got the suspicious feeling I knew this story. When the protagonist finally meets up with this Judge of Judges (Oshea) he's being confronted in the wilderness by a demonic unicorn who offers him the world if he'll only bow down to him. So yes, this book is simply a retelling of the story of Jesus using furry characters.

One thing that was weirdly obvious is that this author has no interest in female characters. Mary gets only a single mention, and doesn't appear at all. There's no Mary Magdalene, no woman taken in adulatory, no Salome. The only female characters who even get to talk is the wife and daughter of one of the apostles. It was like he wanted to tell the story of Jesus without any icky girls in it.

Most of Jesus's acts in the bible are in here-- the feeding of the masses, gathering the apostles (including a despised tax collector), curing the sick, driving demons out of the posessed, clearing out the money-changers, raising the dead, and absolute nonviolence. Some differences include no Roman empire or the equivalent, and combining several biblical bad guys into one character. One big difference is the Judas character's motive for betraying Jesus. In the bible (I'm pretty sure--correct me if I'm wrong) is was simple greed on Judas's part. In this story, the Judas equivalent is angry that Oshea didn't use his power to topple the corrupt government.

I'm not sure who this book is aimed at, except maybe furry fans who are so into Jesus they need to read a furry version of it. There are two other books in this series, but I assume they're also retellings of earlier biblical stories. Since I already know how the bible turns out, there's no need to read them. (Although I'd have to admit being curious to read a furry version of the Book of Revelations.)

Since it looks like my cons will be few and far between in the future, I'm considering opening an online shop. I know everyone hates Etsy at this point, so what is the best/most popular online shopping service?

I'm still plowing through Griffin Ranger #4, which I am considering calling The Neverending Story in honor of how long it is taking to write. I'm currently at 105K words. Sorry for the lack of art so far this year. I promise I have more planned when I'm done with this damn book, but I don't like multitasking creative projects, so the art will have to wait until the first draft of the book is finished.

Just a quickie update on the current status of things. I'm still working on Griffin Ranger #4. It's been extremely slow going, partly due to the day job, and partly due to ongoing chronic health problems. I'm not planning to work on any new art projects until I get the first draft of the book done. I'd like to say that will be sometime in May, but that's just a guesstimate that depends heavily on how things go health-wise.

I will not be at AnthroCon this year due to not slavishly watching their social media and website and thus missing the dealer room app window. I might apply to a couple of other cons, but considering my track record with the juried dealers rooms, I probably won't bother.

I was curious how many (if any) furry fans have read or do read the Image comic Saga? It seems like it should be popular among that group, but I don't think I've heard a peep about it. It's been around since 2012 with the same artist/writer team. It's an excellent example of a 'cast of thousands' comic done right, that's not a confusing mess. The characters are a mix of humans, semi-humans, furries, aliens, robots and sentient animals. While it's not pornographic, there's a respectable amount of explicit sex. Mostly straight, some gay. There's very little in the way of one-dimensional 'good guy/bad guy' characters. Almost everyone is shown doing things that could be considered bad or good, depending on the context.

The overall plot is about a centuries-long war between a planet and it's moon, that has spread throughout the galaxy. The moon is peopled by 'the horns,' humanoids with horns (of any kind) that can work magic. The planet is home of 'the wings,' humaniods with wings (of all kinds) that are more technologically advanced. Two soldiers, one from each side, fall in love and have a forbidden half-breed child. Forces from both sides desperately want to erase this evidence of mortal enemies being able to get along peacefully, and the story revolves around this small family trying to stay alive when everyone in the universe is out to get them.

The incredibly diverse (and just outright strange) cast of characters includes: A blue sphinx cat the size of a panther that's a living lie detector, mercenaries, an exiled prince from the robot kingdom, a giant spider lady, a baby seal with a hatchet, two gay reporters that look like sea monkeys, religious meerkats, a ghost that's only the top half of a teenage girl, giant space babies the size of planets, a werewolf back-alley doctor, and police made of fire. That's only a small sampling of what you'll come across.

Of course the story is by no means perfect. One thing to be aware of is that there's an enormous attrition of characters. People get killed off with brutal frequency. No one is safe, including the core cast. So don't get too attached to anybody. The different story arcs are sometimes a little too contemporary. There's storylines about abortion, a trans character, subversive literature and homelessness in between all the sex, violence and political maneuvering.

Still, it's worth picking up. The art is great--clean and easy to read. There's no studying the page for an hour trying to figure out what's going on. The writing and pacing are excellent. While some of the story is dark, there's a lot of humor too. The blue cat who keeps interrupting conversations by saying 'Lying!" every time someone says something not true is a hoot.

I read a lotta books last year. Some really good, some good, some mediocre and some 'meh.' I don't really have the impetus to write up reviews of everything like I used to, but I can at least list them and give some brief comments. As always, your mileage may vary--my taste in books is not to everyone's liking. Books are in alphabetical order by author.

*****Theo and the Stolen Library by Melanie Ansley: Fantasy. The third book in the Theo trilogy. Anthro animals in a war against their human neighbors.

****Dead Jack series 1 & 2 by James Aquilone : Dark Fantasy/ Hard-boiled detective. A zombie detective & his golem sidekick work cases in a hell-like underworld filled with unpleasant creatures.

****14 by Peter Clines: Eldrich Horror.

****Upgrade by Blake Crouch: Near-future SF. Crouch can always be counted on for an entertaining ride.

****Dragon of Sand & Storm: The Autobiography of a Goddess by H. Leighton Dickson: Dragon POV fantasy. Good enough, but I really wish she’d get back to the [b]Upper Kingdom series.[/b]

*****Paw (Bastis Archives 1) by L. E. Henderson: Fantasy. Anthro cats fight for their freedom. One of my favorite books from last year.
*****Prowl (Bastis Archives 2) by L. E. Henderson

***Distraction by Abigail Hilton: Animal fantasy. A short follow-up to the excellent Hunters Unlucky, this is mostly an explicit M/M romance between two of the big cats from the previous books.

***In Good Company by M.C.A. Hogarth: Furry SF set in the Pelted Universe.

***Across the Sand by Hugh Howey: Dystopia SF. His first full novel in years, it suffered from some very annoying characters.

***The Last Human by Zack Jordon: Hard SF. The last human is raised by a giant alien spider.


****Lost Dogs by Kenton Kilgore: Apocalyptic animal fantasy. Dogs struggle to survive after an alien invasion wipes out humanity.
****Stray Cats by Kenton Kilgore: Animal Fantasy. Related to Lost Dogs, this follows a cat through multiple existences on our world and others.

***Cell by Stephen King: Apocalyptic horror.

****Fairy Tale by Stephen King: Fantasy. Prominently features a dog as an important character.

*****Gwendy’s Final Task by Steven King & Richard Chizmar: Horror/SF. An excellent end to the Gwendy trilogy.

***Primitives by Erich Krauss: Dystopia with a heavy-handed analogy to some current events.

***Winter without End by Casimir Laski: Apocalyptic Animal fantasy. A female wolf and male lab struggle to survive after a pandemic devastates humanity. Author said the book was inspired by Faithful Ruslan. If you read that, then you know how this ends.

**The Registration by Madison Lawson: Near future SF with a dumb premise. Also has extensive scenes of the female protagonist being tortured, if you’re into that.

***Library of the Sapphire Wind (Over Where book 1) by Jane Lindskold: Portal fantasy. Three women of a certain age are drawn into a fantasy world populated by anthro animals.
***Aurora Borealis Bridge (Over Where book 2) by Jane Lindskold

**The House of Sparrows by Janice Mayo: Fantasy. An odd book with angel-like beings who shapeshift into birds to guide the souls of the recently deceased.

**Ledge: The Glacian Trilogy book 1 by Stacy McEwan: Monster boyfriend. I thought this was an alien invasion/dystopia, but it turned out to be hunky alien and defiant human woman fall in love and have sex.

**The Locked Door by Freida McFadden: Thriller. The absolutely unbelievable twist ending really was unbelievable. And not in a good way.

****Le Fay (A Life Out There book 2) by Brian McNatt: Fantasy. An outcast Wolf Lord struggles to find her way in a world of fantasy creatures (Gryphons, minotaurs, unicorns, etc.) Very prominent LGBTQ themes.
****The Wolf Lords (A Life Out There book 3) by Brian McNatt

****The Crackling Sea (Gryphon Insurrection book 6) by K. Vale Nagle: Fantasy. Gryphons and Opinicus in a protracted conflict.
****Opinicus (Gryphon Insurrection book 7) by K. Vale Nagle

*****A Dream of Wings and Flame 1 by Cale Plamann: LitRPG fantasy. A lowly kobold strives to level up until he can become a dragon.

****Iara’s Crossing by Diana L. Pomeroy: Animal fantasy. Talking dinosaurs with a lot of supernatural elements.

*****Chrysalis series 1-3 by RinoZ : LitRPG Fantasy. Loved these books. A human is reborn as a monster ant, and has to survive and level up to help the colony. Sounds kind of silly, but the books were a blast.

***Legion: Lies of the Beholder by Brandon Sanderson: Near-future SF. The last of the Legion books, about a prodigy with multiple personalities, each of which has a brilliant specialty.

***The Way of Kings by Louise Searl: Animal Fantasy. Lions in Africa.

*****Gleanings: Stories from the Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman: SF. An anthology of stories about old and new characters from the [b]Arc of a Scythe trilogy (one of my favorite recent series)[/b]

****The Revolution and the Fox by Tim Susman: Furry fantasy. The final volume of the Calatian series. Anthro animals live alongside humans in colonial America where magic is real.

****Bearhead by Adrian Tchaikovsky: SF with some furry characters.

*****Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture book 2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky: Hard SF

***Ogres by Adrian Tchiakovsky: Dystopian fantasy. A stand-alone novel.

****The Remembered War books 1-5 by Robert Vane: Dragon POV. Sprawling saga about dragons enslaved by humans, dragons free, and dragons fighting a zombie horde. Lots of dragons.

***Nimbus by Bernard Voss: Animal fantasy. Foxes in the wild.

Wow, I finally hit 5000 followers! I wonder how many are still active accounts and how many are abandoned. Periodically I'll purge through my watch list removing people who don't post any more. It's sad how many that is. Some I don't remove, hoping beyond hope that they might actually start producing something again.

In the meantime, I've started the long, long process of writing Griffin Ranger #4. That means I probably won't be posting much in the way of new art for a while. Once that's done, I'll be tackling an even longer art-related project. More on that later.

I have a few new reviews up on https://furrybookreview.com/ for those interested.

I finished the last pieces of art I had on my to-do plate, so shortly I'll be starting the long, long grind of writing Griffin Ranger #4. While I'm working on that art updates will be few and far between, although there were a couple pictures I did want to get done for Prehistoric Times in the new year.

What is there to look forward to in Griffin Ranger #4?

A familiar character gets his feathers dyed (badly)
More boats
A very bizarre romance
Another road trip
A heist
Ranger Harrell gets really pissed off and screeches at some people.
Plus all the usual violence and mayhem you've come to expect from these books.

The audio book versions of both the first book, Crossline Plains, and the short story Hunter, are completed and available. Narrator James Spaid does a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life-- even if you've already read the books, listening to these is a whole new experience.

I have a handful of free codes to both books-- if you're interested PM or email me. I'd really appreciate a review on Amazon or Goodreads (you don't have to write a dissertation-- just giving it some stars would help) in exchange, but it's not necessary.

Volume #2, the Monster lands, is currently in production and will be available early in the new year.

I have no idea what, if any, conventions I'll be able to attend next year. I'll probably try for BLFC and AnthroCon, but who knows?

Everything is done and mailed off with the Kickstarter, including the art rewards. A portion of the books I have left will be going to Ed Zolna & a European furry book dealer, but there's enough that if anyone wanted to order them directly just shoot me a PM or email.

I have a few non-Kickstarter related art pieces I need to get done. Once those are finished expect a large art upload, probably in a couple of weeks.

My next big project will be the fourth Griffin Ranger book, which I'll start writing later this year. That will be the last griffin book for a while, since there's a couple other writing projects I want to do after it. In other Griffin news, there will be audio books of the first three. Not 100% sure when, but by the end of the year for sure. I'll announce it when they're up.

Unsure about any conventions this year or even next year. If I can manage to get a table at any of them, we'll see.

If all goes well (and that's a HUGE 'if,' considering flight cancellations and Covid) I'll be at AC Thursday to Sunday, after making my usual stop in Cleveland for a few days.

I'll have all three of the new Kickstarter Salem collections, a ton of ChocoEgg animal figures, a few of the Salem pins, a handful of the 6th Extinction card decks, and for the the first time in a lot of years, some art in the art show. There's a couple of traditional 2D pieces, but the main submission are 7 custom-printed plates of my 'wheel' art series, which will be in the 3D section of the show. If they do well I'll do some more designs, if they don't, then I won't have to bother figuring out how to get 7 glass plates across the country to another con without breaking them.

I'll have my art supplies with me and will be doing at-con sketches and commissions as well.

I'm vaxxed and double boosted, but since I'm considered high-risk due to medical issues, I'll be masked at the con, and probably won't be going out to eat or attending any room parties.

I finally got my act together and finished this. Here is the link to the pre-launch page-- it will be launching in about 24 hours (around 6PM PST.)

https://www.kickstarter.com/project.....k-salem-comics

This is to bring back into print all of Blacklight in one volume, along with the Jack and Harpy stories in another book (which will include the new story) and the Salem and Simone stories I did with  Driprat in a third volume. There is an original art tier similar to what I offered in the Griffin Ranger Kickstarters. I'm shooting to have these ready for AnthroCon in late June.

If all goes well I should be dealing at Furry Migration over the weekend of Sept 10th. My first con in a couple of years, I think.

Furry Book Review put up the last of the reviews I did recently:

https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.c.....y-brian-mcnatt
https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.c.....-daryl-gregory
https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.c.....-by-wendy-wann
https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.c.....tone-rodriguez

Griffin Ranger #3 is currently with the editor. Depending on how quickly I get through the last round of editing, I might be able to have it out some time in October.

I'm seriously considering a Kickstarter to get the Jack Salem comics and text stories back into print as collected graphic novels, since a number of people have asked about them after the early stories began posting on ComicFury. I would do new covers and a new comic to include in the package. (currently working on the new comic, but it will take a while due to the day job and ongoing health problems slowing me down.) Let me know if the Kickstarter would be something anybody would be interested in.

The review of the comic Stray Dogs is up here: https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.c.....tone-rodriguez

I also did several other book reviews for the site, and they'll probably be posted over the coming weeks.

A friend offered to digitize and post the original Jack Salem comic .357, which is here: http://jacksalem.thecomicseries.com/
I believe its updating Monday thru Friday.

I was not planning to reprint or post that particular comic, since the art was done during my junior year of college and I can do a million times better now, and the story is kind of strange (although admittedly not as strange as the comic that preceded it) but since someone else was willing to do the work, why not? It might even get me some new readers, and that's never bad.

Mainly update on Griffin Ranger #3. It will probably be ready for e-book publication in late August/early September. It still needs the cover and a final edit & copy-edit, so that's what's going to take up the extra time.

Unfortunately I won't be doing a Kickstarter for this one. Part of the original KS plan was to offer bundles of all 3 books as a reward, but as of now I am unable to produce hardcopies of any of the volumes. People on my Facebook know what the problem with that was, but right now there's no way around it without trying to raise a lot more money than I probably could. That's also why I'll need to do the cover myself. Any funds going into the book will be going to editing. Which is too bad-- I had a couple really good artists I was hoping to get for the cover, but in the end a decent editing job will help the book go further than a flashy cover. God knows I've read plenty of crappy books with excellent covers.

Besides the book, I have a few book reviews in the works for the Furry Book Review site ( https://leoliteraryawards.wixsite.com/blog ). (I do have a number of other reviews up there already) And since the initial story arc is complete, I'll also be doing a review of the comic Stray Dogs.

Once Griffin Ranger #3 is in the can, I'll be going full ahead on the next Jack Salem story, a one-shot called Harpy's Bad Day. The title pretty much says it all. Be prepared for lots of feathers and really, really dark humor.

Since both AnthroCon and ComiCon are cancelled, I probably won't be attending any cons until next year. There's a slight chance I might try to get to Furry Migration if that's happening this year, but I'll have to wait and see.

Griffin Ranger #3 is complete and with a few beta readers. I'm currently working on a short music comic, and when that's done I'll start the finishing work on the book. I still haven't decided about running a Kickstarter for it, but I may very well do that because I wanted to do another print run of the first two books. I'm also considering doing an omnibus collection of some of the Salem comics, or I might just start posting them online. Who knows? There is a new one-shot Salem comic upcoming, probably later in the year after I'm done with Griffin Ranger.

Because of these various projects, my RL job, and health issues that are still sapping my energy, I won't be doing commissions for the foreseeable future.

New art will be scarce for a while, as I throw myself into writing Griffin Ranger #3. I will probably take a short break to do another piece in the "wheel" art series around New Year, then back to writing until I get the story is done. No particular time set for that-- this is very much a "write until it's finished" deal. Unless I get a lengthy layoff from my job again, I'm not planning to take any commissions until the first draft is complete.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled commission update page to briefly link to a video I made, using footage from the movie Twister. I've been wanting to do this forever, and a friend pointed me towards an editing program that's so simple even a luddite like me can figure it out with minimal effort.

Yes, I know the movie is really dumb and scientifically inaccurate, but it does have some cool tornado scenes. If you HATE the music of Bob Seger then just skip it. Otherwise I think it came out pretty good for a first effort using this program.

It can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/V2EkpNTw-XI