Fenris (artist)

Fenris (born December 13, 1987) is an American furry artist who lives in Houston, Texas. He was an editorial cartoonist for The Daily Cougar, a student newspaper based at the University of Houston, and now is a web designer, a part-time humor writer and radio commentator for ACTfur On Air.

His fursona is a southern red werewolf (Canis lupus rufus). He is a fan of transformation and were-related artwork.

History
Born in Scotland with Finnish citizenship, Fenris lived several years in the United Arab Emirates before coming to the United States in 1994. In 2004, he became an American citizen. Fenris has been published since the age of 13. He has appeared in a handful of school newspapers, in the form of cartoons or editorials prior to his current position at The Daily Cougar. As a longtime fan of werewolves, he was introduced to transformation in 2002, and later to furries themselves in 2004, via deviantART.

Since August 2006, he attended the University of Houston as a graphic design major. That same year, Fenris released his website and took his job as editorial cartoonist for The Daily Cougar. He retired from The Cougar in May 2009, when he moved to another campus. He earned his BFA in Applied Design in May 2010 and is currently studying for an MA.

Fursona
Even before he fully understood the furry fandom, Fenris drew pictures of himself as a werewolf as early as 2003. He later elaborated that he was a southern red wolf with solid carmine fur, stating on his website, "a southern red wolf seemed ideal for me because I'm a southerner, and as popular as wolves are as a personal avatar, I seldom see humanlike canis lupus rufuses running around RP chats."

He often switches between representing himself as a red wolf, and Fenris as a separate entity to complement his human side. He took his name from Norse Mythology.

Art
While offering a variety of different artistic media, his style remains consistent in that his cartoons were largely inspired by Garfield, and occasionally are compared to The Simpsons. He depicts his characters as bug-eyed with no irises, thick fingers, defined outlines, and neutral angles. Inking in editorial cartoons is usually significantly scratchier than colored works on his website, due to the deadline required for such works.

Recently, Fenris started selling commissioned websites, coded from scratch.

Writings
Fenris started writing miniature essays in his deviantART journal in July 2005, and redistributed them on his website in 2007. His writing style is inspired by Maddox, something that Fenris does not keep secret. While he often writes rants, he sometimes satirizes or even praises aspects of the popular culture.

In 2010, his "Pamela Geller Blog Generator," a mechanism which allows the user to fill in the blanks within a "typical" blog post from conservative blogger Pamela Geller, was credited as the source for Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson's "Shrieking Harpy Rant Generator", which in turn was cited by The Atlantic's national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg.

Podcasts
Since August 2007, Fenris hosted a segment on Taking Up Space and ACTfur On Air called "Fen Rants." He was invited at the time to join the crew by Kraden and has since become friends with the cast.

Intentionally modeled to imitate 2, the Ranting Gryphon, Fenris selects a subject every episode to rant about for about two minutes. Subjects discussed range from minor nuisances such as furry drama to more controversial matters such as vaccination. Fenris is currently recording for ACTfur On Air's second season.