Elfquest Furry Fandom!

Having followed a discussion about Timmorn on another thread, I wondered how many Furries are Elfquest fans as well. I've been reading about Furries online, and it occurred to me that Elfquest and Furry fandom fit quite neatly together.

Timmain morphs into a wolf. Timmorn is covered with fur. The Wolfriders bond with wolves and share their DNA. Many of the Elves in the original Quest wear fur and sleep in fur beds. Dewshine mourns her bond-wolf by wearing its fur.

Other animal types appear in Elfquest. Tyldak grows wings, and Sunstream grows fins. Leetah and Rayek have personalities based upon animal types (cat and snake.)

I'm amazed there is no answer yet to this thread, and only 2 views so far...
Is being a furry something too taboo to tell, even among us ElfQuest fans?

I personally have little to nothing to say on that subject, not being a furry myself, but...
My boyfriend is a furry (a jaguar if you want to know), but he has never read ElfQuest... yet! I plan to make him read the original quest and ask him what he thinks/feels about it.

I'll let you know as soon as possible.

I'm not entirely sure what the correct definition is of a furry these days. To many it's the new boogey-man, now that they can't make homosexuals the butt of their jokes, and they fixate on that subgroup whose appreciate of anthropomorphized animals includes a sexual component.

Not having such an inclination, I don't know if I can call myself a furry or not! I usually use the word "anthro". I do quite appreciate animalistic humans and anthropomorphized critters. I have two species I call my animal guides/totems, and I sometimes like to play the anthro races in MMOs. (And obviously Jungle Fire has two furry/anthro species!)

@Foxeye: I've shown Jungle Fire to my boyfriend, and he realy likes your art ^^

It's my guess that "anthro-" and "furry" mean close to the same thing. Maybe "Anthrocon" just sounds better than "Furrycon"?

There was an episode of the network drama "CSI" a few years ago, that depicted Furries at a Vegas convention, and emphasized gender-crossing and sexual activity over other aspects. I recall underground comics, featuring furry characters with human genitalia, being marketed way back in the 1980s. But the vast majority of "funny animals" and more serious anthro characters have little or nothing to do with sexual expression. Furry-ness is so mainstream, some of us were required to read "Animal Farm" or watch Disney character fire-prevention cartoons in school.

Chitter's tail has stirred up a controversy somehow. I still think Furry fandom fits neaty into Elfquest fandom. Any thoughts?

I lack reliable information about Furry Fandom, so I have no idea how they would fit in.

All I "know" about Furries comes from the mentioned CSI episode.

More than you could possibly read about Furries is available at wikifur.com.

I actually wonder whether EQ has much "furry" appeal.

I think you're right to point out things like Timmorn, or the general closeness of the wolfrider elves and their wolves. But...

As far as I can tell, there are two main focuses of furry fandom:

1. animals (sometimes mythical) with human levels of intelligence (and sometimes expression) -- an example would be the Disney movie The Lion King;

2. humanoid figures with parts related to animals (heads; tails; feet/hands) -- hmm, what's a mainstream example... worgen in WoW? Various Egyptian gods? Thundercats! (ho!)


Now, I could be wrong, because while I happily read furry-related comics sometimes, I wouldn't say that I'm anywhere near the fandom... but my *impression* is that the important part of a humanoid figure is that it has an animal head. Whether or not they have a tail (they often do) or paws instead of feet/hands (or hybrid paw/hands) seems more optional, in the breadth of furry art I've seen. But the animal head is key.

Getting back to ElfQuest...

1. EQ has plenty of animals that are close to the main elf characters -- wolves, the Gliders' hawks, the Go-Back stags. But while they may be intelligent, they tend to behave and communicate more like natural animals than "a person in a wolf suit". Even Timmain, when she is in wolf form, behaves more like a wolf than an elf (including the fact that she doesn't really talk, including that she doesn't tend to send in complex speech).

2. There are no creatures anywhere in EQ that consist of a humanoid body with an animal's head.

Timmorn is more of a "were-wolf", basically -- his face is really more humanoid than wolfish.

What I really don't know is whether furry fandom embraces werewolf fandom... Perhaps they do! But I'm not actually sure.


So someone who is a fan of furry characters may view ElfQuest as not offering them what they usually look for. The main characters are elves. Elves aren't furry characters; even if they have wolfblood, they LOOK fully humanoid, just with pointy ears. Largely, the wolves don't have the level of human-like expressiveness that you'd find in, say... well, I think The Lion King (movie) is a good example of what I mean by that. EQ wolves are mostly natural-ish wolves, not the wolves you meet in the movie version of The Jungle Book. (They don't talk, and they don't have eyebrows and human-like eyes.)


That said, I have a friend (who is a member of RTH) who is BOTH a furry fan and an EQ fan. But I think she probably thinks of herself as generally a fan of animal characters, whether they are anthropomorphized animals (like The Lion King), or humanoids with animal heads, *OR* natural animals. I think she's fond of all of those types. Also, she's a fan of various kinds of elves, apart from furries.

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I think Foxeye made a good point about about terms. When I say "furry" above, I'm using it as a broad term referring to ANY works that fit in one of the two categories.

But yeah, what a lot of people THINK of when they hear "furry" these days is -- a fan of either of those types of things, for whom it is also a bit of (or a lot of) a sexual fetish.

The latter is a small group within the former. But because the latter is more "interesting"/shocking to many people, you hear about that type of furry disproportionately, and that has definitely led to the perception that "all furries like to dress up in animal suits and have kinky sex".

I agree that "anthropomorphics" sounds a little classier... but it's hard to type. Abbreviating it as "anthro" is fine, but... that actually has always bugged me, especially when it gets used in things like Anthrocon. Because by itself, "anthro" just means "human"... and the "human" part isn't the KEY part of what people who are a fan of furry stuff are there for, now is it? But I realize they don't have a lot of good options.

So anyway, that's my thoughts on why you may find overlap between furry fans and EQ fans, but it may not necessarily be a slam dunk.

I hear the word "furry" quite often these days, never before. So that's why there are all these lion king-suff on DA? I thought all these anime cat-girls would be "furry", bunny-girls and the like. (Underage) Girls with animal attributes attached to them, to underline the innocent-cute sexiness...


...after checking wikipedia...

1. I so don't care, folks do what you want, furry is not my cup of tea.
2. Concerning the sexualised part... some times ago, there was a law-suit related with pornographic images of the Simpson's (Lisa and Bart, that's why it was a law-suit). Ever seen a Simpson's episode and been stimulated? Humankind is so hyper-sexualised, we can add sex to anything. And as long no one is hurt, why should I care

If you're in China, it wouldn't surprise me if the "furry" term has only reached you recently. It's been current in the U.S. for between 20-30 years, I guess.

I enjoy a bunch of things that fall under the "furry" label -- or at least, that are things that the furry fandom also likes.

Disney is really the biggest source of anthropomorphized animal characters that get people into that sort of thing -- although I'd also point to Warner Brothers cartoons as well.

Whether it's the animals from The Lion King, or the entire cast of human-acting and dressed-in-human-clothes animals from Disney's animated "Robin Hood"... or Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck... or various Hanna Barbera cartoons, like Yogi Bear... or the characters from the classic comic-strip "Pogo"... or from the more recent classic comic strip "Bloom County"... it's all the same kind of thing. A lot of people who are producing "furry" comics are drawing on that background of having grown up with those kinds of characters.

And as you say, at some point, people will sexualize anything. That's why there's a Rule 34, after all. (The "internet rule" that states "if it exists, somewhere out there, there's porn about it".)

I'd consider myself a 'fringe' furrie, but mostly it's because I like to be a dress-up fiend in general. But I'm not much into the lifestyle and i don't secretly think I'm a totem animal. It's hard enough to be a human animal, somedays. Been to a couple of cons, tho.

Like everyone's said, ANYTHING can be sexualized by people, if they want to do that. It's not inherent to furrydom. None of the cons I went to were rolling orgies. Mostly folks interested in dressup, or in animal causes, or regular fannish stuff.

Oh, I think Kimo makes for a perfect 'furrie'. I'd love to dress up as him at a con some day. And the Japanese are big into furrydom, too, but with a more manga/anime slant.

I think that what some folks achieve with their furry (or, anthropomorphized animal) costumes is AMAZING!

Some of the costumes aren't very good, of course. But that goes for any costumes that people make and show up to cons wearing. There's always a range from "that looks terrible" to "WOW!"

Of course, back in the dawn of human history, everybody wore fur. Then spinning was invented, followed by knitting and weaving. Soon, adherents to this novel way of clothing one's self were forming groups and holding conventions. Traditional fur-wearing folk scoffed at them, or wondered if the wierd obsession with fabric had something to do with kinky sex.