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Newshounds

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Cartoons

                        Newshounds
   Cover of the first Newshounds book by Thomas K. Dye
      Author(s)    Thomas K. Dye
       Website     http://www.newshounds.com/
   Update schedule M, W, F updates
     Launch date   November 1, 1997
        Genre      Furry/Satire

   Newshounds is a satirical, furry webcomic drawn and written by Thomas
   K. Dye. It is set in a fictional news broadcasting company in America
   called KPET, staffed by one human and seven anthropomorphic animals
   (five dogs, a cat and a rat). The strip satirizes many aspects of news
   companies and news stories of the day. Although sometimes strips are
   separate, most of the stories span several weeks, sometimes months.

   As well as news gathering, Newshounds satirizes politics, sport and pop
   culture, with many of the characters satirizing one particular area.
   Newshounds covers controversial topics such as the war on terror, gay
   rights, and there are future plans to make a series of storylines about
   abortion.

   Newshounds started on November 1, 1997, one of the longest running
   furry webcomics (longer running examples include Kevin and Kell (1995)
   and Sabrina Online (1996)). The comic is updated every Monday,
   Wednesday and Friday. It is hosted on the Internet by the online comics
   syndicate Keenspot. According to The Webcomic List, it is listed in the
   top 1,000 webcomics on the internet.

   The creator, Thomas K. Dye, announced on August 13, 2006 that the
   Newshounds daily strip will end on December 6, 2006. However, Dye hopes
   to revisit it at least twice a month in a Sunday-style form. When
   Newshounds finishes, Dye plans to do a "commentary/reflection" feature,
   which will provide commentary on some of the most famous strips.

   Newshounds is currently on the Recommended Anthropomorphics List for
   the 2006 Ursa Major Awards, the biggest awards in the furry fandom.
   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Scenario

   The comic follows a group of anthropomorphic pet animals and their
   human owner, living in an unnamed American city and together operating
   a small news station, KPET. The world it is set in the same as the real
   world, except animals are intelligent. The staff of KPET (except the
   owner) are animals (five dogs, one cat and one rat). The animals in the
   Newshounds universe are subject to the same laws as animals in the real
   world, such as dog licenses, having owners, and not being able to vote.
   However, the animals of the Newshounds universe are aware of this, thus
   meaning that although they have their own political views and
   arguments, there is very little they can do themselves apart from
   express a view.

   The owner, Lorna Dilbrook, originally worked for an animal shelter.
   When her late great-aunt Agnes died and left her $400,000, she started
   the station using animals from the shelter. Her staff includes two
   anchordogs, the vain Wolfram Blitzen and over-ambitious Renata Fayre.
   There is also cameradog, Kevin J. Dog who cannot keep a relationship
   down, right wing sports reporter Sam Shepherd and left wing and feline
   weather forecaster Alistair Katt. Ferris, a rat who was squatting in
   the house, was hired as a janitor. The final member of the team,
   danger-addicted Rochelle O'Shea, first joined the company as a temp,
   but later became a field reporter in 2001.

   There are some minor characters that have returning roles. They include
   Lorna's parents, Ernest and Julia Dilbrook, who often visit with a
   hidden motive (for example, Ernest was once on the run from the mob for
   not paying back a $2 million loan), Hal O'Peridol, the CEO of Sunflower
   Chemicals, wants to marry Renata, but she cannot stand the sight of him
   and Kevin's on/off girlfriend Stormy Knight. There is also a local
   rival news company KRVL who try to stop KPET from getting all the best
   stories and soldier-turned-businessman General Swallowemup, who plots
   to buy every business in the world.

   The Newshounds website has a section of comics set in the past, about
   how Lorna came to found KPET.

Characters

     * Kevin J. Dog - Male golden retriever, KPET's camera operator and
       technical person. A fairly gentle and sensitive character, often
       playing straight man to the other characters' follies. He has a
       sister, Raine, and has had two failed relationships: one with
       Stormy Knight, who he first fell in love with due to their love of
       Blackadder, but she got married to her boyfriend Connor O'Connor.
       The other was with Della, a technophile and Kevin's technical
       assistant, who went missing during a holiday with her owners. His
       brooding over Stormy made him gain weight in early 2003. He is
       partly based on Thomas K. Dye.

     * Renata Fayre - A female cocker spaniel and one of the two news
       anchors. She is strong-willed, good at finding facts, and generally
       clear-headed when not in the grip of journalistic ambition, or when
       her vicious jealousy towards Rochelle takes over. She often spars
       with KRVL head anchor Dirk Snoogems. Hal O'Peridol of Sunflower
       Chemicals often tries to marry her. They have done so twice, but
       both ended very quickly. She had her muzzle reduced in size in
       2000, but it resulted in her voice having a "nasal twang", thus
       ruining her chances of getting better jobs.

     * Wolfram Blitzen - A male husky, Rochelle's husband and KPET's other
       news anchor. He is very fond of his looks and wardrobe; vain nearly
       to a degree of obsession, though the trait was largely quelled due
       to an incident when he became addicted to a banned fur conditioning
       drug in 2005. Whilst celebrating with Rochelle about getting over
       his addiction, he proposed marriage, to which Rochelle accepted. In
       August 2006, he told Rochelle that she was pregnant. Other
       characters regard him as mundane and boring. Named after the
       American journalist Wolf Blitzer.

     * Rochelle O'Shea - A female collie and Wolfram's wife. As a Field
       reporter, she is suave and calm but troubled by a secret addiction
       to danger. She first came into contact with KPET as a temp in
       summer 2000, although she was acting as a spy for General
       Swallowemup. She then went into the army, where she met Wolfram and
       Sam. They then returned to KPET permanently in the autumn of 2001.
       In August 2006, after surviving a helicopter crash, Wolfram told
       her she was pregnant. Rochelle is the only central character
       introduced since the beginning of the strip.

     * Alistair Katt - Alistair is a male domestic shorthaired cat. He is
       supposed to be a weather forecaster, but as he is so incompetent,
       he more often acts as outspoken liberal commentator. He also serves
       as KPET's lawyer, to his disgust. In December 2003, he came out of
       the closet. He is very fond of catnip, but he temporarily loses his
       sanity when he mixes it with alcohol. Storylines around New Year
       usually focus on him: since 1999 he has spent New Year's Eve alone
       on the beach almost every year. Although Alistair long claimed to
       be little interested in any romantic matter, he occasionally goes
       on dates with his friend Nigel. Nigel is somewhat obsessed with
       Alistair and, in his own words, "crazy-mad in love", but Alistair
       preferred to remain friends until recently. In a recent strip, to
       his great shock, Alistair came to the realization he loved Nigel
       too, even kissing him.

     * Sam Shepherd - Sam is a male black labrador and KPET's sports
       reporter. He is macho and decidedly right wing. He disagrees loudly
       with Alistair over politics, but the pair gained mutual respect as
       they have both rescued each other for difficult situations. Sam had
       been in a dysfunctional relationship with Randy, Della's cousin,
       but they split up when he discovered she was cheating on him with
       her former boyfriend Vladimir. Despite Sam's politics, he
       eventually accepts Alistair's homosexuality and in April 2006 he
       told Alistair that George W. Bush is an "insane maniac", almost
       giving Alistair a heart attack.

     * Ferris the Rat - Formally a squatter in KPET's first studio, Ferris
       is KPET's janitor, though he is next to useless at his job. He is
       irrepressible, obsessed with pop-culture, infatuated with Tori
       Spelling, and often launches into business plans which last just
       long enough to cause chaos. In October 2004, Ferris got rid of his
       last piece of Tori Spelling memorabilia, but he still has feelings
       for her, particularly after her father, Aaron Spelling died in June
       2006. His name probably comes from the film Ferris Bueller's Day
       Off.

     * Lorna Dilbrook - The owner of KPET, its animal staff and the only
       human in the company. According to the comic's back-story webpages
       she started the station to follow her passion for news, finding its
       staff in the animal shelter she had worked at previously. She has
       kept KPET going ever since, gritting her teeth through its endless
       crises. She always tries to be as moral as possible, which may
       explain KPET's lack of success. She once went crazy after having
       her tooth removed; getting delusions that she was a dog and
       everyone else in KPET was human.

Stories

   The comic is humorous, combining social and political satire with
   character-based comedy. The comic forays into sports and current
   events. Storylines range in length from a few days to several months
   and have covered, fractured love affairs, mysteries and conspiracies,
   the legally-enforced brainwashing of the city's animals into cheerful
   hygienic zombies, a paramilitary invasion of Starbucks by the armed
   forces of AOL Time Warner and mountain men using dogs to build a bomb.
   Some stories involve all the major characters, but often they focus on
   a few of them. No major character is more central than any other, each
   getting their turn in the spotlight.

   There are some recurring themes that occur in Newshounds storylines,
   such as Hal's many attempts to marry Renata, General Swallowemup's plot
   to buy every company in the world, Kevin's failed relationships with
   Stormy and Della, Ferris's adoration of Tori Spelling and Sam and
   Alistair's political differences. The major storylines can each be
   found and described in each of the six Newshounds books. (See below)
   and in the archives on the Newshounds website.

History of the comic

   Thomas K. Dye's first precursor to Newshounds was Pet Sounds, a strip
   featuring Kevin and Alistair, which he drew in 1991 and 1992 and ran in
   the Montclarion newspaper. He then drew three episodes of a comic book,
   The Boy Shop Pets, featuring the earliest versions of Ferris and
   Renata.

   He began working on the first version of Newshounds in 1992 while
   living in Las Vegas. The pre-Newshounds designs of Kevin and Alistair
   are termed "Mark I." The original pilots of Newshounds are termed "Mark
   II".

   The comic began running regularly on the Internet on November 1, 1997,
   and its character designs are termed "Mark III." The most recent major
   change to Newshounds was on March 3, 2003 when Dye launched the present
   "Mark IV" version of the strip. The art style and character designs
   were changed from the previous version, though their personalities were
   not changed, and Rochelle first became officially a major character.

   Dye has created two other current features. Manifestations, started on
   February 28, 2003. This was an online graphic novel, with a new page
   every Saturday, and it ended in late 2005. It continued and developed a
   Newshounds story from spring 2001, but was otherwise disconnected from
   the present and future stories of Newshounds. It was much darker in
   tone than Newshounds, and less overtly humorous.

   The other feature is Something Happens, a satirical series of unrelated
   episodes that started on April 18, 2006.

   The Newshounds characters have also appeared in other comics. One strip
   featured characters from ten other comics. The most notable crossover
   was a series of storylines between August 13-20 1999 which featured
   characters from another furry webcomic, Funny Farm.

   Humans based on Renata, Kevin and Ferris appeared in the General
   Protection Fault storyline Surreptitious Machinations, but as part of
   the news team for fictional channel "WPET".

   Material from Newshounds was included in Attitude 3: The New Subversive
   Online Cartoonists.

Controversy

   Being a satirical webcomic, Newshounds often makes fun of controversial
   issues. There have been stories about:
     * The war on terror.
     * George W. Bush.
     * Gay rights.
     * The the Lewinsky scandal.
     * Animal rights.

   Dye has also said in an interview that he plans to make a story about
   abortion, one of the most controversial subjects in America. Dye has
   claimed that he has receives little in the way of hate mail from his
   comic.

   He did once some attract anger in October 2002, building up to the war
   in Iraq, with a series of strips about two boys demanding an attack on
   the North Pole, "because he wouldn't deliver presents to supposedly
   "bad" kids, and therefore must be a terrorist." Dye said in an
   interview that, "Their underlying motive (voiced by Renata, of course)
   was to actually run in and get all the presents themselves. The boys
   dismissed Renata's complaints that there actually IS no Santa Claus by
   saying that she must have a terroristic agenda of her own and as a
   result, wasn't credible." The person complaining had misunderstood the
   meaning of the strip, and complained to Dye, however the argument was
   settled.

   Another strip from September 8, 2006 caused anger, when Alistair said
   that, "The local cub scouts double as a gay lynch mob." Some people
   where angered as this was seen as an attack on the boy scouts. Dye said
   the joke was based on the neighbourhood the characters where in, and
   that as a former cub scout himself, he never intended to make an
   attack.

Books

   So far, six Newshounds compilations have been realized, covering comics
   from the very start in November 1 1997 to October 12 2004. The seventh
   book will be realized after the end of the daily strips. However, they
   are only available in the United States.

   Each book contains special bonus material, and are available from Plan
   9 Publishing.

          Book 1 - Newshounds
          Book 2 - Tonight's Top Story
          Book 3 - Press Badge Blues
          Book 4 - We All Came Out to Mantra
          Book 5 - Regime Change
          Book 6 - Surgery in the Park
          Book 7 - All the Newshounds Fit to Print (Published 1 January
          2007.)

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newshounds"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
