Welcome, friends. This week marks the six year anniversary of Werewolf News, and it also marks a major milestone in the site’s editorial vision. Over the years I’ve used the site as a lens to highlight aspects of werewolf media and fandom that I found personally interesting. I focussed almost exclusively on what I glibly referred to as the “Rob Zombie horror” aspect of werewolves in film, books, comics and the world in general. I enjoyed the shlock-y aesthetics and cartoonish gore inherent in the “werewolf as monster” paradigm, and that narrow vision lead to a particularly childish type of narcissism here on Werewolf News.
Hiding behind the excuse that I am “not a journalist” and that this site was “just a blog”, I wouldn’t post (or might even mock) werewolf content that didn’t stimulate the “dumb fun” receptors in my brain. That approach has prevented Werewolf News from reaching the popularity of other, less judgemental werewolf sites, and it’s also cultivated a community of readers that encourage – some might even say enable – more of the same myopic self-indulgence. But thanks to a recent crisis of conscious and a timely intervention from some peers, I am happy to say that I am ready to make a change. Not just for myself, but for the good of werewolves in culture everywhere.
Starting today, and with the full support of the Werewolf-Horror group on deviantART, I am changing the focus of Werewolf News. No longer will I be sharing any content that portrays werewolves as dumb beasts or violent monsters. I can’t keep promoting the harmful stereotype of the werewolf as a creature afflicted by curse or carnal desire run amok. This view of lycanthropy is intellectually puerile and worse than that, it does nothing to promote the values for which I know the werewolf truly stands: an icon of positive personal transformation, and a metaphor for man’s peaceful co-existence with nature.
Just as the wolf is gradually emerging from the medieval shadow of prejudice that has trapped it in the role of “nature’s villain” for centuries, the werewolf needs to shed its harmful labels of “killer” and “monster” and step into the light. I hope to use the platform of Werewolf-News.com to help that cause, and I invite you to shed your preconceptions of what a werewolf is and join me in my work of promoting the positive and noble side of lycanthropy. I won’t be taking down any of the existing posts, but I consider them to be part of a closed chapter. I have already created updated categories to reflect the site’s new directions, and I invite you to mouse over the menu at the top of the page to see where things will be going in the next few weeks.
I expect this change of focus to be unpopular at first, but I think most readers will quickly come to see that non-violence and joyful self-acceptance are the true tenets of lycanthropy. To those long-time readers who will undoubtedly accuse me of embracing the “cuddlewolf” culture that I have so long disparaged, I can only say: I am sorry to lose you as a reader. May Luna smile upon you, and may you be blessed, wherever your travels take you.
Edit: APRIL FOOLS, YA DANGUS. Rob Zombie schlock horror werewolves forever!