Fenris

From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.

Fenris the Red Wolf

Fenris (born December 13, 1987) is an American furry artist and who lives in Houston, Texas. He is an editorial cartoonist for The Daily Cougar, a student newspaper based at the University of Houston, and a parttime humor writer and radio commentator for Taking Up Space.

His fursona is a southern red werewolf (Canis rufus). He is a fan of transformation and were-related artwork.

1 History
2 Fursona
3 Art
- 3.1 Writings
- 3.2 Podcast
4 Activism
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Born in Scotland, Fenris lived several years in the United Arab Emirates before coming to the United States in 1994. As of 2004, he is an American citizen. Fenris has been published since the age of 13. He has appeared in a handful of school newspapers, in the form of cartoons or editorials prior to his current position at The Daily Cougar. As a longtime fan of werewolves, he was introduced to transformation in 2002, and later to furries themselves in 2004, via DeviantART.

As of August 2006, he attends the University of Houston as a graphic design major, and hopes to graduate by 2010. That same year, Fenris released his website and took his job as editorial cartoonist for The Cougar.

[edit] Fursona

Even before he fully understood the furry fandom, Fenris drew pictures of himself as a werewolf as early as 2003. He later elaborated that he was a southern red wolf with solid carmine fur, stating on his website, "a southern red wolf seemed ideal for me because I'm a southerner, and as popular as wolves are as a personal avatar, I seldom see humanlike canis rufuses running around RP chats."^[1]

He often switches between representing himself as a red wolf, and Fenris as a separate entity to complement his human side. His name derives from Norse Mythology.

[edit] Art

Typical Fenris art

While offering a variety of different artistic media, his style remains consistent in several ways. His cartoons were largely inspired by Garfield, and occasionally are compared to The Simpsons. He always depicts his characters as bug-eyed with no irises, thick fingers, defined outlines, and neutral angles. Inking in editorial cartoons is usually significantly scratchier than colored works on his website, due to the deadline required for such works.

Recently, Fenris started offering commissioned websites, coded from scratch.

[edit] Writings

Fenris started writing miniature essays in his deviantART journal in July 2005, and redistributed them on his website in 2007. His writing style is inspired by Maddox, something that Fenris does not keep secret. While he often writes rants, he sometimes satirizes or even praises aspects of the popular culture.

[edit] Podcast

Since August 2007, Fenris hosted a segment on Taking Up Space called "Fen Rants." He was invited at the time to join the crew by Kraden and has since become friends with the cast.

Intentionally modeled to imitate 2 the Ranting Gryphon, Fenris selects a subject every episode to rant about for about two minutes. Subjects discussed range from minor nuisances such as chain letters^[2] to more controversial matters such as the Darfur conflict.^[3] About one in every five rants focuses on conspiracy theories.

[edit] Activism

An outspoken libertarian, Fenris is known in some circles for his many opinions and pet peeves. He is a vocal critic of organizations or individuals he perceives to be militant or cult-like. He describes himself as a "former liberal"^[4] and Jewish.

In fall 2006, Fenris served as an intern for the campaign of Congressman Nick Lampson (D-TX.) He sporadically devotes volunteer time to a local animal shelter or children's art camp.

[edit] PETA and animal rights

Fenris has extensively written critically about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. His primary criticisms focus on the organization's alleged extremist stance on animal rights.^[5] His claims have garnered minor criticism for being confrontational to vegans and similar laypersons.^[6]

[edit] Lyndon LaRouche

After a bad run-in with several members of the LaRouche Democrats, Fenris became a vocal critic of the college club. Fenris accuses the "LaRouchies" of cult behavior, anti-Semitism, and aggression towards students. His webpage on LaRouche is cited by at least two counter-cult publications.

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Fenris' biggest criticism of libertarians is that conspiracy theories are "flypaper for [them.]" He devoted a two-part rant special to the 9/11 Truth Movement on Taking Up Space,^[7]^[8] and cited 25 flaws in the first ten minutes of Zeitgeist, the Movie in a later episode.^[9] When the NBC Universal released a documentary related to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Fenris responded lampooning the director's use of pseudoscience.^[10]

To summarize his beliefs about conspiracy theories, he writes, "A conspiracy theory is based off the assumption that some mastermind, in the libertarian case the government, was able to pull off a complex plot that fooled near everybody (except for Mr. Armchair Activist who discovered the magic of iMovie.) For the sake of consistency, if the government can't even deliver my mail, it's not gonna pull anything more successful than Watergate. Nice try."

[edit] Furries and furry drama

Fenris is highly critical of furries that claim to be victimized. He believes that those who believe so have lost perspective in legitimate claims of persecution^[11] and that complaints thereof only reflect badly on the fandom. He states that the best solution is for furries to admit they are "freaks" and to stop caring about outside opinions, comparing his methodology to that of similar fandoms.^[12]