If the entire rest of my sprawling internet footprint somehow didn't give me away,
I've always had an interest in anthro art, but don't associate much with the associated community 
(at least as it exists today.) Most of the art and characters I take an interest
in come from beyond the mainstream furry community, either dating from prior or simply from 
outside of it's sphere. Anthropomorphism has been with us since basically as long as abstract 
thought as a whole, anyway.

Figured it would be fun to collect some of the creatures and funny animals
that I grabbed from out of the endless cultural current and that now prance
around the inside of my head.

Ancient culture:
   
Saint Christopher is a Christian martyr from the 3rd century known for carrying Christ as a child across a river.
I'm not totally sure why he's sometimes depicted with the head of a dog. It could have been from a confusion between "Canaanite" and "caninus,"
echoes of Anubis in a kind of cross-faith pollination, or the medieval/ancient belief in cynocephaly, that being dog-headed people living in 
vague far-away lands. He's unfortunately prone to looking like a horse in these depictions due to medieval artists being remarkably unable 
to draw anything.

I heard someone jokingly call him the patron saint of walkies, but given that traveling and journeys are sort of his specialty, that's not
entirely inaccurate.


(Manuscript 0121, Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, Paris. 14th century.)
On the topic of medieval documents, look at this little guy. I'm kinda used to these kind of illustrations
being wonky or having flat expressions, but just look at that face. That's a menace to society
if I've ever seen one, and damn proud of it too. Is the axe supposed to be bloody? Jeez.

 
(Egyptian mythology as a whole)
In case you someone haven't noticed, Thoth is all over this site. I'm not too well versed in Egyptian mythology,
but have read a book or two and it's been flitting around like moths in my head since forever. He seemed like an
appropriate choice as a recurrent symbol, since he's heavily associated with knowledge and art/writing. 

...was anyone gonna tell me the Greek for his name is Θώθ?? I just noticed that on the Wikipedia page and
nearly had a fucking stroke.

 

Reynard the Fox is the central character of a cycle of stories written around the late 12th century,
parodying medieval literature and the political and religious institutions of the time.
It's an interesting warped mirror of the culture and society of the era, and you've definitely
encounted faint echoes of it; Tybalt (from Romeo and Juliet) is named after the Tibert, prince
of cats, Nietzsche references Reynard (as an example of a philosopher, no less - so I'm not the
only one reading too much meaning into these,) and Disney's design for Robin Hood is actually
derived from Reynard. Walt wanted to adapt the stories but on account of being, yknow, an insane
medieval narrative filled with typical medieval violence and chaos, it didn't get much further
than character designs that got adapted for later projects.

My current username on Discord and a ton of other sites is derived from a character in here, Isengrim.

Also I could dedicate an entire page to rambling about the 1937 film. The animation still blows me away.



20th century critters
I'm not even gonna bother writing about Louis Wain here because I feel like it's a no-brainer,
and also because if I think about it for too long I'm gonna start seeing cats when I close my eyes
again. When I was neck-deep in tagging new images on Catland last year, characters in my dreams turned
to cats and the same thing happened to Keegan IIRC. The site needs a memetic hazard warning.


Fiend Folio (1981)
So I've had this picture of the kenku floating around in my head for a long time (I grew up on 80s AD&D monster manuals which
is probably why I'm like this) to the point of using it on an album cover in 2019. I never looked too much into them for
some reason until recently, and was absolutely delighted to see:

"Although unable to speak in their own voices, kenku can perfectly mimic any sound they hear...
kenku cannot create new sounds and can communicate only by using sounds they have heard. Most kenku 
use a combination of overheard phrases and sound effects to convey their ideas and thoughts."
I could not have described my music and artistic endeavors any better myself if I tried.
Everything I do is collaged, collated, and compiled from external sources; carefully gathered and spliced together for my own purposes.
It was genuinely surreal.

 
Bryn Mawr College Freshman Handbook - Class of 1968
Not sure how this book ended up in my hands, but I'm glad it did.
The whole scan is linked over on the documents page.

   
   
   
   

0001: Shugo Tokumaru - L.S.T. (2005)

0002: Spiritual Front - Rotten Roma Casino (2010)
      I have this printed out on the wall of my dorm.
      (Or I did, until I moved back home and gave it to Keegan.)

0003: Mossflower - Untitled (2022)

0004: Lacrosse - This New Year Will Be for You and Me (2007)
      Turns out the art here is by Karin Hagen, who, while responsible for some 
      nice sculptures and drawings, doesn't seem to have done anything else quite like it. This one absolutely lives up to its 
      creatures and this album stands as one of the cutest and quaintest pieces of art I know and I love it so much.

0005: Design - Day of the Fox (1973)
  As expected, the artist (John Ireland) has 2 other illustration credits on Discogs, neither of which are comparable. Figures.
  The title track is an excellent folk rock track, very sunshine pop-ish with psychedelia nipping at the edges.

0006:  Tin Cup Serenade - Tragic Songs of Hope (2013)
  Art by Nate Williams. Again, nothing else too comparible elsewhere in his repertoire.

0007:  小原孝 [Takashi Obara] - ねこはとってもピアニスト (Neko wa Tottemo Pianist) (1990)
  Art by Chiaki Anpo (安保千秋). I'm really bad at navigating the non-english internet, so I couldn't find much
  else but desperately want to. That's a top 10 album cover of all time, for sure. Also, look at the CD itself: 
Absolutely adorable holy shit
   

0008: T. Schafer - Magnificat in Castle Ghoul (2020)
      I was sure this was modern, but the art itself was actally from 1907! 
      I like to think he's friends with Neko wa Tottemo Pianist. They're very yin and yang.

0009: Fate vs. Free Will Turn Signals - Wolf in a Pulpit (1987)
      How am I just now noticing his, like, clown nose?
      Couldn't find any other creatures of note from the artist, either (unsuprising, given it's from an absolute nobody band and is literally
      drawn directly on the tape.)

0010: 이장혁 [Lee Jang Hyuk] - Vol.1 (2004)
  Angsty little guy.
  Cheer up, emo kid.

0011: Oyasumi, Mon Ami - Alba in the Rain / Last Train Home Syndrome (2019)
0012:ゑでぃまぁこん [Eddie Marcon] - 過冷の絵空事 (2009)
  These are two completely separate releases, but they ended up together when I was formatting the page so I'll keep them together.
  The first one is also another top 10 album cover. When I die, the great cat-bus in the sky is gonna pick me up. So long and goodbye.
  The second one is also a classic. All the world's a cat.
  I might not have included Eddie Marcon if not for the fact that they made one of the greatest music videos of all time
  that's also very very fitting for the creature list (see below.)
  Someone really special to me shared it with me not long before we stopped talking, which was all my fault.
  Brings me right back to a brief and wonderful time with someone I didn't deserve.

0013: 氷河 [Hyouga] - Ganymede (2023)
  My attempts to discover the origin have failed, but that's probably because
  my google-fu and reverse image searching ability is comically weak.
  I'll probably find it eventually and really hope I do, it's so serene and beautiful.
  Maybe it's better isolated from any context and just hanging forever in a still and quiet moment.
  The album very much lives up to the creature; nothing could better encompass the peaceful solitude of signalwave quite like these two.
  They look very happy.

0014: Asobi Seksu x Boris - Asobi Seksu x Boris
  inside you there are two wolves... 
  one snores like “honk shoo honk shoo honk shoo" 
  the other one snores like “hooooonk mi mi mi”

0015: goofy tunes - untitled
  Given the general sound of it and the fact that the original names of the songs were (?-2017) and (?-2019) (a direct allusion to
  25,000 kittens,) plus the description, makes the whole thing a bit more somber.



I'm usually not one for TV, but these caught my eye even if I'm unlikely to watch them all the way through.
  

Things I need to check out: [Redwall]
Modern furry artist of interest: [avogado6, nagabe, toshoneko, danielpup]

Here's a couple interesting sites I found while gathering this page together.
  home of obscure creatures
    Covers featuring anthropomorphic animals
      Video games featuring anthropomorphic animals
        Cartoon Animal Underground
          @FurryFoundFootage

That concludes my inane rambling, for today anyway. Till next time.