A general mishmash of goings on for your delectableness.
British convention ConFuzzled has opened it’s doors and announced that the convention will indeed be returning for 2009. The theme is Victorian Era England, and has also revealed the highly anticipated “attendee only” ticket, which grants access to the convention without the requirement for food and accommodation, something many thought the previous convention lacked. The guest of honour is Jozef “TabbieFox” Zsapka, a Slovakian fur who originally designed and illustrated the ConFuzzled mascot Brok; one more guest of honour is yet to be announced.
However the site hit problems on the first day of registration, with systems failing to properly register users while others were charged more than required. A few hours of tinkering later and all systems were back online.
In the southern part of England other issues were arising; Rapido, the sometimes controversial head of RBW, the Anthropomorphic Representation Foundation and ex-LondonFurs organiser has seemingly been forced to resign from his post due to “power struggles” with other staff members. He announced resignation on the same day as Bunni and Bernie, who were both directors within the company.
ArtSpots, the high-quality non-pornographic art archive, recently merged with sister-site JaxPad. But that’s not the strangest thing about it. The same week the site announced that it would offer a scholarship of up to $500 to a promising undergraduate student in the field of anthropomorphic artwork; judging will be based on five pieces of that users artwork, a 1000 word essay and an endorsement from their high school or university. Submissions have already closed and judging will be underway until August 31st, when the winner will be announced.
Meanwhile ArtSpots in not leaving others out in the cold, they also brought out the “give two cents, get two cents” initiative, in which users would earn 2 cents of store credit in the ArtSpots shop for every comment posted on the site. The ArtSpots shop currently stocks hundreds of original artworks, prints and membership offers.
It’s a little past the mark, but last May the 2007 Ursa Major Awards for anthropomorphic media were at last announced at Morphicon 2008. Over 200 ballots were counted from around the world to judge the results, with six awards going to people active within the furry fandom. D.C. Simpson - author of Ozy & Millie - was there in person to collect his award for best comic strip, the strip’s third Ursa Major win.
Popular webcomic Ozy & Millie is to end before the end of 2008, according to creator D.C. Simpson. The strip is currently in it’s last story arc, with the imminent marriage of Millie’s mother and Ozy’s adoptive father Llewellyn as the two philosophical young foxes ready to leave elementary school. Simpson has cited other projects, as well as an inability to deliver good strips that are up to his own standards, as being the reason behind ending Ozy & Millie. Fear not however, as Simpson noted that the characters may appear in future projects, the exact nature of this is as of yet unknown.