I'm Too Cute to Die!

I’m going to bring up a problem that’s been presented to me about anthropomorphic fiction in the past by friends, family, and even teachers. It’s one that caught me by surprise so hard that I’m still recovering from the whiplash and waking up in a cold sweat on warm nights from the trauma.

You may not believe this, and it may shock and disturb you, so I apologize right now for anyone I may upset with this statement.

Are you ready? Here it goes…

Most anthropomorphic characters are too cute for the majority of the population to take seriously.

"Say it ain't so!"

I know, right? Totally blows your mind! Who knew that a genre typically filled with singing and dancing mice and bears with symbols on their tummies would be so hard to take seriously?

In all honesty, it really was an upsetting moment when I was working with my writing professor, crafting a deep world of interesting characters with real problems and dire consequences and danger everywhere they looked, and he sat me down to tell me that he was having trouble taking my work seriously. It was through no fault of my story-telling ability or a weakness of dialogue, but simply because “It’s hard to picture such cute characters in these situations.”

I’ll admit that I don’t know how to absolutely solve this problem, but I do think it’s something that really could use some discussion and thought.

I think the place to start, obviously, is where the problem comes from. Obviously, it’s from social conditioning as well as the type of stories and films that make up the majority of anthropomorphic media. I’ve already pointed out the Care Bears above, who are pretty much the definition of cloying cuteness, and that preconception isn’t going to go away any time soon. Children are often raised on stories of anthropomorphic critters, so the concept itself is inherently associated with childhood. It also doesn’t help that many novels headlining such characters are judged before they start. Let’s have a fun example. Below is the summary of ‘Redwall’, as given on the official website:

“As the inhabitants of Redwall Abbey bask in the glorious Summer of the Late Rose, all is quiet and peaceful. But things are not as they seem. Cluny the Scourge--the evil one-eyed rat warlord, is ell-bent on destroying the tranquility as he prepares to fight a bloody battle for the ownership of Redwall. This dazzling story in the Redwall series is packed with all the wit, wisdom, humor, and blood-curdling adventure of the other books in the collection, but has the added bonus of taking the reader right back to the heart and soul of Redwall Abbey and the characters who live there.

Wowsers! Bloody battle, you say? Destroying tranquility? Wit, wisdom, humor, and blood-curdling adventure? Why, that sounds like something fantastic! Perhaps not as serious as the latest political thriller, but it at least deserves the same level of respect as any good, thick, Tolkien-esque fantasy novel!

But the majority of adult readers, if they’d hypothetically had no other exposure to the series at all would turn up their nose before even reading any of that, and do you know why? Well, let’s look at one of the covers for the book:

To be honest, this cover still makes me feel excited to read it again.

Aww! Isn’t Mathias so adorable? With his little twitchy nose and tiny sandals… Why, of COURSE that’s a fantasy novel for children and children alone! Any coworkers who saw me carrying that around would think I’ve lost my mind …

And there is our key problem. For the majority of books centered on anthropomorphic characters, that first glance is so much more important than it is for most other books. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. Redwall IS a great book for kids to read, but it’s also got plenty for adults to enjoy as well. That’s far more difficult to communicate, it seems. Many of the popular novels these days have fairly non-descript or simplistic covers that are meant to draw the reader closer to learn more of what the story is about, but a typical anthro-focused story is going to want to understandably show off the characters or at least the world. After all, that’s one of the main things we love about such stories here! However, it’s difficult to make a novel about animal characters look ‘grown-up’ without making the characters appear extremely bestial and monstrous or overly sexual so as to narrow the niche of readers even further.

Communicating “I am a novel that is worth your time to read” is so incredibly hard already, but it feels even more that way for anthropomorphic fiction. Clearly there have to be things that can be done to make them more approachable for the readers who aren’t already interested like me and you, but what are they?

Darker Cover Art? NO cover art? Trying to flood the market with anthro novels geared towards adults?

Honestly, I think the answer truly lies in changing public perception, and that takes time. Even with all the great art and other examples in the world, many people will still hear a story about talking mice and think “That’s great for kids, but I’m going to go sit at the grown-ups table right now and read something else.”

What do you think?

In this instance, Rico (character of a dear friend) is demonstrating
how cuteness should be handled with care!

Happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown

Timmy Fell Down the Well!

Oh, I'll FIX you now! Stupid computer problems...

*ahem* Now that THAT is taken care of…

When I talk about anthropomorphic animals in this blog, I tend to be speaking about animal characters that act as humans do, to the point of even standing up and dressing like them in their daily lives. Even if they don’t dress up in human clothes, these characters still have very human speech and sensibilities between themselves.

However, as many know, that is not the only way to show anthropomorphism.

One of the least-talked about types of characters here is ironically probably one of the earliest types of anthro animals: everyday non-talking animals in our lives. These characters are typified not by walking upright or being able to hold a conversation with us, but by lacking the talents of speech and yet still being given human reasoning for their actions. In media, we have characters such as Lassie, Rascal the raccoon, and even Odie from the Garfield comics. In our own lives, we have our pets and the occasional squirrel. Just think of how many mostly one-sided conversations you or your friends might have had with cats or dogs, or how often we say things like “He’s acting guilty” about our pets. Really, this is probably the way most people have experience with anthropomorphism.

When it comes to literature, unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of these kinds of characters. Black Beauty, Old Yeller, The Book of Three, and any book that has a variant of the “boy and his dog” story.

However, what I find most interesting about some of these books is how the ‘language’ of these animals is communicated to us. The protagonists in these stories are frequently human, so it’s fairly common for us to be given ideas of what the animals are trying to hint at and how they’re doing so through what we see of their body language. Another common way of showing how these animals are communicating is to, quite frankly, cheat and just write it out plainly. This usually involves the animals being given snippets of dialogue between themselves and sometimes the humans around them, talking to and about them as we tend to talk about our own animals, but it’s quickly made clear that nobody but these animals can actually ‘hear’ their speech. Sometimes this goes both ways and the animals can’t understand us either, usually leading to humorous instances where they comment on how slow we speak or how we say so much when so little is needed. For a perfect example of this ‘cheating’ method in action, just pull up the 90’s Disney movie, ‘Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey’. In books, Silverwing is a fine and familiar example by this point.

Believe it or not, this dog is one of the main characters in the JRPG Persona 3.
This is one of his snappier quotes.

What I’m getting at with this train of thought is how important conveying language and forms of communication is when telling stories. Having characters like these brings these sorts of language issues into the spotlight and can make for fascinating reading as the author tries to make something innate into something foreign. Some do it better than others, but I’ll always find it neat to see how an author conveys “Timmy fell down the well” compared to “Timmy’s trapped by a bear and needs the family gun”. What sort of tail-wags, ear flicks, and different timbre of yelps will Lassie use to get her point across to us slow-witted, but well-meaning, two-leggers?

Also, for a fun train of thought, where does Wile E. Coyote fit in here? Sure he’s upright and can operate a cell-phone, but I wonder if his being unable to speak is explained with “Of course he doesn’t speak. Coyotes don’t talk!”

Either way, he’s totally cheating with those signs…

Until next time, happy reading, all!

-Chammy

Currently Reading:

The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown

Need more Bach in your Life?

Hello all!

I did a post late last month talking about the wonderful books in the Ferret Chronicles by Richard Bach. In it, I made many a guess and an observation about the author, having not known much about him before diving into that world.

Well, if you'd like to dive into that world too, you can check out Richard Bach's OWN blog:

http://richardbach.com/

Not only do you get to read more of the positive energy found in the Ferret Chronicles books, but you also can learn more about Mr. Bach himself as well as his adventures online and in life!

I've been meaning to put a post up about this for a little while now, so please help me make up for my misstep by giving his blog a visit and giving the writer a hearty 'hello!'


Among other things to note, I must say that I am constantly amazed at the various ways books can be approached and experienced.

Right now, I'm reading a fantasy book called The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown, and it's been a rough early ride. While I'm no stranger to more adult literature such as the realms of Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell, I still get tripped up when a book starts off almost forcefully 'mature', involving detailed accounts of sex, nude bodies, and gruesome violence. It was enough here that I honestly considered putting it down and trying another book that didn't seem quite so juvenile in the pleasure it took describing the shape of women's breasts.

However! I stand corrected... so far. The book has started to get exciting and the elements of the plot have become curious and uncommon to the point where I truly do want to see what comes next. It's still thick with graphic descriptions, but it is certainly not a badly written book and it does know how to draw a reader along with the plot.

So the old saying still rings true: "Don't judge a book by its cover." Though, in this case, I might say, "Don't judge a book by its first three chapters" instead.

Time to jump into some reading! Not literally, of course. These library books are delicate!

Until next time, happy reading, all!
-Chammy

Currently Reading:
The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown