Whither "Anthro?"

Warning: this is going to open as a crotchety-old-man post, but I hope to wrangle it towards some real love by the end. <3

I sometimes wonder if people using the abbreviation "anthro" for "anthropomorphism" understand (or care?) that anthro is an ancient Greek root word for "human." My point is, it sounds pretty odd to my ears as something intended to indicate "furries," or 'humans in semi-animal form.' And yes, that's probably a pointless bitch that adds very little to the discussion. Still, it kind of sets the early tone for why I'm generally not a fan of anthropomorphic (sorry, "anthro") genres.

Now in comics, I do think the basic idea is sound enough-- that you're essentially taking a human body and sticking an animal head on top (let's say limbs & tail, too), with the general idea that it represents a certain race or distinct type of human at the very least. Better yet, it represents something even more creative than that, such as true animal-human hybrids (ala The Fly), expressing behaviors and characteristics of both.

And yet, it seems that rarely are those ideas put in to practice.  Far more often, 'anthro' comics seem be more about... well, just humans running around with animal heads, set in an amusing, alternate universe.  It's some eye-candy, some added fun, plus you usually do get some form of special animal power added to a character.  As in, an anthro-greyhound is probably a really fast runner, and an anthro-gorilla is a powerful, hulking sort.

But here's another way of looking at it: if that's all that's really being added here, then isn't the general 'anthro' comics genre really just a 'furry, dialed-down superhero' genre?  And if so, what's wrong with that, right?  It's got a strong audience, people enjoy it, and that's how that works.

Just that to me, I've noticed that sometime the anthropomorphic comics genre can be -so- much more interesting, with far more nuance, thought and background put in to characters and world-building.  I'm therefore going to use the remainder of this post to track some works which hugely impressed me in that way.  I'll be reviewing these here in future (I've already raved about them on Reddit, feel free to google), and will add more to this list, with time:

- Grandville by Bryan Talbot

- District 14 by Gabot & Reutimann

- The Donjon series by Trondheim, Sfar & colleagues

- Mouse Guard by Petersen

- Jason's works

- Pogo by Walt Kelly

- Bone by Jeff Smith is maybe half-in, half-out, explanation to follow

Note: there are certainly plenty of series (excellent ones, even) featuring animal-hybrid, monster hybrids, or outright intelligent aliens, such as Den by Corben or Wake/Sillage by Morvan & Buchet, but what I'm looking for here are works in which anthro-hybrids are the primary populace and set of characters.