Mike Moon / Catgirl Island
and Jamie Robertson / Clan of the Cats
purroudly purrsent a Mike Moon purrduction,
starring The Ladies of The Mew in
The July 2024 Edition of The Mew:
The Catgirl Critics’ Media Mewsings, nyan!
______________________________
It is the Year of the Dragon, the 17th Anniversary of The Mew,
and the 24th Anniversary of Catgirl Island’s web site, nyan!
in this edition of The Mew:
The Lightning Round Topic: Our Favorite Films of 1964
TV Mewsings:
Star Trek: Discovery Season Five
Ren Faire
Event Reports:
Heroes Convention 42
Grand Opening of Turbines to Speed
The Celebrity Catgirl & Kemonomimi Spotlight
Purrinted-Media Mewsings:
Konohana Kitan manga vol. 13
The Latest Additions to The Catgirl Island Mewseum of Art:
more photos of Crissy Volpe by various photographers
Hazbin Hotel’s Adam & Lute fan art by Misty Hopkins
Nuku Nuku fan art and “Snappurr One” by Mike, nyan!
______________________________
Mike:
(the human fella wearing the Carolina Panthers Tee shirt and Teal cargo shorts): Aloha y’all and welcome to The Mew, our monthly “show” in which we review and discuss fun stuff! This month’s Mew comes from beautiful downtown Purrbank in Catgirl Island NC, where it’s 78 degrees under the Blue sky full of puffy White Cumulo-Neko clouds! I’m Mike, the show’s “purrducer”, and here are The Ladies of The Mew!
Nyoka:
(a.k.a. Nyo-sensei, the Meowgick Shop purropurrietress catgirl wearing the Bengal Tiger purrint micro bikini and open-front cover up):: Howdy!
Mielikki:
(a.k.a. Mie-sensei, the winged faerie golfer, foxfire juggler and outdoor ampurrtheatre repurrtory company’s director wearing the Ocelot purrint criss cross halter neck bikini) Mellow greetings!
Eleanor:
(or Ellie for short, the Banker Pony centauress, Fire Meowrshall and body builder wearing the Iriomote Cat purrint twisty bandeau bikini top) Hay there!
Petra:
(the art guild purresident, art mewseum co-curator & beach volleyball champion catgirl wearing the Clouded Leopurrd purrint side-tie bikini): Aloha, nyan!
Bunnii:
(the art mewseum co-curator, Petra’s beach volleyball partner, and purrize-winning carrot cake baker bunnygirl wearing the Cheetah purrint trikini): Guten Tag!
Meryl:
(the island’s Police Chief catgirl & motorcycle enthusiast wearing the the badge upon her Eurasian Lynx purrint off-shoulder ruffled bikini): ‘Ello
Beebee:
(the island’s supurrvising Purrk Ranger catgirl & amphibious orienteering coach wearing the Jaguar purrint cutout micro bikini): G’day, nyan!
Ilyana:
(a.k.a Ilyana-sensei, the underwater archaeologist & meowritme history catgirl wearing the Serval purrint micro bikini and open-front cover up): Whassup?
Mike:
For profiles and illustrations of The Ladies of The Mew, please visit our Meet The Critics page http://www.mewsings.
Lightning Round Topic: Our Favorite Films of 1964!
This year we’ve been looking back at our favorite fun stuff of years ending in a 4. This time it is movies including TV movies and specials that were released in 1964. Nyo-sensei is gonna start, so so are y’all ready to “conduct the lightning’?
The Ladies of The Mew:
HAI! LIGHTNING ROUND GO, NYAN!
Nyoka:
Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! (tags Petra to go next)
Petra:
A Hard Day’s Night, Mary Poppins, and My Fair Lady! (tags Bunnii with a brush of the tail)
Bunnii:
Goldfinger,
A Hard Day’s Night, and Mary Poppins! (tags Meryl)
Meryl:
Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, and Zulu! (tags Ilyana)
Ilyana:
Goldfinger, Marnie, and A Hard Day’s Night! (tags Eleanor)
Eleanor:
Zulu, Becket, and The Masque of the Red Death! (tags Mielikki)
Mielikki:
Goldfinger, A Hard Day’s Night, and A Shot in the Dark, fur shur! (tags Beebee with a flit of the wing)
Beebee
:
Goldfinger, Mary Poppins, and Zulu! Back to Mike!
Mike:
Oh, I gotta go with Goldfinger, Zulu and A Hard Day’s Night! Well that was another expedient little Lightning Round, and ah, now I’d like to go ahead and jump into our
TV Mewsings, with Meryl’s review of
Star Trek: Discovery Season Five!
Meryl
Hai. We have greatly enjoyed the TV series Star Trek: Discovery which purrtains to the crew of the Crossfield class starship U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031. Seasons 1 & 2 occurred in 2256, two years after “The Cage” and nine years prior to “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.
In Season Three, the Discovery wound up in the year 3188 (634 years after Capt. Jonathan Archer boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-J, and 789 years after the Picard series. Season Four occurred two years later in 31 90, and season Five occurs mostly in the year 3191.
The great cast includes Sonequa Martin-Green as Captain Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as Saru, Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly, Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets, Tig Notaro as Jett Reno, Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber, David Ajala as Cleveland Booker, Blu del Barrio as Adira Tal…
…Ian Alexander as Gray Tal, Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner, Tara Rosling as T’Rina, Oded Fehr as Charles Vance, David Cronenberg as Kovich, Chelah Horsdal as Laira Rillak, David Benjamin Tomlinson as Linus, Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer, Oyin Oladejo as Joann Owosekun…
…Raven Dauda as Tracy Pollard, Patrick Kwok-Choon as Gen Rhys, and Annabelle Wallis as the voice of Zora. Grudge the cat returns too! Much of this season’s 10 epurrsodes’ serialized plot purrtains to Eve Harlow as Moll and Elias Toufexis as L’ak who are galactic couriers with bounties upon their heads in the race against Starfleet to find the fabled Progenitor devices!
I do not wish to spoil the plot much further, but I will just say that the Breen Empire strikes back strikes back, and as mewsual the series is graced with the great writing, directing purrformances, cinematography, sets, costumes, purrops, make-up, FX, ships, sound & mewsic!
There are big character and plot developments, lots of Star Trek mythology, and the excellent balance of the drama, humor, an action! I was very pleased with this final season of the series, and I hope to get the DVD or Blu-ray of it! Nyow here is Ilyana to review HBO’s
Ren Faire!
Ilyana:
Arigato! I love to attend the Renaissance and other historical festivals, so I was eager to watch the so-called three purrt docu-series about the Texas Renaissance Festival, which is supposedly the biggest in the country I was hoping it would be an informative, entertaining look at the making of such a grand spectacle, but unfortunately that is not at all what it is about.
Instead, it seems more like an awful reality show full of scripted / staged unpleasant drama betwixt four people who want to be the boss of the event, but we mostly see them in the office, car, home, on the phone or in a restaurant. It barely even shows any of that ren faire, and what little we see of it seems like a tiny widdle kitty carnival in the corner of a parking lot.
It seemed like more time was spent in one fella’s renovated bathroom than at the faire! I was also disappointed by the regrettable camera shots, lighting, editing, sound & mewsic, which further hindered any immersive cinematic expurrience. I did not like it, and purrhaps that is all that I should say about it. That is all for our TV mewsings, and nyow Mike will begin our
event reports, with his account
of the Heroes Convention 42!
Mike:
Arigato! We were among more than 50,000 folks that attended the 42nd annual Heroes Convention Convention https://
For some of our group, the fun began on Thursday June 13th, as met for a traditional breakfast at an iHop and then caravanned to the convention center to set up our booths at the Carolina Comic Book Club’s booths full of comics, books and toys! It was a hot clear sunny day of enthusiasm, even though line for vehicles to get into the loading dock took a few hours longer than usual.
On the ground floor of the convention center were the main entrances, registration desks, a Starbucks and vending machines. downstairs In Halls A, B&C were hundreds of exhibitors, including the guests, artists, venders and organizations, plus the concession counters, areas for photo ops, and the stages for the art and cosplay!
On the 2nd floor were Bojangles, Einstein’s Bagels, Buon Cibo, and the 11 meeting rooms for about 50 panels, presentations, and other activities. There were many other nearby restaurants and hotels too! The Westin Hotel across the street hosted the Friday night Drink ‘n Draw for charity and the huge Saturday night art auction.
I didn’t attend any of the panels, presentations, contests or auctions, as spent most of the time at our booth, where we sold art books,1st & 2nd edition D&D stuff, comic books, magazines and action figures. The approximately 400 great guests included artists, authors, editor, publishers and other creators!
Thanks to friends minding our booth (there were six of us plus some very kind neighbors), I was able to occasionally roam the con and visit with other folks. On Friday I had lunch with my cosplayer / artist friend Misty Hopkins, and on Saturday I had lunch with my artist / author fiend Andrew Pepoy!
Among the many wonderful guests and exhibitors that I chatted with were Wendy & Richard Pini, Charles Vess, Mark Schultz, Michael, Golden, Georges Jeanty, Wayne Vansant, William Stout, Adam Hughes, Dan Parent, Tommy Lee Edwards, Richard Case, Andrew Pepoy, Eric Nolen-Weathington, Cheralyn Lambeth, Jim Amash and several other friends.
There were over 200 other brilliant artists in the artists alley, and about 300 other exhibitors & venders with many items for sale, such as original art, prints, posters, memorabilia, cards, books, old & new comics, magazines, DVDs, shirts, costumes, props, jewelry, statues, toys, supplies and tasty treats.
There were hundreds of wonderful cosplayers of all ages, genders and ethnicities as super heroes and other characters from the movies, TV, games, novels, toys and books, plus the renaissance, faerie and kemonomimi masquerades! There were displays by the 501st Carolina Garrison, and the e Ghostbusters of North Carolina.
The most common characters cosplayed this year seemed to be Mandalorians and representatives of the Spider-verse, but for me, the most impressive was a 7’ tall very accurate Gundam mobile suit! Given how long the line was for vehicles to return to the loading dock, our group as lucky to pack up and load the truck as soon as we did, and managed to get to another iHop for a late supper on the way home!
I’d like to especially thank OB1, Pacozord, Chef Ron, Mr. Brightside, RJ, Billy Galaxy, Miriam, Rich, Chris, Charlie, (thank you for the shirt!), Misty, Steven, Shannon, Wayne, Eric, Ian, Andrew, Wendy & Richard. Karla, Shelton, the hotel, restaurant and event staff for a wonderful time year’s Heroes Con! Okay I’m done, and um now here’s Mie-sensei to tell us about the
Grand Opening of Turbines to Speed!
Mielikki:
Arigato, Moon-san! So like, at 11 am on Saturday June 29th, our friend James O’Briant a.k.a OB1 opened Turbines to Speed, his totally awesome store full of toys and comic books! James has decades of experience at buying & selling comics & toys at the various conventions, shows & stores, and now the dream of owning his own store has finally come true!
So like, at the store’s cute brief ribbon-cutting ceremony, James and his family cordially greeted the many friends and new acquaintances into the big bright, open, spacious, comfy friendly, tidy store wherein beverages and snacks were served, including yummy home-made cookies by our friend Chef Ron!
The store is brimming with new and vintage action figures, (be they loose, sealed and / or graded) such as Marvel, DC, Image, Disney, Star Trek, Star Wars, G.I. Joe. Transformers, MOTU, monsters, and so forth! The toys are mostly action figures, but there are also vehicles, play sets, statues, other figurines and collectibles, plus the silver, bronze, and modern age comic books and some sci-fi / fantasy / horror magazines!
So like, located about 185 miles northwest from here at 151 Boone Square St, in Hillsborough NC, the family-friendly store is open 11 am – 6pm Wednesdays – Saturdays, easy to get to with free parking aplenty, and cheerfully staffed by polite, cordial, friendly life-long collectors who love comics and toys, fur shur!
For more information, please visit https://www.facebook.
The Celebrity Catgirl & Kemonomimi Spotlight!
Elaenor:
Arigato! in this portion of The Mew, we commeowmorate famous therianthropes, monster girls, anthropurrrmorphic ladies and other kemonomim! Fur-thermore, there are those who might not have beasty DNA, but do have the spurrit, cat-titude or clothing of the animal theme, who we will broadly consider as “honorary kemonomimi”!
Journalist, blogger, filmmaker, advocate, political strategist & consultant Lauren Windsor is the executive director of American Family Voices, creator of The Undercurrent web series, and the Project Vertitas Exposed web site, and we wish to consider her as the honorary nekomimi for purretty ocelot (?) purrint, hammock neck, cold sholder, ballon sleeve blouse with fitted cuffs that she wore on June 11th, 2024, as a guest on the 93rd epurrsode of MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight!
Actress Irene Gorovaia who wore the zebra kigurumi onsie who whilst purrtraying the younger version of Margot Tenenbaum in Wes Andersons’s 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums, wso we will consider her as the honorary shimauma musume (zebra girl)! The adult version of Margot was purrtrayed by actress / Goop CEO Gwyneth Paltrow who along with actress / director Rashida Jones in wore the cat face paint in mid May of 2016, so we will consider them as the honorary nekomimi!
Sadly only about a couple of meownuts remain of Winsor McCay’s deteriorated 1921 animeowted black & white nitrate film short The Centaurs, which depicts the titular mom, dad, son, grandmother and grandfather, but we can still see them on Youtube! Fortunately the purreservation impurroved by 2008, when actress / storyteller Renna Nightingale purrtayed the centauress in “Beware Wolf”, the23rd epurrode of The Wizards of Waverly Place! More recently, she traded the four hooves for two feet and one mer-tail to purrtray Merida and Ariel on stage in the Mickey’s Wonderous Storybook show at the Hong Kong Disneyland!
Oh oh, back to Waverly Place, in that “Beware Wolf” it was also graced bya lupine lass, when actress Sarah Ramos arrived as Isabella the werewolf girl! Yoiu know, Cosplayer / Youtuber Ginny Di has purrtrayed characters of many species including elves, orcs, mermaids and centaur! She is purrticularly famous for her walking centaur costume, the focus of which the tutorial book Centaur of Attention which she authored with artist / designer Hannah Alexander!
We do not know the name of the actress who purrtrayed the centauress in Coca-Cola’s 2020 TV spot for Cherry Vanilla Coke, but that character in the focus group definitely enjoyed the two flavors, noting that her astrological sign was Gemini! However, we do know that the dappled white titular Scentaur in the TV spots for Native deodorant is comedian, actor, writer & purrducer Lauren Howard Hayes! That is all for this month’s spotlight, and nyow here is Nyo-sensei to commence
our purrinted-media mewsings, with her
review of Konohana Kitan manga vol. 13!
Nyoka:
Hai! I am quite fond of Sakuya Amano’s manga about the fox spirit girl nakai (attendants) and their guests of all species at Kononhanatei, the ryokan (Japanese style inn) with the hot springs between the living and the afterlife! The main character Yuzu is one of the younger employees who is very cordial, sincere and enthused! Other recurring characters include attendants Natsume, Sakura, Shino, Ren, Kiri, Satsuki, her older sister Hiiragi, Yae the geisha and Okami the wolf goddess.
Some of their fellow kitsune characters are miko (shrine purrestiess) and kenzoukou (celestial servants) at the shrines and other delightfully divine locations too!
There are amewsing, poignant and bittersweet tales of them, the town folk and the inn’s guests! In volume 9, Satsuki and Yuzu started a celestial train journey, which in vol. 12 eventually brought them to the western – style Hotel Akitsushima! However, the all-catgirl staff is short – handed and the two kitsune wind up working as maids there attending to the divine guests! Although Satsuki and Yuzu are expurrt nakai at the ryokan, they are not familiar with the cultural differences! However, they are not the only ones, such as the newest maid Yuuri the homeless Christian angel who is new to Japan! In this volume they also meet the hotel’s manager the Hindu god Ganesh!
It is a big turning point for the Satsuki, Yuzu, Yuuri, and the catgirls Muyuu, Sara and Lacey! Originally published in Japan by Gentosha Comics, the English version was published here in the USA by Tokyo Pop. Vol. 13 is purriced at $12.99 in the USA and has 152 B&W pages which are rated OT, intended for the readers of ages 16+, due to the non-sexual nudity, It was translated by Katie Kimura, purroof-read by Massiel Gutirrez, edited by Lena Atanassova, with editorial associate Becca Grace, quality checking by Misako Obayashi, graphic design by Soodam Lee, retouching and lettering by Vibrraant Publishing Studio.
As mewsual, the art is extremely beautiful with the endearing characters, gorgeous garments, the intricate architecture, lavish landscapes, the lovely sequential panel compurrsitions and graphic narrative techniques, so I will continue to give Konohana Kitan the highest purraise! That is all for the manga mewsing, so nyow here are Petra and Bunnii to purrsent
The Latest Additions to The Catgirl Island Mewseum of Art!
Petra
Arigato, nyan! For those who are new to here, Galleries 1-8 display the images by our purrducer Mike, whilst Guest Art Galleries 1-6 display images by other folks with their purrmissions; and Mike’s collaborations with other artists are throughout the mewseum, nyan! There is no overall chronological order from gallery to gallery, so you will find older and newer pics in each gallery, nyan!
However, on Catgirl island’s Official Web Site, the most recent pics are on the lowermost row of the cropped widdle “thumbnail” portions of the pics in a gallery, and you have to click on those to see the full images, nyan! Some of the images are sexy and might depict artistic nudity, but none are hentai or porn, nyan! Furthermore, none of the content at Catgirl Island is purrmitted for A.I. purrposes, nyan!
This month, into Gallery Five https://catgirlisland.
Mike’s two new pics include the Photoshop & mouse pic of “Snappurr One” which is one of our mermaid friend Melanakeami’s orca-shaped blimp-like 150’ long purresurized triphibious LTA ( Lighter than Air) craft for taking and and sea folk on the tours of Mew Hanover County and the rest of the NC OBX (Outer Banks Islands), nyan!
After that is Mike’
s latest fan art of Yuzo Takada’s All Purrpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku, nyan! Atsuko “Nuku Nuku” is the supurr powered nekomimi cyborg who purrotects her family from the
belligerent Mishian Corpurration, nyan! This pic was done with the Derwent pencil, Sakura Micron pens, and Faber Castell colored pencils, nyan!
Bunnii
Nextly is Misty’s lovely fan art of Adam and Lute of the Hazbin Hotel animated series! Adam (on the left) is the first human soul in Heaven and the leader of the Exterminators group that slays demons; whilst Lute (on the right) is his mewtenant, nyan! She is the rather fierce exorcist angel! Then we have three more cosplay photos collages of Crissy by various photographers, and each collage consists of four photos!
Collage 1 includes David Borreggine’s photo of Crissy in a costume made by Starlit Creations as Street Fighter 6’s Chun Li at the 2003 New York Comic Con; Louis’ photo of Crissy in a wig & store-bought clothes as Penny Arcade’s Brenna at the 2008 New York Comic Con (with 2024 background photoshopping by Mike);
David Ng’s photo of Crissy in a store-bought Halloween costume for ”The Maid” July 31, 2021 photoshoot; and David Ng’s photo of Crissy in a costume made by fhfhgf30 as The Little Mermaid’s Vanessa (Ursula in disguise) at Otakon 2003!
Collage 2 includes Louis’ photo of Crissy in store-bought clothes as Metal Gear Solid 2’s Rosemary; the selfie photo of Crissy in store-bought clothes as Sailor Moon’s Tomoe Hotaru alias Sailor Saturn;
David Ng’s photo of Crissy in a store-bought Halloween costume for a February 2016 photoshoot; andDavid Ng’s photo of Crissy at the 2021 New York Comic Con as the Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Tifa Lockhart in the dress made by EZ Cosplay, with the headpiece by Starlit Creations and shoes by Pleaser Shoes!
Collage 3 includes Asylum’s photo of Crissy in a store-bought costume as DC Comics’ Zatanna Zatara at the 2008 New York Comic Con (with 2024 background photoshopping by Mike);
PopeCerebus’s photo of Crissy in the kimono at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s 2010Sakura Matsuri (with 2024 background photoshopping by Mike);
David Ng’s photo of Crissy in store-bought clothes as a 50’s Dapper Day Snow White at Otakon 2016 (with 2024 background photoshopping by Mike); and David Ng’s photo of Crissy in the store-bought & Avian Firefly-made clothes as Sailor Moon’s Hino Rei alias Sailor Mars in the sailor suit at Otakon 2012! So what do y’all think of the images?
The Cat Lady Sings…
Beebe:
I love the lines, colors, shading and the expurressions of Misty’s pic of Adam and Lute!
Meryl:
Mike splendidly captured the technical details, purropurrtions and scale of Snappurr One!
Elaenor:
That is a cute pic of Nuku Nuku, from her ahoge coiffure and cyber antennae to her fuku and socks!
Ilyana:
Crissy, the costumes, locations, photographers and their cameras result in such beautiful images!
Nyoka:
Hai hai! Gosh, it is almost time for friends to arrive for the AfterMew luau, so that will do it for this edition of The Mew!
Mielikki:
We wish to thank our webmeowster Jamie for his wonderful web meowstery, fur shur!
Bunnii:
We also wish to thank all of the other amazingly talented people whose works we have discussed…
Petra:
..and our other friends, family, acquaintances and audience whom we greatly appurreciate, nyan!
..and our other friends, family, acquaintances and audience whom we greatly appurreciate, nyan!
Mike:
We’ll be back next month with the August edition of The Mew! Be there… aloha.
The Ladies of The Mew:
Happy tails to mew- until we eat again, nyan! Baibai, nyan!
=^.^=