Back in my high school days in the 80's there was a huge craze in comics over furry animals. I never understood the appeal myself and for the most part ignored the genre craze and stuck to my super hero comics and gritty independents, but there was one comic that got stuck in with the rest of the "furry" stuff that I really loved and always thought was misplaced, genre-wise. This comic was Albedo Anthropomorphics.Albedo was a sort of magazine dedicated to collecting independent furry comics under one one binding but what drew me to it was the story of Erma Felna EDF. This was a comic drawn by a local (to WA) artist by the name of Steve Gallacci and it depicted a rather interesting blend of furry animals and a very gritty, hard sci-fi setting. Though the animal art was cool, what always gripped me about this comic was the sleek, defined technology and scenery that really set this up as a believable science fiction setting.
Lately I have been looking back through the scattered issues of this series that I have as well as the RPG resources that have come out for it over the years and marveling at how well it stands up two decades later. The stories are very political and serious and the gear is very much thought out and believable. I really wish it had done better and/or found a solid comeback. Unfortunately, I think it's humanoid animal cast has always colored people's views of the series. For me, it was always more like reading about a setting where all the characters were Aslan, Vargr, etc.
My hope is to show off a few of the fine details of this series that I loved so much. It's not miniatures, but there certainly are some huge possibilities for inspiration here.
-Eli
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Hmm looks quite interesting! You could easily convert 15mm scale stuff to represent characters from the comic by using the Peter Pig head swaps.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of reminds me of Bucky OHare!
Do you know if theres a compilation of the comics anywhere?
All the best!
The comic never had a very steady or even reliable print run. There has been one publisher change and one revival over time. I know that the comics do show up on Ebay.
ReplyDeleteThe only real compilations that were done were done back when the comic was in circulation and went by the title "Command Review". I do not think the whole series made it into Command Review. Each issue of Albedo was a mix of other content and Erma Felna. Usagi Yojimbo got some of his early exposure in Albedo.
-Eli
Had a friend that was well into Albedo, but I always preferred Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. They should have made a game of that.
ReplyDeleteErma Felna really was in a class apart from the rest of the furry animal genre. While most of them were either light furry porn or TMNT ripoffs.
ReplyDeleteErma Felna was trying to tell a very real scifi story that just happened to feature furry animals. Such a story isn't so rare now but back then it really was different, which is why I think it died.
-Eli
The technology in Albedo was what interested me. I used to read it in "Mangazine", that's where it was introduce, I think.
ReplyDeleteIf it appeared in Mangazine, it was after it was it's own series. The tech in Albedo is really good solid tech and I'll be posting some pics of it in upcoming follow-ups to this one.
ReplyDeleteRealistic vehicles, realistic spaceships with no gravity, realistic aerodynes. I'm sure scientists might find fault in some of it, but it always had excellent details and was never overly fancy.
I still have this game, but it's days of play are well and truely over for me. More due to the difficulty of presenting it to my RPG group.
ReplyDeleteMust echo the coolness of the story line, which was bought through in my games, of privacy vs security. Which is perhaps more relevent and understandable today.
And yeah, i still love the hard sci-fi look it used. Have to agree with Eli that it still holds it's charm.
You make an interesting point about how the story is perhaps more relevant today than it might have been when it came out.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that it could never get a restart it might actually hold up better today than it did then.
-Eli
Sure the characters were all furry, but I remember an issue where they came face to face with what might be their progenitors. The crew of an EDF ship came upon a derelict ship and found a human body on board. The story clearly was of the idea the human race was gone, but man had altered animals to take their place.
ReplyDeleteFar from a furry type of story.