Archives for: June 2008

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

A half-dozen heads are spiked on a rack in the middle of a freezing-cold room.

A man in a bear costume is propped up against a row of chairs as a fan cools his uncovered face.

Another man in a purple dragon suit lies on his back. His hair is wet. He’s sweating.

“It gets very hot inside here,” Matthew Ledgerwood, 34, of Ontario, Canada, said from the floor of the Headless Lounge, a place where costumed attendees of Anthrocon 2008 can get hydrated and cool off. “The more you move around, the hotter you get. Without rooms like these, it would be almost impossible.”

Anthrocon, the annual convention of anthromorphists, known as “Furries,” is where people like Ledgerwood can come together to celebrate the humanization of animals, especially in cartoons and comics.

This is the third year Pittsburgh has hosted the event at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, where it was moved from Philadelphia to accommodate its growing fans.

Nearly 3,000 Furries are expected in Pittsburgh this weekend, Anthrocon spokesman Karl Jorgensen said.

“Every year we get bigger,” he said. “People come from all over the world to attend.”

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