BMac said:
“Are furries people with a harmless yet weird hobby or an abomination to all humanity? What are we to think of people who suit up in custom made animal costumes and draw lurid anthropomorphic artwork?” The public association between humanoid animals and sexual depravity seems pretty solid… people got creeped out by my website’s header art, which has (along with three really normal looking humans,) an alien and a Mewtwo parody that were CLEARLY not sexual in any way. After I realized that the art was turning people off, I commissioned a new header done from the neck up. NO ONE could misconstrue it as sexual– I hope– and fortunately the percentage of people that “bounced” off my site has dropped *dramatically.*

I also suspect that readers subconsciously ask themselves something like “Mr. Author, you DO know you’re a human, right?” Obviously! I added an about the author section– I’ve worked in government and a think tank, I’m a small-time journalist, I love baseball… (ahem, I suspect that readers are inclined to associate all of those traits with normality, which should reduce weirdness concerns).

Thinking in terms of novel marketing, the “furry”-depravity association will limit the range of cover art I can propose to my publisher… I’m writing a mainstream novel (well, as mainstream as a novel with an alien and Mewtwo parody can be) and I don’t want readers to leap to the wrong conclusion.

Anyway, I had wanted to put all of the characters in poses that either played on classic art or at least well-known poses (a lot of the novel’s pretty highbrow). So, for example, I had wanted to put the alien in a “Vitruvian Man” pose, but I’m concerned that people will get the wrong impression, particularly if the alien is nude like the V. Man was (though the alien definitely wouldn’t have genitalia or anything like that).

Then the Mewtwo parody… originally I was thinking the classic Sistine chapel pose (Adam and God). The problem was that putting the Mewtwo parody in either spot made him look sexual to a lot of people in my core audience. I might try the movie poster for the new Casino Royale movie– I think the pose would be pretty hilarious for the Mewtwo ( http://z.about.com/d/movies/1/0/g/v/8/casinoroyaleposter.jpg )… plus, the pose is mostly from the neck up. It’s harder to misconstrue such a pose. And I’ll go with a lot of baggy clothing. (I’ve since given the Mewtwo a lab coat and goggles, which is about the unsexiest costume imaginable).

And, regardless of sexuality, I think that I could only consider using the humans in something bizarre like a Dali or Picasso pose.

Feel free to see the header (and the site!) at http://www.superheronation.com , I’d be interested to see what you think.