Posted on 07/14/2002 12:37:59 PM PDT by ItsBacon
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| Sam Conway, chairman of Anthrocon 2002, talks with fox Laura Lyle. Conway, who lives in Malvern, is a chemist. | |
Sam Conway of Malvern insists the convention he's running this weekend at the Adam's Mark Hotel here on humdrum City Avenue is not at all weird.
Nearly 1,100 grown men and women dressed head to toe in furry fox and wolf costumes are shopping for comic books and compact discs and he says that's to be expected.
"We're no different from a convention of model train enthusiasts," Conway insists.
You be the judge.
Conway is showing us around Anthrocon, the anthropomorphists' convention, which began Thursday and runs through today. It is not open to the public.
This is a gathering of people - adults, so to speak - who enjoy pretending they are furry critters with human characteristics or humans with animal qualities. It's a matter of perspective.
They identify so much with animals that they think like sly foxes, wear raccoon tails, and growl when they are approached.
They paint their Ford pickups orange with black tiger stripes and have vanity license plates that bear names like SHEEBAH and WULFY. They drive in from Ontario, Iowa and Arkansas and pay $30 in membership dues to attend this annual event - one of nine conventions held worldwide.
Participants call themselves furries.
At one extreme are the rare furries who have plastic surgery to make their ears pointy, their jaws elongated, or their canine teeth enlarged.
"Nobody around here has been dumb enough to do that," Conway notes. "Why would you want to turn yourself into a freak?"
So the majority of furries here are in street clothes with horns strapped discreetly to their heads and tails pinned nonchalantly to their pants.
Plenty more come in full furry regalia - cat and canine costumes that can cost several hundred to several thousand dollars.
Here's Kevin Kelm, of Colorado, for example, in a mechanically operated, 65-pound, 9-foot-tall, gray wolf suit made entirely of foam rubber.
And Lauren Lyle, a 29-year-old electrical engineer from Akron, Ohio, dressed in a tawny fox suit. It must have cost a lot, because the jaw is articulated so it moves when she speaks.
What would possess an individual to indulge in such an expensive and - dare we say - oddball hobby? Is it a love of nature? A fondness for fake fur? Do the costumes compensate for shyness? As children, were they kept inside on Halloween?
"I don't know; it's just really fun," Lyle says. "I like it."
Conway's furry self is a rat persona dubbed Uncle Kage. A chemist in real life (with a Ph.D. from Dartmouth), Conway as Uncle Kage wears a white lab coat with a Mad Scientist's Union emblem across the back. He is 37 years old and unmarried.
His mother, Wilma Conway, a retired secretary in her late 60s, is laughing it up at the registration booth. She's with Josie DeCarlo, 79, whose late husband, Dan DeCarlo, created Josie and the Pussycats for Archie comics. Josie's wearing a leopard print sweater set. Subtle.
Other near-celebs are here: Disney animator Herbie Hamill and Bill Holbrook, creator of the syndicated strip Safe Havens and an online comic called Kevin & Kell. That one features a large white rabbit and a foxy-looking wolf who meet online and fall in love before they realize they are from different species.
Publisher Lisa Allen says furry comic strips can raise sensitive topics such as difference and divorce, "and it's easier for the reader to accept when it comes from a cute, furry little animal."
Whatever.
Roughly 75 percent of Anthrocon members are men in their 20s or 30s, which might make this a good place to meet guys - depending, of course, on what you're looking for in a man.
Mostly, this convention is about "art."
In the Dealer's Room, furries are buying hand-painted refrigerator magnets, jewelry, comics, T-shirts, puppets, tails, wings, glow-in-the-dark horns, and (why does this seem weird?) stuffed animals.
When they're not shopping, conventioneers can attend workshops on watercolor illustration, photography and "conveying expressions." At the dance Friday night, the disc jockey played the Pink Panther Theme and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Oh, lighten up, Conway says.
Does our culture not revere Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Tony the Tiger? Do we not buy plush animals for newborns and put them in their cribs? Did Cats not run for 7,485 performances on Broadway?
This is just good, clean fun, he says.
True, a small fringe of furries find this sexually titillating. That X-rated branch was featured earlier this year on an MTV special that raised many an eyebrow.
All factions of furries are welcome at Anthrocon. But, as in Animal Farm, some are more welcome than others. Public displays of affection are not allowed, and X-rated comic books and games are kept under wraps.
At the other end of the proverbial spectrum are furry do-gooders. Some perform for children in hospitals and others raise money for Canine Partners for Life, a Cochranville, Pa., group that trains dogs to help people who have limited mobility.
Takes all kinds.
I am speechless.........and y'all know that doesn't happen often........lol
(But I hate being one of those people who's "all dressed up, no place to go"... if you get my drift.)
OOOOhhhhh, is THAT what you call yourselves....
Takes one to know one, Polly.
(re: Anthrocon article posting from '02 :) )
...I am a "furry" and it's not sick and twisted as one may think. We like anthropomorphic cartoon animals;
it's part of sci fi. Sure, some of us dress in "fursuit"
but it's all in good fun (and not much different than what you'd find with a mascot at a ballgame).
We collect comic books, buy T-shirts, and have variety shows ("the masquerade"). The Con Chair does an uproarious
"story hour" and a "furry comic" named 2 also entertains.
We have charity auctions to benefit everything from
Canine Partners for Life to cat/dog rescue shelters.
Some of us indulge our inner kid by doing puppet shows.
We have a whole bunch of fun for a weekend every year.
We create stories, art, and sculptur. There are Christian furries, furs who work for Disney, and "fursuiters"
who entertain ill or terminal children in hospitals.
I have attended this convention every year since the first one in 1997 and I love it!
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