Michael Hirtes

Michael Hirtes is a former furry publisher, especially known for the digest-sized fanzine Furplay, which was published in the 1990s, and was devoted to pin-ups and hardcore fur erotica.

Fandom involvement
Up to mid-2005, he was a regular poster on alt.fan.furry, moving on to up to 2009 to the Crush! Yiff! Destroy! and Lulz.net forums. He was eventually banned from Crush! Yiff! Destroy! for attempting to post real-life information about Sage Freehaven during a harassment attempt.

He was later banned from Lulz.net for spamming numerous threads with different nude photographs of overweight males that he had collected, although he still regularly posts via multiple proxies. He similarly uses proxies to harass the image board of Sage Freehaven, where he alternates between claiming he's being persecuted, and using bigoted/homophobic insults and wishing death on various artists.

Published media
He also published a harem-themed zine called Midnight Sands, and wrote a story called Desert Storms, which was drawn and inked by artist Dean L. Norton and published in three parts in Genus #27/28 and #39.

Controversy
Over the years, Michael Hirtes has acquired a poor reputation in the fandom, mainly for the alleged harassment of various artists in an effort to obtain artwork for his zines, including requesting adult material from artists who were not (or were no longer) comfortable with such subjects. He has also tried to cheat artists out of commissions through various methods.

In 2009, his Fur Affinity account "mhirtes" was perma-banned from the site after he caused considerable drama, among them harassing users and multiple reports scamming artists via charge back methods. A second account belonging to Michael Hirtes, "stealthy", was discovered on March 21, 2010 after similar reports of fraudulent behavior and harassment.