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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Discussion Party like it's 1999! Not really.

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction and Writing Resource' started by pronker, Feb 27, 2019.

  1. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    [​IMG]
    Reason for posting: Discussion is worthwhile regarding fandom change. I am grateful that 'zine days passed due to snail mailing mishaps, bizarre feuds lasting for months via LOCs (letters of comment), wait time for comments upwards of three months, and financial expectations. I do miss illustrations by talented or at least enthusiastic fan artists that graced 'zines and sometimes letterzines (containing commentary, general socializing, ads for 'zines but no fics). 1999 had the internet, but it wasn't part of my world until 2005.:p

    If there exists pre-school, why not pre-spring cleaning? During weeding out of about one cubic yard of saved papers and photos, I came across this old letter from a fellow fan in 1999, showing pre-internet examples of :

    1. Listing 'zines available
    2. Fics in the 'zines
    3. Critiques of the 'zines
    4. Where to find the 'zines
    5. The kicker: price of the 'zines
    6. My disgruntled note at bottom: "Bad address" meaning I sent correspondence to the address with no response

    Therefore, let's party like it's 2019! And speculate about 2039 ... :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2019
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  2. Mira_Jade

    Mira_Jade The (FavoriteTM) Fanfic Mod With the Cape star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2004
    Oh boy, this is making me feel like the fandom oldbie I truly am now - and at fourteen years ago I entered the fanfic community after vines were a thing. 8-}

    Great reminiscing thread - but I'm going to move this over to the Resource where it will garner a few more views. :)
     
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  3. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Thank you. Another realization struck just now - the prevalence of RL names in correspondence with the chumminess and insularity of 'zine fandom, as opposed to today's open-to-the-whole-world internet exposure.[face_thinking]
     
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  4. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Thank you for this.

    Even though my fandom was Star Wars, that list is in the same font (or feels like it is) and layout, as zines that I came across, and had.

    Well, US ones anyway, now that I think about it

    Zines that I can remember having, not counting ones done by me:

    I have a bad feeling about this...

    Technological Terror

    Cloud City
    (Italian SW Fan Club)
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2019
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  5. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    You are welcome! And thanks to you for your reminiscences because I was always multi-fandom and loved equally various ones including the super fandoms like Star Trek and Star Wars and nichiest of the niche-y ones like Voyage. The 'zines I most fondly remember represented maybe ten fandoms' worth of stories, mostly completed and with a drawing or two to enjoy.

    The UK Voyage fandom group held actual conventions and once they met at Portsmouth's Royal Navy Submarine Museum. They kept up friendships annually for just ages, although I lost touch with the group. Richard Basehart of Voyage enjoyed a long career filming internationally and the group would travel to places like Youghal, Ireland, where he appeared in younger days to film Moby-Dick, just to have a scenic place to meet, I guess, and have a "reason" to go there.[face_flag]

    Such darn fun, fandom is.

    EAD: For 2039, I predict there will be more cosplay in the general domain, such as cops on the beat dressed as Clone Troopers or your friendly neighborhood bus hovercar driver wearing a penguin suit and it's not even Halloween.[face_pumpkin]
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2019
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  6. GregMcP

    GregMcP Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2015
    Hmmmm...
    In the 1980's I was too mainstream. Magazines like Starlog and Fangoria.

    There was a radio show on 3RRR in Melbourne called Eeek! It was an hour (or two? I don't remember) of chat about nerdish things.
    And they had a letters section. You'd write in to rave about a movie or novelty car number plates or whatever the thing of the moment was, and they'd read and comment.
    It was essentially an online forum in slow motion, and gradually it engulfed the rest of the show.

    Radio. Another dead source.

    And... I did get mailed to me an PBM games fanzine (play by mail... Fill out your moves on paper, get a letter a month later about how your Empire is doing).
    I wrote up my bad game tactics wisdom a few times, typed on an actual typewriter, which they photocopied and included.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2019
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  7. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Excellent sources of speculation! And Famous Monsters of Filmland, too.
     
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  8. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    I had to negotiate a bed to get to the place where my old fanzines are stored, and this was all I was able to extricate without too much work.

    The Dagobah 8 annual fanzine, which, looking at earlier issues, is short for On A Clear Day, You Can See Dagobah, produced by a nice couple in Texas.

    [​IMG]

    As I have mentioned before, I contributed fiction to the old fanzines, in order to get free copies, and this issue features a story from my 'ISB Chronicles' series.

    The authors were nice enough to do this great art featuring one of my Imperial Security Bureau agents, Acen Hunter, watching a holo of (and I had completely forgotten this), Mitch Nifesta!!! :eek: Back when he was just a rogue Force-user, and series villain.

    [​IMG]

    Just Googled "Dagobah 8" in the hope that I could see when it was published, as it doesn't seem to say on the zine itself.

    According to fanlore.org, "[it was] published in 1995 and has 144 pages. It won an Honorable Mention in the 1995 STAR aWARdS for 'Best Star Wars Zine'." Actually, much of the content, and back cover art, either won, or got Honorable Mentions in the awards.

    A fan created the awards, as nothing was being done for SW fan creators, and fan artists volunteered to create certificates to go out to winners.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2019
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  9. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Great that you've still got them! And the artwork, oh yeah, that's fantastic. What a nice piece on your fanwork resumé!=D=
    A fan created the awards, as nothing was being done for SW fan creators, and fan artists volunteered to create certificates to go out to winners. Sweet!:bluesaber::greensaber:
     
  10. Space_Wolf

    Space_Wolf Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 13, 2007
    I never came across any fan zines back then, but I would have tracked them down if I'd known about them. Back then I was very much a loner writing fan fic for myself and reading the Bantam era novels. Although I was using the internet then, I wasn't really using it for fandom related stuff. It wasn't something I was able to explore because I only had access to it at the college library, and even then it wasn't very reliable.

    What will it be like in 2039? I do hope that the horrible stuff that you encounter on social media sites will have died a death by then and folks can just use the sites for what they enjoy and not have to worry about people coming after them over perceived differences in politics, life-style choices, religion and what they like/dislike about a fandom and bully them over it. I'd like to see folks being bullied over being a girl/woman disappear from the fandoms as well. I mention this because when I became active on the internet in Star Wars (around 2002-2003ish) there wasn't really any of that which I could see. Fast forward to 2014 to now, and it seems to be everywhere you go.

    I suspect that we will have more fan films than we do now because the technology to do it is becoming more easily available, and more fans are turning to youtube to share their love of Star Wars and other fandoms. Cosplay seems to be very popular right now, so I can see that growing as someone has already mentioned. There are also historical reenactment societies too, so I can see a merging of this and cosplay. We have sites like etsy, too so it's easier to get hold of material to make costumes with, or find someone who makes things if you don't have the skill yourself. With conventions and the internet I can see people getting to know each other better, so perhaps in the future we will have some groups of fans co-operating to turn their fan fic scripts into films. I sometimes lurk on a lego forum too, and found that people make short stop animation films with their lego, so with all the figures from various franchises some fans might decide to do that.
     
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  11. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    I think finding out about, and more importantly, attending conventions, were the key to finding out about fanzines, and probably cosplay, and other fandoms, in the first place.
     
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  12. ardavenport

    ardavenport Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2004
    Oooooh, I remember the print and snail-mail days. i got my first zines in the 1970's, all Trek. I've donated some to media archives, but still have the rest and I even have an Excel index for them. Didn't start writing Star Wars until 2005 after the prequels were complete and I had the backstory for the OT. And it was all online -- no way am I going back to the old days.

    About 2039: I'd guess we could get our own animation tools to do our stories, though I'm not sure what we'd do with the voices. You could probably still produce more fics with plain old text.
     
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  13. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Yup, that was the thing - we were and are busy with RL and maybe just didn't hear about 'zines or attend any group activities where fandom came into play. *whispers* There is a life outside fandom.

    Gah, I'm sorry you witnessed this.

    Oh no, that's awful.

    Excellent speculation and the Lego thing is just so imaginative!

    Sure, and travel was involved too, not everyone can travel or likes to. I once corresponded snail-mail-wise with a disabled guy quite far out in the wilds in Canada and he was terribly knowledgeable about various fandoms; he needed to do everything by mail and he did so splendidly.

    Yes! That was my reason, too!O:)

    Good VA makes or breaks an animation effort; writing appeals with its simplicity and fast typing.:p
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2019
  14. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Doing animated GIFs for my characters would be my equivalent of a fan film.

    I once did a gift for an award winner on here, and the amount of frames needed to meet her wish - 76 - pushed me out of my comfort zone, and took simply ages.

    Sometimes I'm too busy doing gifs to do writing.
     
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  15. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Via gifsoup or gifninja?
     
  16. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Combination of my digital camera, a Windows Moviemaker software that came with it, and an early(?) version of Paint Shop Pro that has an animation side program to it.
     
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  17. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Ah hah, thanks.:)
     
  18. Pandora

    Pandora Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2005
    Party like it's 1999? I'm ready.

    Wait: what do you mean, not really.

    Anyway, in 1999, I was aware that fanfiction existed (that had happened only two years prior, when one of my classmates posted a story we did not know to refer to as RPF, about Sid Vicious in the afterlife--since he was famous in life, he has to go to the special afterlife for famous people--online, and I discovered this site that was probably the precursor to fanfiction.net) but I didn't have anything to do with it. I wouldn't have ever so much as thought of writing the stuff. I wrote pretentious literary-fantasy with no magic fiction, and made sporadic attempts to publish it in those days when people still knew what SASE meant.

    I still write pretentious literary fiction (sometimes pretentious literary fanfiction), but it has been years now since I sent any of it out for editorial assistants to reject. And I still have about three manila envelopes left over from the "old days" that I can't any longer use.

    And I still think it would be fun to put together a zine. Since I didn't manage that circa 1993--when I was a loser in high school in Montana, and Seattle and its coffeehouses and the "zine scene" were as far away to me as the moon in outer space--I obviously have issues to make up for.
     
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  19. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Some parts of 1999 I'd like to return to, others not, so I'll be content with 2019 while speculating about 2039. The differences in now and 20 years from now shall be in presentation, although I believe that one's Muse shall still exist, probably hoverboarding slowly around one, babbling inspiration.[face_batting]

    Even if the years have truncated the story's memory, this one sounds intriguing ...

    I've enjoyed your tales for years now and was tickled pink when you reposted some lost to TFN's various issues. And it's nice to read the genesis of the writer that is Pandora. Maybe going through the bits can lead to another smashing story, or maybe they'll spark a bunny, who knows?
     
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  20. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    Over two months ago, I risked limb (as in life and limb) to access my zine storage drawers, and since I don't want to do that too often, chose to retrieve four storyzines.

    My problem is that it feels wrong to not name the wonderful contributors who supplied the stories, artwork; and who expended sweat and tears in producing the zines.

    Does the site have any guidelines on the matter?
     
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