Taral Wayne

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Taral Wayne
TaralWayne.jpg
Real name Wayne MacDonald
Born October 12, 1951[1]
Birth place Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[2]
Date of death July 2024
Death place Ontario, Canada
Spouse(s) or mate(s) n/a
Profession or hobby Artist, writer
Character species Human
Convention GoH ConFurence 3, Anticipation (2009 WorldCon)

Taral Wayne was an sci-fi and furry artist and writer, with a career extending as far back as the pre-furry APA, Vootie. He is considered one of the first furry artists of the furry fandom (also known as the First Fandom).

Biography[edit]

Max BlackRabbit and Taral at Taral's apartment in Toronto. Photo by artist Steve Martin

Née Wayne MacDonald in Toronto, Ontario, Taral Wayne was one of Canada's best known science fiction fan artist. His pen name (Taral) originated from a fictional synthetic language, Siroihin, that he described in one of his early science fiction fanzines.[3]

Career[edit]

Taral began his involvement in the science fiction fandom in 1971 when he joined the Ontario Science Fiction Club (OSFiC). Over the years he contributed art and writing to a wide variety of amateur and semi-professional fanzines, as well as publishing his own (Red Shift, Delta Psi, Synapse, New Toy, among others).[3] In the late 1980s he made the jump to professional illustration, by necessity working mainly outside the science fiction genre. A West Coast American magazine called Ruralite was his main client at that time.

During the 1990s, Taral focused more on comic book work. His major achievement was the furry comic title Tales of Beatrix Farmer (Beatrix) by Mu Press and Vision Comics. Created by fellow artist Steve Gallacci, the stories were a collaborative effort: drawn by Taral and co-written by Gallaci, they tell the story of Beatrix, an ordinary female rabbit who is wounded in a drive-by shooting. She is rescued by omnipotent alien beings (visible only to her), who ensure her future safety by wrapping her in a metallic suit that confers invulnerability. She soon discovers that it also renders her completely "safe" from bodily needs—food, drink, sleep, sex, touch, taste, or smell. Forced into the role of a superhero for hire, Beatrix yearns to be ordinary again or at least have the option of removing the suit when desired.

Due to generally poor sales in the entire comics industry at the time of the Marvel Comics bankruptcy, the series was dropped after only a few issues. After that, Taral contributed short pieces to other comics as time and inclination permitted, and created many back covers for Gremlin Trouble, a comic published by AB Pixilations

Other significant work he has done within the SF genre includes illustrating Rudy Rucker's novel Spaceland (Tor Books, 2002), restoration of American underground cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's art appearing in fanzines for Rare & Well Done Bode, research and illustration for John Robert Colombo's book Years of Light (Dundurn Press, 1982), while also contributing to The Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck (Bruce Pelz, 1980), and writer Pauli Kidd's Tank Vixens card game (United Publications, 2004).

In addition to his art, Taral has sold a small number of articles and short stories, worked on TV and cartoon presentations, produced several CDs compilations of his art and fan writing, sold tee-shirts, and even designed a postal cancellation for the 1978 Worldcon. The bulk of Taral's career, though, has been creating art for private commissions, numbering more than 3,000 inked, colored, or penciled works to date.

Taral resided in the Parkdale district of Toronto. While still possessing close ties to science fiction fandom, he was rather an outsider in the comics community.[citation needed]

Awards[edit]

Taral was nominated for and won several awards, including:

Fandom involvement[edit]

Saara Mar
Left to right: Max Blackrabbit, Taral wayne, (unknown), Mitch Beiro, Marc Schirmeister, Dave Fageol.

Taral has been considered for many years as one of the handful of initial furry artists in the fur fandom (including other notable ones such as Steve Gallacci [Albedo], Ken Sample, Steve Martin, Bob Hill, etc...), if not the very first recognized one.[citation needed]

He was a guest of honor at ConFurence 3 (1992), and his furry art has been featured in several furry comics, fanzines, and magazines (i.e. Gallery et al).

Characters[edit]

Taral's characters and the associated art is set in or around a fictional small town called Willow Run. His signature characters are a blue and white-furred, silver-eyed alien girl named Saara Mar, and another extraterrestrial girl named Tangel (short for Tangelwedsibel), a Teh Langgi girl featuring in a large number of Taral's drawings. She somewhat resembles a black and white furry dinosaur and hates being called a skunk.

Saara Mar[edit]

This character dates back to Taral's earliest work in the 1970s.

Saara is a Kjola, an extraterrestrial, representing a species so fantastically advanced in science that her powers seem less like magic (as per Arthur C. Clarke's observation), they seem more like cartoons (as per Taral). She isn't a 100% natural species per se, but a quantum-powered, synthetic, solid-state being animated by force fields, yet nevertheless a very sympathetic human personality for all that. She "discovered" the Earth in April 1970, her first contact by some strange coincidence with the artist Taral Wayne himself

Saara's appearance is that of a slim young woman who is a little over six feet (1.82 meters) tall, covered mainly in white fur but with peacock blue extremities and blue hair. The few places where it shows, her "skin" is chrome silver, as are the pupils of her eyes.

Saara's hair is worn in a pageboy cut and she is almost always barefoot. Nearly invulnerable and about 50 times stronger than a human being, her clothes are adornment rather than protection. Her usual costume is a variation of a chrome silver garment that is a "tool", i.e. it consists of a sort of force field and is continuous (through sub-space or a higher dimension) with the hull of her starship.

Among her non-human friends is Tangelwedsibel. The Langgi is only one of several species belonging to the interstellar community known as Dalmirin. The Illuriamimsi and Dnebrala are two other species that sometimes visit Earth following its "discovery."

Convention attendance[edit]

(*) - Guest of Honor (**) - Fan Guest of Honour

Art[edit]

Taral produced consistent and refined line art, depicting figures in a stylized and rounded Franco-Belgian "ligne claire" (clear line) style. He also had a modest career illustrating books, magazines, and any other sort of kipple that makes him a buck. Extensive selections of his art and writing can be found on Fur Affinity and DeviantArt.

Health and death[edit]

In early 2017, Taral suffered a stroke, from which he began a slow recovery,[7] and he continued to write and draw until his passing in July 2024 due to health issues.[8][9]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Taral wayne entry on the TVTropes.org website. Retrieved ?.
  2. Now We Are 61 - FAJ 241 post on Fur affinity. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Robert Sward (January 9, 1982). Gafia and egobo part of fanzine world, W:The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail, p. E7. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  4. Hugo Awards page on the Hugo Award website. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  5. 2008 Rotsler Award Winner - Taral Wayne on the S.C.I.F.I. website. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  6. AnticipationSF: English – Guests of Honour page on the AnticipationSF website. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  7. Getting Reacquainted – FAJ 403 article on Fur Affinity. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  8. Taral Wayne (10/12/1951 - 8/1/2024) post by Mel White on Fur Affinity. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  9. Colin Hinz is reposting Steven Baldassarra reporting that Taral Wayne passed away yesterday. post on Facebook. Retrieved August 2, 2024.

External links[edit]

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Media[edit]

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