Cute furry characters: do they distract you from a serious story?

[Menbung]

I own and I have read most of the Blacksad books (still missin' 2 of em, daaaaarn), and I can say that Blacksad erase the cliché that animal characters are only for kids and children fables. The way the characters are portrayed and the topics of each book are def. not for kids.

It's a fine example that you can make stories for mature audiences using anthro characters.

So, If I know the story is for mature audiences and have animal characters, I wouldn't have any problems with it.

P.S: I recommend reading Blacksad to any comic fan.

[joannekwan]

Actually I got interested in Black Sad because it was casted with anthros. When I first saw it I thought, "Cool! A story with gritty kickass anthros!" Had it just been regular humans I doubt I would have taken notice.

I still have yet to read it. I'm gonna add it to my Amazon shopping cart now.

[jessiepolfliet]

I t wouldn't distract me, but my own story is revolving around furries. Didn't even know what they were before I came here.
I tried to make my characters humans after that but they didn't have the same... flair as they did before so I kept the design.

[SandraMJ]

Yeah, I speak from experience too! My first comic brought about a lot of people asking me "are you a furry?" because the main character was a werewolf of sorts. I'm very glad too to see that the community here is so mature and willing to accept stories more for their plot and storytelling than for their characters!

Also, I absolutely agree with you -- playing with human designs is definitely more boring when it comes to inventing races and such.
Let's hope that a lot more people will be understanding!

[Raven_C]

Heh, i think i can agree with you on the CQ subject. All the other times it got serious, it was just the right dose, but the recent stuff actually put me by surprise by how dramatic it suddenly got. I don't have a problem with it, just surprised. While on topic, one not-so-good example is a comic called Bittersweet Candybowl (or something like that, i dont recall). I don't follow it, but I've read a few pages of it in fragments, and in my opinion it is TOO serious and angsty for the kind of drawing style it has (very cutesy, sonic-esque style, not unlike other furry styles I've seen), too the point it really annoyed me.

[SandraMJ]

I suppose that some people have an insidious "animals = disney = kids" mindset that just can't be shaken off The fact that there are many silly furry comics out there doesn't help the cause, really. It's such a pity!

[hades]

I don't remember exactly how I came across it really but I've been a fan ever since. It is definitely worth reading. ;] Even the dialog is well crafted and can pull you in.

As well I will mention for OP. There is another print comic that sometimes features anthro characters alongside a very diverse cast [literally aha]. Saga is a sci-fi comic and kinda lives up to the name for Science Fiction since it deals with various different planets and races within it. HOWEVER, I will suggest only adult readers pick up the series. It is mature like Black Sad but is a tad more...nsfw aha. Granted they play it off well alongside the plot but some things still startled me when I first picked it up.

AS WELL
if you are looking for STRICTLY anthro and one that is still in the early stages of release as a webcomic. Then might I suggest empire of the new sun? It's plot deals heavy on war and other rough subjects. Plus the art is breathtaking.

To be fair, nowadays judging a story on the subject of anthro characters can be just like judging a book by its cover. ;]

[SandraMJ]

I'm really looking forward to the end of the drama and enjoying some more silly adventures >.<

[SandraMJ]

WHOA thought the second one was a film! That's STUNNING!

I haven't read Blacksad, but the artist is Spanish and it's got quite a BIG fame over here, so I've heard a lot about it. I've always been rather skirmish about mature comics, so I'll probably stay away though U_U

@jessiepolfliet You gotta stick to what you like, people will be jerks no matter what, so you should have fun!

[hades]

It is worth a read someday. ;] But I understand completely on steering away from mature comics.

The second one? You mean Empire of the New Sun? Oh man even their early developmental work was so crazyily stunning. Here are a few that I dug up.

[Raven_C]

@Marchen woah i....jaw drops i'll have to check that comic out, it looks awesome!

[Jelw]

Yeah I seem to be on the opposite of everyone here- but not so much in thinking that anthros/furry creatures CAN'T tell a serious and profound story- I'm just someone who for whatever can't connect or get invested in such stories.
Or rather it's extremely rare-- I'd go to say 99/100 times a story with anthros/furries that I probably would have read and found interesting had the characters been human instead, cannot hold my interest, regardless the genre. (Someone mentioned NIHM, which was actually a book I recall enjoying. Aside from that I liked Red Wall and Tale of Desperaux, so maybe for whatever reason mice/rats resonate with me more often. For Anthromorphic characters the Laguz in fire emblem are the only example I can think up, but I wouldn't really go to label them anthros to be honest)

I'm sure animalistic characters can tell serious stories to the right audience, but I'm afraid I'll never be part of that audience.

[fanyart]

I have been thinking about this for a long time too. And I can't deny that I was quite demotivated when I found out that if I had drawn anime-like human characters instead of anthro dragons, my images would be many times more popular. Maybe that's also the reason I totally hate drawing humans....

@Marchen Whoa, that looks just like my characters! O_O Are they kangaroos? They look a bit like dragons, maybe that's why they give the same vibe as my dragons..
Though they have different tails and mine don't have ears and have a straight nose. And I really envy the artist that their characters don't have wings, they are such a pain to remember to draw! >_<

These are mine (unfinished illustrations):


(yeah, Mini is different as she has a rounder face and smaller nose)

I believe that even anthro characters can convey emotions...

... or maybe not? I don't know anymore ⊙﹏⊙ I had always thought that the relationship between those characters was depicted well and people will be able to understand them... Now the thought people won't relate to the characters scares me because the story more or less revolves around their relationship X﹏x

Note: my characters don't have any weird kind of relationship.

[SandraMJ]

Yeah, any kind of character can definitely convey emotions! However, not everyone can relate to characters who aren't human, like @Jelw above, and so moments that would be emotive (a human Chibi seeing the other as a brother, for example) don't cause an emotive response for them, or not so strong.

Anthropomorfic dragons, in particular, get flack from some of both sides: people who like furry characters (but not scaly ones) and people who don't like anthro period. All the people who loved dragons (me included) loved your comic, though!

Upon designing characters, for anything ever, there's always going to be a side of the potential readers who's going to be sacrificed. If your characters are too old, young people may not relate. If they're too young, the other way around. I probably wouldn't have heard of Dragon Heroes if it hadn't been for a friend who loved dragons and nothing else!

[fanyart]

@SandraMJ Yeah, I read that. It's probably hard to tell if people will feel for the characters or not.
To me it's something I can't really imagine I don't remember a time I read a comic in any style and didn't feel for the characters just because they were whatever animal or drawn in whatever style. I remember loving characters drawn even in styles I'm personally a bit allergic to...
Maybe a good storytelling can save that and bridge that gap for more people.

But heck! Nobody can do something everybody will like!

Uh, actually my dragons don't have scales, they are fluffy - they have velvet-like soft fur Though those two characters have that hair that doesn't let it show much, this guy even has a beard:

But yeah, in the old Dragon Heroes comic style I didn't really give much attention to showing that they are actually fluffy. This comic I draw is colored differently so maybe it will show.

But thanks for the note, I'll keep in mind that I have to show that they are fluffy for people to like them more!

[kikubi]

I suppose in reality, any dramatic style choice we make with our comics will place them into a specific readership niche. For instance, my series reads from right to left. Some people think that's annoying and heinous for an English-language comic, so I knew from the beginning that I was making a choice that would limit my readership to an extent. I did it anyway because I'm more used to reading manga than western comics, and find it difficult to make my pages flow if I reverse them. But then the good thing is that being in a niche makes it easier for people who actually want to read the series to find it.

[tarableart]

I wouldn't say they are distracting at all. Using your reference with "Lackadaisy", it has an entire cast exclusively of fairly cute anthropomorphic felines and yet the backbone of the story line is completely serious. Though there are often hi jinks and comedic points, it flows well with the gritty action of gangsters clashing and characters dodging hitmen. I think what matters most is whether the author takes their characters seriously or not- it's something that readers can tell.

Another example could be the animated film Kung Fu Panda- Sifu has all of the physical tenets of a cute character. Tiny form, huge ears, fluffy- and yet with how he is characterized and what interactions he has with the cast, no body can deny that he is definitely a serious and powerful character. Cute doesn't even enter the brain.

I personally feel that the only reason a person can give for avoiding furries in comics is that they allow society's impressions to influence them simply because the comic is labeled as "Furry". If people can enjoy and take seriously Kung Fu Panda, Disney's Robin Hood, or Jungle Book then they have no excuse as to why they can't take the Furry genre seriously.

[fanyart]

@kikubi I find people having problems reading left-to-right or right-to-left kind of silly...

I myself realized that mangas are read from right after having read 30 forty-page chapters of a manga translated to English. I'm not joking. (It was probably mostly because I wasn't really good at English at the time so I just read it by pictures >_> )

Ever since then I had never thought about either direction being wrong or whatever. Your note made me remember a comment I saw under a translated manwha webtoon posted on a manga reader website (at that time Korean webtoons were just starting to be translated) - "aah, it looks cool but it's read from left, I don't wanna read it, I'm used to manga from right" or something like that. ... I don't want it to sound rude, but such people are... like, culturally inept, close-minded? >_<

@tarableart You wrote it great with Sifu example!
The "furry" label with its connotation is indeed annoying. I had been drawing anthro characters for years before finding out people use such characters for... that weird stuff. I even naively joined a deviantart-similar website with "furry" in title when I was in highschool only to find out that the images of all the artists there I wanted to befriend were... weird. Ugh.
I mean, I respect that they do what they like but find it hard to forgive them for the connotation they gave the furry term.
But I guess it's just similar to how "manga" has different connotation in different countries. In my country, manga=hentai (in better case, yaoi). So narrow-minded. But what can we do about that?

BTW why do the images show so horribly large? I feel like I have flooded the thread, sorry >_<

[Raven_C]

To me it's something I can't really imagine I don't remember a time I read a comic in any style and didn't feel for the characters just because they were whatever animal or drawn in whatever style. I remember loving characters drawn even in styles I'm personally a bit allergic to... Maybe a good storytelling can save that and bridge that gap for more people.

SAME. It's all about characterization and story for me. I often don't really care whether they're animals or whatever. I've been watching Disney and Don Bluth films since I was kid, and I always enjoyed them because I could sympathize/identify with the characters and their emotions. Whether they were animals or humans, it didn't matter to me.

I personally feel that the only reason a person can give for avoiding furries in comics is that they allow society's impressions to influence them simply because the comic is labeled as "Furry". If people can enjoy and take seriously Kung Fu Panda, Disney's Robin Hood, or Jungle Book then they have no excuse as to why they can't take the Furry genre seriously.

YO. I wholeheartedly agree. As well as your point about the author taking the characters seriously. That's all that matters to me. It's unfortunate that "furry" brings up such a bad image. Sometimes, I'm even hesitant to call my comic "furry" and just say "anthro." So I admit I'm a bit affected by what society has created with that term. Of course, that doesn't mean I avoid stories with furries (I already read a few of them anyway), it's just that sometimes I'm like..."What if people think badly of me just cuz I have a furry comic," etc. Haha.

[fanyart]

There is one thing that came to my mind while reading this thread:

Do cute animal mascots distract you?

I mean those "accessories" that live with characters that don't really contribute to the main story but serve the purpose of lightening up the mood? Like those squirrels, chipmunks, weasels and various little fantastic animals.

I would like to know what are everybody's views on this and also if you know of a good example of such a mascot.

I have this fat cat (named Purra) that was supposed to come with another character in a sequel but I fell in love with him so I decided to put him in the main story instead (he looks even fatter now than in these images I have on me right now).

I felt some of the scenes between two main characters were a bit heavy so I used the cat to add something comical. And when there's a real serious scene, he magically disappears! ...No, he's just fat so he has trouble catching up with these characters running around

I wonder if I made the right choice and if he makes the story more enjoyable...