Anthro (magazine)

Anthro is a bimonthly furry online fanzine which started with its September/October 2005 issue. Its editor/webmaster/Lord High Everything Else is Quentin 'Cubist' Long, who performed pretty much the same suite of duties for his other (now dead) fanzine TSAT. After Anthro #6, Michael W. Bard -- Long's partner-in-crime -- elected to step down from the associate-editorial duties he'd been fulfilling for Anthro (as he'd previously fulfilled for TSAT).

Curiously, neither Long nor Bard consider themselves to be furries. Long's primary goal for Anthro is to make it a known source of high-quality furry material, including (but not limited to) stories, art, columns, fact articles, poetry, webcomics, reviews, and whatever else furdom-at-large can come up with. Long hopes that the zine's readers will enjoy it enough that they choose to support it in a concrete manner (by, among other things, buying posters/t-shirts/books/etc; donating money; or by purchasing a USD 50¢/issue subscription), thereby providing enough revenue that Long can actually afford to pay his contributors. Since a Google search for 'anthro' puts the zine in the top five results (and often in the top three results), it would appear that the zine is indeed enjoyed by many. As of 28 May 2007, every Anthro subscriber receives a mini-CD of a song, Brothers Under the Skin (excerpt available here) that Long commissioned from filker Tom Smith.

Anthro carries a number of regular features, over and above its complement of stories, poems, interviews, and fact articles.

In addition to the zine's online presence, Anthro is also published in ink-on-paper form in an annual collection, ANTHROlogy, whose raison d'etre is to be an 'analog' version of the zine. As of this writing (30 March 2007), only one of these collections, the 602-page ANTHROlogy ONE, has appeared; it contains virtually everything that appeared in Anthro #s 1 through 6, and a cover by Lucius Appaloosius. When ANTHROlogy TWO appears later this year, it will contain the lion's share of everything from issues 7 through 12.

Columns

Through the Looking-Glass. Michael Bard's column (formerly editorial) about how furdom looks to one who is new to it.

Down the Rabbit Hole, by Phil Geusz, which focuses on the relationship and interactions between furdom and mundane society.

Reality Soundbites, by Keith Morrison; this column, whose first installments appeared in TSAT, addresses the question of how to make stories believable.

Seen While Prowling, in which Fred Patten reviews many furry works each issue.

The Red King's Dream, by Wanderer Werewolf, which touches on (among other things) the more-furry aspects of roleplaying games.

Comics

Zebra Girl, Joe England's excellent webcomic about a woman transformed (by random magickal mishap) into a horned, hooved, three-eyed demon. Anthro presents the comic with England's permission, at a rate of about 8 strips per issue, starting from the very beginning.

Castle Horsetooth, Oren Otter's and Eala Dubh's comic strip about the fairy-tale adventures of valiant Sir Fluren and his noble steed Briarwood in the kingdom of Jaywardia. The events of the first storyline, The Case of the Six-Cent Song, bore a curious resemblance to Sing a Song of Sixpence; the second storyline is entitled Plague and the Pilfered Posies.

Editorial

From the Editor's Maw, in which Long explores whatever topic strikes his fancy.

External links

• Anthro - home page
• ANTHROlogy One -- buy the collection here, or just view the whole thing online