Furry Fiction Fan Is Searching for Furry Literature with Lots of Action

Dear Papa Bear, 

I've been in the fandom for quite a while, but also I've been a fan of other things like video games and anime. As I browse through some furry mediums like comics, literature and animation I've noticed something: the action genre is almost non-existent. Someone might argue that there's plenty of action on these mediums, but I would ask if they've even taken nods to stuff like Devil May Cry, Fist of the North Star, Yakuza, Bayonetta, Time Crisis, G-Gundam, Tekken, Guilty Gear, Ys, Die Hard, Streets of Rage, I could go on. The best I could find is this comic series on FA called This Primal World. It's a good read, worth checking out. So my question is, why is action the least tapped-into genre in the furry fandom?

Thanks,
Pete

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Hi, Pete,

I really didn't know the answer to your question, so I asked Watts Martin, who is president of the Furry Writers' Guild. Here is what he wrote back:

Hi! So, I asked around the Furry Writers' Guild Slack and got more or less nothing useful when it comes to furry action comics, and not a lot for action stories/novels; I suspect the problem is that while it's easy to think of "action movies," we don't really talk about comics and especially fiction quite the same way. (Yes, I know Superman first appeared in "Action Comics," but that kinda kicked off "superhero" as a genre, right?)

I can think of a few furry comics off the top of my head that certainly have action in them, at least:

• Dan Abnett & Ian Culbard's "Wild's End," a furry-ish take on "The War of the Worlds"
• Juan Diaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido's "Blacksad," the pulp detective series
• Stan Sakai's "Usagi Yojimbo," the long-running samurai comic

There are also some now-defunct titles like Shawntae Howard's "Extinctioners" superhero comic and the short lived sci-fi title "Fusion," which included work by Steve Gallacci, Lela Dowling and novelist Steven Barnes.

For fiction, it's a bit easier to find stuff. Bad Dog Books' ebook site, for example, has an Action/Adventure category. Ones I see there I'd consider looking at include:

• Ursula Vernon's Black Dogs duology
• Mark Engels's Always Gray in Winter, a novel about werecats
• Roz Gibson's science fantasy Griffin Ranger duology
• Sasya Fox's sci-fi adventure Theta

Of course, there are other stories that might have a lot of action in them in other genres; Peter might just want to give things a look and see what pops out. Other titles that were mentioned on the Slack include Ryan Campbell's Smiley and the Hero and (ahem) the transhumanist sci-fi novel Kismet, by Watts Martin.

I'm not familiar with "Wild's End," but I am with the Blacksad and Usagi Yojimbo books and they, indeed, have lots of action in them. I was particularly impressed by the Blacksad writing.

Hope that helps,
Papabear