From Dark Horse comes Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child, a “supernatural fantasy” comic mini-series. “Monster hunters Howard and Lupe are on their way to get rid of a powerful sword, but car trouble leaves them stranded in a small town that is being terrorized by a magical wolf and a mysterious child in a wolf mask. While waiting for car repairs, Lupe befriends the child, and she and Howard are drawn into a war between the townspeople and the deadly beasts.” Written and illustrated by Tyler Crook (Harry County).

This is certainly a different take on a very old legend. We’ve talked before about the author Greg Van Eekhout and his book Voyage of the Dogs. Well it seems he’s still in a canine mood with his new book, Fenris & Mott. “When Mott finds a puppy abandoned in a recycling bin, she’s ready to do everything she can to protect him. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that this is the legendary wolf Fenris, who’s prophesied to bring about the end of the world by eating the moon. Now Mott has found herself in charge of making sure the hungry pup—who’s busy munching on lampposts, cars, and water towers—doesn’t see all of California as an appetizer, while also hiding him from the Norse gods who are hot on his trail, determined to see the prophecy come true.” Typical canine hyjinks, of course. Find out more over at the publisher’s page.

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Furry author and editor Kirisis Alpinus passed away in a Swedish hospital on March 5th, following a visit to NordicFuzzCon.

Also known on Twitter as DaRhedDol, and as member of the Furry Writers' Guild KC Alpinus, she leaves behind a legacy of work and her mate and fellow furry author and guild member Ocean Tigrox.

As well as her writing and editing, Kirisis shared her activism and admiration for her fellow women of color, and supported furries of color by helping to organize gatherings and sharing experiences and history using her degree in political science.

Furries have been sharing fan art that features her dhole and dire wolf hybrid in her memory.

Bad Dog Books is celebrating her life by offering CLAW Volume 1 for free through March - a lesbian anthology released in 2018, inspired by the FANG series focused on male/male partnerships - as well as ROAR Volume 9 and Dogs of War II Aftermath in which she had stories. Her work also featured in Inhuman Acts and Bleak Horizons, and she won the 2020 Cóyotl Award for Best Anthology with A Selection of Anthropomorphic Regalements, Vol 1.

And more interesting and odd mangas we found… like Yagi the Bookshop Goat, written and illustrated by Fumi Furukawa. “In this tranquil world where all animals live in peace, carnivores and herbivores have an agreement to live amicably. Yagi is a goat who loves reading (and eating!) books; his dream is to become a bookstore clerk, but goats who eat paper aren’t exactly welcomed at places that sell books! But maybe he can charm Ookami, the scary wolf store manager into giving him a job…” That rather cute description doesn’t point out there are some (gentle) mature themes at play here, so be aware! This black & white graphic novel is available now from Tokyo Pop.

More interesting manga from Seven Seas, this one with a notable yaoi bent: Why Don’t You Eat Me, My Dear Wolf? by Ao Koishikawa. [What a title!] “Taro is sent to the forest alone. He’s a sacrifice for the monstrous wolf, Uru. Upon seeing him, Uru declares Taro too small and too thin. The wolf feeds him, clothes him, and cares for him. Time passes and Taro finds himself wanting to be devoured by this giant wolf who gives him nothing but affection.” Poor thing.

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Three foreign animated film reviews! Behold the trailers for:

The Angel in the Clock,
White Fang, and
The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily.

All of these films successfully blend 3D and 2D animation in their own different styles.

White Fang is the most 3D, applying a brush-like texture to characters to create a 2D, painted look. Angel's main characters are 2D, with 3D designs used for the settings. Bears uses 3D for almost everything, then alters its visuals to look as 2D as possible.

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The Great Wolf Pack ®: A Call to Adventure is a 45-minute 2D animated mini-movie produced in 2022 by Great Wolf Resorts, an American chain of family-friendly hotels featuring indoor waterparks. Most of the animation was outsourced to Mexico, directed by Chris Bailey and written by Kent Redeker. The IMDB page mentions an additional writer I couldn't find in the closing credits, M.J. Offen.

The movie is for young kids and can pretty much be skipped. There's a group of young animal friends in the forest: Violet the wolf and Sammy the squirrel (action girls), and Oliver (a raccoon tinkerer who always talks using the most loquacious and unnecessarily wordy vocabulary), who are joined by newcomer Wiley (the coyote wolf), and finally Brinley, a young bear with self-confidence issues, who of course gets chosen as the Special One by a spoon-wielding spirit and is given the Magical Rock to guide them on their quest.

We just learned about Shangri-La Frontier, a black & white manga written by Katarina and illustrated by Ryosuke Fuji. “Second-year high school student Rakuro Hizutome loves nothing more than finding so-called ‘trash games’ and beating the crap out of them. When he decides to change things up by playing a new, ‘god-tier’ VR game known as Shangri-La Frontier (a.k.a. SLF), he does what he does best: Min-maxes, skips the prologue, and jumps straight into action! Clad in nothing but shorts and a bird mask, Rakuro (player name: Sunraku) launches into the world of SLF. Things are going well at first as he takes down a goblin, a bunny, and even a python. But then Sunraku comes up against a huge, hard-hitting wolf known as Lycagon the Nightslayer. Will Sunraku’s years of ‘trash game’ experience be enough, or is he about to suffer a rude awakening just a few hours into his SLF adventure?” The series is available now from Kodansha International. What’s more, there’s already an anime adaptation series available on Crunchyroll — and YouTube has a preview.

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A Wasteful Death is a cross between a murder mystery and a love story set in a city populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals. While the main characters are two Registered Investigators, sort of like police, this story is nothing like Zootopia. Instincts remain, and everyone in this world is acutely aware of the distinction between predator and prey.

The main characters are Marlot Blackclaw, a wolf, and Trembor Goldenmane, a lion. Both are Registered Investigators who, unusually for their territorial profession, work together. What exactly is a Registered Investigator? Their job is to investigate unclaimed kills and track down the person responsible. Unclaimed being the key word here.

In the world of A Wasteful Death, predation is legal and, with a few exceptions such as students or anyone in a hospital, everyone is a potential target. Once someone is killed, there is a tax that the hunter must pay which is scaled according the value the kill had to society. The tax on a homeless drunk would be low but the tax on a wealthy CEO like Aiden Spottedfur is massive, and it falls on Marlot and Trembor to find out who killed her.

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Let's start at the beginning.

Before Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, even. How about DreamWorks Animation's new studio bumper? It's a bit ostentatious, even a bit overly pleased with itself. Maybe goes on a little long. But, then again, what studio bumper doesn't, nowadays? But, being a celebration of DreamWorks past triumphs, it's interesting to note what franchises were chosen to be spotlighted.

Right out the gate, the Bad Guys are getting quite a vote of confidence, despite being the new guys with one movie under their belts. So I think it's safe to say we're getting a sequel. Also for furries, the Kung Fu Panda series is featured, and we already know that's got a fourth movie coming. The How To Train Your Dragon series is also represented by Toothless, despite the fact that the last movie came to a very decisive story end. It's one of the more acclaimed franchises of DreamWorks, so it has to show up, and even if there are no more movies, smaller screen spinoffs are still happening. There are also appearances by the Trolls and Boss Baby franchises, but they aren't furry, so who cares?

There are some notable absences, however. Despite featuring four movies, the Madagascar franchise is ignored. Spirit, you know, the one with the horse? That somehow managed two movies, but is apparently not an ongoing concern. And obviously, the Shrek franchise is prominently featured, but the star of the movie we're about to actually start reviewing is not. Maybe he'll show up in the bumper for movies he's not the star of?

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WatchDaToast has been developing a furry-themed point-and-click adventure game for a while now, Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard, raising €36,317 from 682 backers on Kickstarter. It's just been released, and VoxelSmash has reviewed it.

You can buy the game on Steam and follow the author on Twitter.

At Midwest FurFest we met Stacy Bender. She’s a science fiction and fantasy author based in Cincinnati, Ohio. As you can see from her Amazon page, many of her works have a degree of anthropomorphism to them… But what she’s especially known for is the Poached Parody series of furry noir novels (written under the name P.C. Hatter), featuring hard-boiled detectives Lucius Anoraq (wolf), Kaiser Wrench (tiger), and Lizard Fifth (guess!). Most of her works are available in paperback, kindle, and even audio book form, from Byrnas Books.

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As in other European countries, tensions have been growing in Slovakia over the return of wolves and an alleged increase in livestock attacks. Wild wolves in Europe are an environmental triumph; as previously reported on Flayrah, wolves were extinct in many European countries and it was only in the year 2000 that the first wild wolf in 150 years was born in Germany. Recent estimates put the wolf population in Europe at approximately 12 000, with around 300 packs living in the Alps.

Despite unhappiness from certain portions of the population, wolves in Slovakia are likely not in imminent danger. As quoted on Deutsche Welle (the German state broadcaster), Juraj Lukac of the WOLF Forest Protection Movement says:

All of this hype about wolves is just fake. They did not harm anyone, and, since the European Commission had made a clear statement on the matter, the conservation of wolves is safe for now.

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Perlimps (trailer) is a Brazilian 2D animated film, the second from animator and director Alê Abreu. After seeing his earlier film, Boy and the World (O Menino e o Mundo, 2013), I really wanted to see what his next project would be like. I wasn't expecting to wait nine years!

Abreu's films definitely do not adhere to typical Hollywood narrative structures, veering towards the artsy without being self-indulgent. Boy and the World, for example, has no dialog at all, and conveys things entirely with sounds and visuals. (As well as being an abstract statement about growing up and the poverty that comes from the exploitation of labor.)

Perlimps is way more approachable in comparison. On the surface, judging by its trailer, I thought it was going to be another film about the devastation of the environment by humans. It does some of that, sure, but that's just surface stuff.

The rest of the film's surface is all in the trailer. Claé (an orange wolf) and Bruô (a blue bear) are secret agents from the opposing kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon, trying to find the Perlimps, mysterious entities who can help save the forest from the encroachment of man.

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The now-Ursa Major Award-winning animated YouTube series Helluva Boss has begun its second season on YouTube, with "The Circus" available now. Warning: The episode linked to contains "Graphic Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Themes, Flashing Lights" and "Rampant Demon Horniness" according to the episode's opening itself. The show, created by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, tells the story of the demonic assassination startup business I.M.P.

The last episode of Helluva Boss, "Ozzie's", was posted back on Halloween of last year - listed as a "Finale Part I", so a "Finale Part II" was surely forthcoming. An update on the show's Twitter account explains the situation:

The Good News is the episode we have been working on for basically 8 months now is finally at the finish line-but the Bad News is due to forces quite literally out of my control we unfortunately don't know when we are able to actually release it ... at this point.

But you will see it!

Update 6/25/2023: Nearly a year later, the episode has finally been released to YouTube. As of yet, no official reason for the delay has been given, and probably never will be, but surprise guest voice actor Kesha very recently settled a court case, which was probably behind the lack of release. Meanwhile, Season 2 is approximately halfway through, with the fourth episode, "Western Energy" releasing last May, with a fifth episode already being teased and possibly even itself delayed by the release of "Queen Bee".