Pelzig

Pelzig is a furry artist, active in the fandom since the early 1990's. His style is characterized by very simple, clean, linework, and an emphasis on characterization. He's well known both for his erotic work, especially in the field of BDSM, and his use and celebration of the positive aspects of the military art and design of the Third Reich.

History
Pelzig, from an early age, had always taken a liking to drawing. However, it would not be until his college years in the late 1980s at the University of New Orleans did he begin to get into comic-style illustrating with any measure of seriousness. This, in part, was spurred by his involvement with a New Orleans area Japanese animation tape trading and fan club called Star Force 2. Here, he illustrated covers and interior artwork for the club's newsletter Genesis as part of the group's rotation of artists. Outside of a single art course in college, Pelzig taught himself, using Blackthorne Publishing's How to Draw Robotech comic series as a starting point for his eventual style.

It was at the close of the 1980s when Pelzig become exposed to anthropomorphics. This was through a friend who showed him an issue of Steve Gallacci's Albedo space opera/poli-sci-fi comic and also a portfolio by artist Shon Howell. Intrigued, some of his art beginning in 1989 would feature anthro traits. In the early 1990s, Pelzig took a shot at sequential comic art as, prior to this, his art were one-pagers and pin-ups. The comic was anthropomorphic and ran a few pages and he submitted it to Furrlough which, at the time, was put out by Antarctic Press with Shon Howell being on of the editors. The story was rejected but instead of getting a cookie-cutter rejection letter, Shon included a hand written critique of the story and how to improve. Pelzig credits this personal response as a spur to carry on and better his skill. Not too surprisingly, his art began to take on a Shon Howell influence.

Some of his first furry artwork would be seen in print in a supplement to the 1991 role-playing game Thundering Steel. Entitled OPFur, the supplement was a furry character generation system for the RPG which was both written by Pelzig as well as him being the main art contributor. OPFur was released in 1992 by Minds In One Productions.

It was during 1993 that Pelzig began to get into BDSM themes in his art and his first portfolio resulted, entitled Bond-Ex. This portfolio, which contained heavy BDSM imagery, laid the cement for his reputation in the furry fandom for detailed and sometimes extreme S&M and B&D artwork. While attending ConFurence 5, Pelzig obtained contact information on the various fanzines then available. At this time, he founded Knechtschaft Studio.

But his first appearance in a fanzine would come later in 1994 when he met Brian "SilverFox" Miller of SilverFox Publications. Pelzig, at this time, was importing Japanese manga and mooks, traveling to Gulf Coast conventions as a dealer. While dealing at the Mississippi gaming convention CoastCon, Pelzig and SilverFox met and Pelzig's artwork would appear in the very first issue of FurryPhile and Furrottica, both fanzines produced by SilverFox Publications.

From 1994 through the remainder of the 1990s, Pelzig became very prolific in terms of art, appearing in dozens of fanzines including AnthropoMORPHINE, Spontoon Island, Gallery (as a guest appearance), the Bunny Pages, furBALL, and various issues of the Alston brothers fanzines such as The Bestiary and Furloose. In addition to fanzines, he did art for his own importing business, a Finnish anime club fanzine, and accepted and worked on private, commissioned artwork.

By now, Pelzig had developed his own, unique art style. The only thing which remained of the Shon Howell influence was to be found in his inking technique.

His first appearance in a professional comic publication (at least produced by a major comic company) was Project A-Komic #2 which was released by Antarctic Press for the 1996 Project A-kon convention in Dallas, Texas. It was a pin-up, single page piece of a character from the anime series Armored Trooper VOTOMs. His second appearance would be in the April 1997 issue of Shanda Fantasy Arts' Giant Shanda Animal #2 with a single pin-up piece. His third appearance would be as a contributor to the In The Zone benefit comic for artist Michael-Scot McMurry, the one-shot being released in October 2000. His fourth comic appearance would again be with Shanda Fantasy Arts, but this time in the December 2000 issue of the Katmandu Annual #2. His last comic appearance would be the 100th issue of Furrlough (published by Radio Comix) released in April 2001.

Pelzig's art would appear in two other forms of print media. The first was the fetish magazine Equus Eroticus. His pin-up art would appear in the debut issue in the Spring of 1997. His last appearance in the magazine would be issue #3 where he provided illustrations for Karl von Pfernmann's short story A Slave Takes the Reins. The other media would be the book Deviant Desires by Katharine Gates. Pelzig's artwork featured in the book chapter on furries which, at the time, caused some uproar in the community even though the authoress handled the topic relatively objectively. The book was released in February of 2000.

In addition to artwork, Pelzig stepped into the arena of fanzines. Not long after his artistic debut into the furry fandom, in 1994, he released the fanzine Viktoria's Secret which was a play on the famous lingerie catalog and company. As such, the theme of the fanzine was lingerie clad pin-ups. This was later followed by the companion fanzine Furlined which featured adult themes. The name was derived from fur lined bondage cuffs and the fanzine covers used a chain print border. However, the fanzine was not solely devoted to BDSM. The third, and last, title to be released was Fox One, a military themed fanzine. The title comes from the phrase U.S. Air Force pilots say when firing their first missile, "Fox One". With the exception of Fox One, the other fanzines contained 11x17 centerfolds. All of the fanzines featured artwork from a host of artists. By 1997, Pelzig ceased publishing all three fanzines. Seven issues of Viktoria's Secret and Furlined were published with only three issues of Fox One.

Complimenting the fanzines, Pelzig produced portfolios of his artwork, including Fur de Sade, the art influenced by the writings of the Marquis de Sade. Other portfolios included F3 and two Etchi-Fur series. Eventually, he branched into producing portfolios featuring other artists, the most notable being the Trinity series. Both portfolios featured Tygger Graf, Daphne Lage, and Terrie Smith. Trinity I was based off Viktoria's Secret while Trinity II was based off Furlined.

On top of illustrating and self-publishing, Pelzig did a stint as editor for the APA Fire & Fur. Fire & Fur was started by artist/writer Dwayne Ferguson, known in furry circles for his comic Hamster Vice. Issues were only produced and circulated among the membership. Pelzig assumed editorship (and production) duties beginning with issue #5, taking over from Dwayne Ferguson. After completing issue #11, including two publicly released editions, Pelzig turned over the APA to Foxy of Lazy Fox Studios where the APA remains to this day.

By the early 2000s, Pelzig focused mainly on commissioned artwork, appearing only rarely in furry publications. His second, and last, appearance as an artist for a gaming product was with the furry CCG (Collectible Card Game) Yiff: The Card Game which appeared in 2003. However, he eventually stopped drawing all together by 2005. After a five year hiatus, Pelzig took up the pen and pencil in October 2010, releasing new works and reposting past work on his Fur Affinity site.

Conventions
Pelzig's first furry convention was ConFurence 5 in January of 1994. Prior to this, he attended local New Orleans and Gulf Coast area gaming conventions. Following CF 5, he would go on to attend several subsequent ConFurence conventions, ConFurence East, Conifur Northwest, CritterConDiego, Mephit Furmeet, and many others. In addition to furry conventions, he also attended anime conventions such as Project A-kon where he was a dealer in manga and mooks (plus his own art) under Nexxus-Nine Imports and later as a representative for the now defunct Limelight Publishing.

He currently serves on the board of directors for Morphicon Corporation, the non-profit entity which puts on the Morphicon convention and has been the Operations head for the convention since 2004. At the closing ceremonies of Morphicon 2010, Pelzig announced his retirement as Operations head for the convention. He will remain as dealers liaison for the convention and will continue as a member of the board of directors.