FC '08 Nixes Softpaw

AAE, Inc. (who run Further Confusion, have informed the publishers of Softpaw that their magazine “would be against their new rule banning representations of minors engaged in sexual acts.”

Edit: Discussion of the issue on the FC forums here

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Jery opines:

We tried to tell them that we conducted payed professional legal reasearch to show there is no US law banning cub art, but they would not accept our arguments.

We have been selling the magazine for a long while, and are up to Issue 3 now. We have sold the magazine at many cons with no trouble, including AnthroCon 2007 (www.anthrocon.com).

Our magazine is even sold by furry comic store Rabbit Valley http://www.rabbitvalley.com/ and M&T comics http://www.mntcomics.com/

We spent $16,000 on getting Issue 3 ready for FC. And they told us only weeks before the con we can’t have it there. We have had our FC dealers table paid for and booked for a whole year since the last FC in January 2007. We were offered a refund for the table but $200 doesn’t make up for our loss, plus we still want to be part of the dealers room! We will simply not be selling the mag at the FC con, to respect the new rules.

There is nothing we can do now for FC 2008 to change the way things are. However we feel this issue effects all artists and fans so please let the FC staff and board know your opinion about their new rule. Please be polite because they have no reason to listen to people simply yelling at them. Please email dealers@furtherconfusion.org and board@anthroarts.org and tell them your opinion. Polite, clear and well written messages will be of most use.

We are not angry at FC/AAE about the new rule itself, but the timing was extremely bad. We understand why they made their decision. But they have mis-interpereted a US law that bans depictions of human children, not furries. It will affect all artists who draw “cute” or “young” looking art. The AAE/FC have not provided a description of what they consider a “furry minor” under their new rule, so no one knows what art is really banned.