An Anthropomorphic Bibliography, First Edition

An Anthropomorphic Bibliography, compiled by Fred Patten, Yarf! (Box 1299), Cupertino (CA 95015), 1995, 38pp, illus, wraps, $5.

Yarf! is the `Journal of Applied Anthropomorphics', edited by long-time fan Fred Patten, a fanzine devoted to stories in which animals act like people (or people have more fur than most of us). Beautifully printed with excellent art, though I don't think Mark Merlino was quite up to the task of depicting a erminoid alien doing the Dance of the Seven veils upside down in a tree - perhaps no one is. I was a little surprised not to see even one piece by Taral, who has been doing wonderful anthropomorphics for years.

As a bibliography this has a ways to go - he lists Piper's Little Fuzzy stories and Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series, but misses Simak's City with its intelligent dogs, Don Marquis' Archie & Mehitabel, and Franz Kafka's cockroach too.

From It Goes On The Shelf number 14, by Ned Brooks.

An Anthropomorphic Bibliography, Second Edition

An Anthropomorphic Bibliography compiled by Fred Patten, YARF! (Box 1299), Cupertino (CA 95015-1299), 1996, 60pp, illus. divers artists, wraps, $7+1.50 p&h.

This is a 2nd edition, much expanded over the one I reviewed in IGOTS 14. It gives details on 375 works of fiction in which animals have human characters, arranged by author with a title index. There is also a short bibliography of other books on the subject.

An excellent reference, and well printed. The art is very good, though all by artists I never heard of - the well-known fannish artists in the field (Vaughn Bode, Tim Kirk, Jerry Collins, Taral) do not appear. In order to keep things managable, only adult and `young adult' books are considered. Thus Walter Brooks is represented only by his Mr. Ed material, not the Freddy the Talking Pig books.

From It Goes On The Shelf number 17, by Ned Brooks.