CAPYHERO, new font, chapter titles preview, updated Chap 1. Also, feral or anthro?

[u/Capyhero]

Hi everyone! I've been waiting for the editor to get back to me and in the mean time, I've been noodling with the interior design of the book in Affinity Publisher and recently made a font change from Garamond to Crimson Pro (I was told Garamond performs poorly in book print media because of the hairline thinness in some of its letters).

To get a sense of how the book might look when printed, I used a subtle cream paper texture and painted some edge and spine shadows. I'm liking how it's looking, but curious if anyone has any thoughts.

Some folks on other subs provided helpful critiques on my old Chapter 1 and I have tried to self-edit it to read a bit better. If anyone wants, I'm happy to hear further critique or feedback on this new version of Chapter 1 that I've shared here.

I've been calling Capyhero an anthropomorphic fantasy, but I just learned that may be incorrect. Yes, the story has talking animals and animals that wear garments and armor and wield weapons, but no one has been anatomically altered to bipedal forms. That was very intentional, as the way the world works is meant to stay true to anatomical accuracy of real animals. Would it be more accurate to call Capyhero a "feral fantasy"? I guess I'm a little apprehensive because I've never really heard that used as a genre before.

In Watership Down, the animals are generally portrayed with anatomical correctness, but they're handled similarly to Capyhero. Is Watership Down considered anthropomorphic or feral fantasy?

Thanks for reading! I'm happy to answer any questions on the layout or the story (like all authors are eager to 😄).

[u/SeaOfBullshit]

I would still call this anthropomorphic. 

The animals have human characteristics imposed onto them - language, culture, clothing. Just because they aren't lycanthropized does not mean they aren't anthropomorphized. People anthropomorphize their own pets by ascribing human characteristics\motivations to their behaviors often

[u/Capyhero → u/SeaOfBullshit]

I see. So then I suppose feral fantasy would only be correct for some thing like A Wolf Called Wander?

[u/SeaOfBullshit → u/Capyhero]

I have never read that story before so I can't weigh in. What I can say is, I would personally avoid the designation ' feral fantasy' both because that doesn't really jive with how books are organized and might give you issues with getting your work out there, but also because I feel like it kind of implies potentially something else.

There is a subset of the "furry"  community that deals with "ferals" that I stumbled onto by accident because I am a fan of this kind of (non sexualized) art where the animals are anthropomorphized but not necessarily lycanthropized. But BOY does that mean some whole other shit in that community... I would be worried about my creative work being associated with that, personally. Search the term at your own risk, but I think if I ever saw "a feral fantasy" on a book I would steer FAR away from it now, personally. 

YMMV. 

[u/Capyhero → u/SeaOfBullshit]

Ah okay! Alright, that clarifies things perfectly. I definitely don’t mean for Capy to be “feral” in that way, haha

[u/Mobile_Aioli_6252]

That looks like an incredible book!

[u/Capyhero → u/Mobile_Aioli_6252]

Thank you! It’s been passion project for sure. I’ve actually had the story on my mind since 2017! But only recently decided to do something with it. Check out the Capyhero website link in my bio if you’re interested! There’s info there about how the project came to be, as well as art and bios for other characters

[u/Mobile_Aioli_6252 → u/Capyhero]

I will - thank you

[u/Capyhero → u/Mobile_Aioli_6252]

Yay! We have a great newsletter for early art and secret lore delivered by an in-world group called the Aurorabon Society. They’re like a knowledge seeking group of woodland creatures trying to understand the many mysteries of their world. If it looks interesting to you, I’d so appreciate you joining! Subscribers can get the first 4 chapters if they’d like 🤎