Lace Featherdawn and the Domain of the Kitty Cats

Back in the mid-2000s I drew a lot of cartoon catgirl art. I was, for a time, really into that aesthetic. I wasn't a furry, in the strict sense. I never identified with the label and I just didn't have much common ground with that community beyond a great love for anthropomorphic cartoon animals. It wasn't a lifestyle or identity for me. I just appreciated the aesthetic of what I still call "funny animals" and "cartoon animals". And I still do, very much.

Drawings like this one are little gems in my catalog. This figure looks really nice, I think. She's sexy and soft and strong and cool. But of course when you mix funny animals with pin-up sex appeal you are treading on the kinky turf of the furry fandom whether you accept it or not. I never fully accepted it.

She's not bad, she's just, y'know, drawn that way.

I guess it's because this is, for me, just another pin-up piece. It's actually part of a broader project at the time to create a fantasy world peopled by these animal-type characters that weren't straight-up reflections of any particular animal. Lace Featherdawn isn't a cat. She's a catgirl, for sure, but not a cat. She's a fantasy character that is part of a fantasy species.

I used to doodle in the margins a lot.

Of course I was probably resistant to the furry label because of all the heavy heavy baggage it comes with. Furries get a lot of shit. They are unfairly maligned by the broader public because at a casual glance it looks creepy and fucked up to be drawing sexy animals doing it (the furry fandom is pretty rife with porn, y'know). I didn't want to be put in that category and since I didn't really identify with the label I didn't feel any need to subject myself to such torture. I wanted to draw sexy cartoon pin-ups and so that's what I did.

Later when I created Rabbits & Rangers I intentionally avoided ever using the furry label. R&R is not a furry game book, it's a funny animals game book. It's Bugs Bunny and Captain Carrot and Usagi Yojimbo in a dungeon. Full stop. But since funny animals are included as part of the furry aesthetic, then if you are a furry R&R is going to be in your wheelhouse even if I don't consider it to be a "furry fandom book".

There's probably a Venn diagram showing some overlap between old grogs like me who read Usagi Yojimbo and young whipper-snappers who identify as field mice. But the similarities, for me at least, are only skin-deep and the divide between me and the field mice person is substantial. Much love to you, mouse. Be your own self and fuck the haters.

All of this reminds me how very interesting the topic is. Like... what is it about animal characters that is so appealing? When I wrote R&R I was absolutely engrossed in making each animal type distinct and hopefully fun to play. Each type was like a mask. And therein, I think, lies the appeal. Cartoon animals are masks. They are stand-ins for ourselves, with the animal bits being character traits we fantasize about - not at all unlike superhero powers. Where's the bright line between a guy who can fly and shoot eye lasers vs. a guy who is a walking, talking alligator? Both are humans at the base (we couldn't identify with them otherwise) and have fantastic augmentations (flying, chomping!).

Maybe there's some book out there that dives into this idea? I dunno.