Moonlight Meow
Feb. 9th, 2009 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tobookclubI've found a few more books for the therianthrope and otherkin booklist. I'm redesigning its web site, and I'm writing more reviews. I'm having a great time! I do have to take some time to decide whether things belong in the list or not. Some of them are non-fiction books that mention therianthropes by name, so there's no doubt that they belong in my bibliography. However, how appropriate can a book be if it's fantasy fiction? Let's take a look... this one is an interesting example of the conundrums that I'm facing with most of this book list. I've decided that it does belong in the list, if for no other reason than to discuss its terminology and disambiguate some matters.
Amago, Roland (artist) and Bambi Eloriaga (writer). Moonlight Meow Vol. 1. Seven Seas Entertainment, 2007.
Made by an artist/author pair in the Philippines, this is a comic book about the action-packed adventures of a secret society of physical shape-shifters. It's a fun and well-illustrated urban fantasy story.
As such, it doesn't have much to do with real life. (To spell it out: physical shapeshifting is just a fantasy. Real therians do not abide by the “twelve commandments” of the secret society featured in this book, rules which apply only to physical shape-shifters anyway. And if there's a secret society of therians, I haven't heard about it.) However, I'm listing Moonlight Meow here because it uses terminology from the therianthrope and furry communities online. (Note that although the comic panels and pages read right-to-left, manga style, it seems that it was originally written in English, not translated from another language.) “Therianthrope” is an ordinary English word, so it's no surprise to find it in a fantasy or sci-fi story, even when abbreviated to “therian.” What's noteworthy is that the book does use other words that are distinct to us, in correct context. They call their animal side a “theriotype,” and their elders are the “gray muzzles,” a word which (to the best of my knowledge) originated on the alt.horror.werewolves newsgroup a decade prior to this book. During the story, “furry fans,” “furry lifestylers,” and “furry conventions” are mentioned and correctly defined as well, but with a slight twist that comes from sharing their world with actual shape-shifters. (A human character even mentions that he is “a furry lifestyler whose former animal spirit was feline.”)
You can read the entire book online, through GoManga or Google Books. The writer, Bambi Eloriaga-Amago, has a blog for herself, and another blog, Furry Aficionada, with short cartoons about cats (“The Condo Cats”) illustrated by her husband Roland Amago. (They married a few months after this book was published, so the writer's name wasn't hyphenated yet.) As for Roland Amago, he has a DeviantArt gallery. They're working on a second volume in this series.
Amago, Roland (artist) and Bambi Eloriaga (writer). Moonlight Meow Vol. 1. Seven Seas Entertainment, 2007.
Made by an artist/author pair in the Philippines, this is a comic book about the action-packed adventures of a secret society of physical shape-shifters. It's a fun and well-illustrated urban fantasy story.
As such, it doesn't have much to do with real life. (To spell it out: physical shapeshifting is just a fantasy. Real therians do not abide by the “twelve commandments” of the secret society featured in this book, rules which apply only to physical shape-shifters anyway. And if there's a secret society of therians, I haven't heard about it.) However, I'm listing Moonlight Meow here because it uses terminology from the therianthrope and furry communities online. (Note that although the comic panels and pages read right-to-left, manga style, it seems that it was originally written in English, not translated from another language.) “Therianthrope” is an ordinary English word, so it's no surprise to find it in a fantasy or sci-fi story, even when abbreviated to “therian.” What's noteworthy is that the book does use other words that are distinct to us, in correct context. They call their animal side a “theriotype,” and their elders are the “gray muzzles,” a word which (to the best of my knowledge) originated on the alt.horror.werewolves newsgroup a decade prior to this book. During the story, “furry fans,” “furry lifestylers,” and “furry conventions” are mentioned and correctly defined as well, but with a slight twist that comes from sharing their world with actual shape-shifters. (A human character even mentions that he is “a furry lifestyler whose former animal spirit was feline.”)
You can read the entire book online, through GoManga or Google Books. The writer, Bambi Eloriaga-Amago, has a blog for herself, and another blog, Furry Aficionada, with short cartoons about cats (“The Condo Cats”) illustrated by her husband Roland Amago. (They married a few months after this book was published, so the writer's name wasn't hyphenated yet.) As for Roland Amago, he has a DeviantArt gallery. They're working on a second volume in this series.
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Date: 2009-03-18 06:45 pm (UTC)