PR WOLF INTERVIEW

PR WOLFAN INTERVIEW WITH

by Owen Johnson

Recently, I sat down with PR Wolf; a fursuiter from the United Kingdom and I got to ask him a series of questions about his interest in cosplaying in the Furry Fandom and why he enjoys it. Enjoy the Interview!

Owen: Could you introduce yourself and tell a little bit about yourself, PR?

PR Wolf: If I was to very quickly explain who I am; I am a person, I’m PR Wolf as the character I portray as. I dress up as a rabbitwolf character for fun in my free time. I briefly spent awhile doing regular YouTube videos about the sort of Furry Community during the end of 2017, early 2018; since then, I’ve made less YouTube videos due to getting a real-life job, however, I still partake in the Furry Community as a whole and occasionally produce online videos that people seem to enjoy, and I make Furry YouTube videos!

Owen: How did you interested in fursuiting?

PR Wolf: I had never initially, obviously I known about fursuiting because I seen Furries and I’ve seen people doing it before, and I always had an interest in Furries, anthropomorphic animals, and shows like Mongrels, Disney movies like Robin Hood, Zootopia, and The Lion King. I was always into Furries, but I would always see the people in fursuits and I didn’t think it was something that I was gonna do, and I didn’t think it was something that would interest me and I was actually a Furry for years before actually owning a fursuit. So, what happened was a friend of mine at a convention called Latimer, he’d actually let me use his head and paws as a partial suit and I remember putting it on and it was so fun and I went to have a look in this big mirror and I could see myself, looking in this mirror and it’s like someone else, like it’s an animal looking back at me, and that was such a cool feeling for me, to completely act and be something else and I knew that I wanted one of these fursuits because it was fun.

Owen: Have you ever been to Comic Cons before?

PR Wolf: No, I’ve never actually been to a Comic Con or any kind of convention other than I’ve been to several Furry Conventions, I have also been to a video game exhibition, the one called ESL Final for CS:GO or something like that in London. It was sort of a Convention but more of a gaming event for E-Sports. However, I’ve never been to a Comic Con before, I’ve always wanted to, it looks like something that can be quite fun. It’s just because I’ve never really found the time to go and you’d have to book tickets in advance and I’ve never had anyone in my life that goes to them frequently that I’d be able to go with, it’s basically something that never ended up happening.

Owen: Do you go frequently or whenever you need to?

PR Wolf: Yeah, the Furry Conventions I’ve been to, so you’ve got cons like ConFuzzled which happens once every year and that’s up in Birmingham, I’ve been to that every year that it’s been on since 2018, and I’ve went to the 2019 and 2022 ConFuzzled events, but the 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to Covid. Also, there’s not just conventions, there are also FurMeets that you can find in Nottingham and the London one which I go to very occasionally. They are more regularly held and those are normally held on every month, and I don’t go to every single one. But I’ll go a handful maybe 6 or 7 times a year.

Owen: When you’re fursuiting, do you ever find any difficulties with it like for example; do you ever get warm in it or had problems seeing through it?

PR Wolf: So, for me, it’s not too bad, but it varies from costume to costume for some people they have a lot of difficulties with the heat and if you’ve got a full suit where you’ve got the body part as well, that’s a lot more fur, it’s a lot warmer and hotter and especially if it’s got all the padding as well. For me, it’s normally ok, I mean it gets hot like nothing too bad. I did fursuit not that long ago in Summer this year when we had that heatwave, and the temperature was around thirtysomething degrees, and it was extremely hot, and I could only do it for 30 minutes. But my suit has good ventilation, and the eyes have good visibility. The one thing that is unusual is that if it looks like if I’m looking at you straight on right now, but what I’m doing is not looking at you, but I can’t look forwards due to the fursuit head being in front of me, so I kind of have to look sideways for me to see what’s going on at the camera, as it looks like I’m looking straight ahead at you.

Owen: In addition to the fursuitng, do you know what material is used for the eyes for the inside netting?

PR Wolf: I didn’t personally build my suit, it was built by somebody else but the eyes they’re made of a kind of mesh, so it’s almost like card or fabric, thick fabric with loads of holes in it. If I zoom in on the camera you can see the holes in my fursuit head’s eyes. And even though it looks like you couldn’t see through, but if you ever try hold a T-Shirt over the fursuit eye, you kind of see through it, it’s the same deal. PR Wolf (Continued): I Basically, if I use this bottle of Alcohol-free beer as an example; I can’t see it right now but now I can, if I put it in front of the eye due to not being able to see straight on due to the head being in the way.

Owen: Whilst your fursuiting at Meet Ups, have you ever had people ever come up to you and mess with the fursuit head and try to damage it?

PR Wolf: I’ve been pretty lucky in the sense that nobody has ever really done that to me, or at least I’m not aware of it. But, I mean people will have to be very careful and respect when they’re around fursuiters because we cannot see very well and unable to hear quite good; if you walk up to us and grab or touch us, we probably won’t know that you’re coming and it’ll give us a fright and not be very nice and no one wants to be grabbed whilst being in costume and you can damage fursuits quite a lot if you grab them or pull on them or scratch them and these type of things. And my ears are very delicate as well, but they’re strong enough but if someone like pats my head extremely hard, then my ears will snap. But I’m lucky that hasn’t happened to me personally, but you do have to be careful because it DOES happen to some people and it’s not great when that happens.

Owen: I know conventions are back up and running and during issue 8 of Serial Culture and we were talking about our experiences of Comic Cons, but I wanted to ask what experience you’ve had with Fur Meets over the last 5 years?

PR Wolf: I’ve never really had a bad experience, I’ve never really gone to anything where I’ve thought “Oh, that’s terrible and I would never go there again” I’ve always had a good experience with all of the meet ups and various conventions that I’ve been to, which is good! It’s always an opportunity where you’ll meet new people, and people that you’ll only see once a year. I have friends who live all around the world in different countries and in different parts of England and the UK as a whole.

Owen: How much did your suit cost to buy to get made for you?

PR Wolf: I got very lucky. My suit was made by a friend at a price was very cheap for the quality that it was, so my suit cost me £750 which is obviously a lot of money and I understand that’s a lot but for a fursuit of the quality which it is, that’s a really good deal and because on average for a high quality fursuit these days you’re looking at least £1000 really. Money well spent and I’m really happy with it!

Owen: Have you been fursuiting as a different character before PR, or is he the only one you’ve cosplayed as?

PR Wolf: PR is the only character that I’ve ever personally had as myself, like I did when I very first found out about furries I did have a couple of different ideas for characters, but I could never find any that would actually stick that I actually liked. So, I struggled a long time to pick a design and character that I could agree with until I eventually got settled on with PR as a character.

Owen: What was the first show/ movie you ever seen that made you become interested in anthropomorphic animals?

PR Wolf: It would’ve been years ago when I was a kid. It’d be hard to think about the very first one because there were a lot of little that would blend into each other because you’re a kid and you watch lots of different movies, like I used to watch The Lion King and I used to watch movies like Disney’s Robin Hood, and other movies like Watership Down, etc…

Owen: When you started watching Mongrels, how did that impact you on the Furry Fandom?

PR Wolf: It was one of those shows which kind of made me realise that the whole being anthropomorphic animals as main characters doesn’t have to be like a child thing. Like it was like you could have animal characters that could talk but they’re like swearing and making adult jokes. Mongrels was like; “Oh hey! You like watching anthropomorphic animals, that’s cool!” It kind of showed me that it was like adults can be into this. But that’s probably the answer to that

Owen: Do you have any plans in the future to switch up things a little for fursuiting or are you gonna be sticking with PR for the remainder of your fursuiting interests?

PR Wolf: I think that I’m gonna continue to do it and I will probably will always be PR because I have such a good connection with the character. I have been able to express myself and become comfortable in who I am and have fun in a way that I didn’t expect that I’d ever been to do. I was quite a shy person but being this character whilst meeting friends and other people while exploring, it's not only let me become a more confident person thanks to fursuitng and PR as the character and I don’t see myself in stopping in any way.

Soon after the interview, myself and PR Wolf bid farewell after a nearly 2-hour interview on Zoom. But I had the pleasure in interviewing him.

You can find PR on Twitter under the name @ThePRWolf