The Here And Now

What I like about the Fan Culture Project is that the University will pay for shipping and loading of the zines.  I have several friends whose health has declined, don't want to sell their collection, but want to find their fanzines a good home.

Other places to buy/sell your fanzines: the Zinelist Announcements List, its sister discussion mailing list  Zinelist or the SlashSwap mailing list. You can offer your fanzines on LJ at Fandom Swap.     Jim and Melody Rondeau will also agent your fanzines online and at conventions for a small commission. As a last resort head over to eBay but beware you may be charged 2-3x more than you would buying from fannish sources.

For new zines/in print zines only:  The Zine listing communities - one here on Dreamwidth and the mirror here on LJ. Melody Clark has started MediaFen, a fanzine listing blog. The RSS feed for LJ users is here. The direct blog link is here.

If you're trying to track down a fanzine producer whose website has moved or gone away, try using the Wayback Machine.  Ex:  The Zine Zone (last updated in 2003) is archived here.

mecurtin

Now that we're back on Dreamwidth and running into each other more often, you may have noticed that a bunch of your old pals, including me, seem to have fallen into fanlove for a Chinese drama called Guardian (link is to a playlist of all episodes with English subtitles of HIGHLY variable quality).

What, you may well ask, is going on here? What does Guardian give that is worth overcoming the barriers of language and culture to understand?[1]

Here's what: They made it for us.

By "us" I don't mean "Westerners", I mean slashers. Guardian is a live-action TV series where we are the desired, intended audience. In the words of china_shop, Guardian is a mindfuck when you're used to donning your slash goggles.

If This Is Wrong: A Film About Fandom from Franzeska Dickson on Vimeo.

It's a film about queer slash fangirls.  It is part of Franzeska's film school thesis. Part of the program is learning how to take a film from conception to the end - including learning how to fundraise to cover costs.
 
They're running their kickstarter right now! Lots of rewards, including a DVD of the movie and a paper zine.

Or, if you'd like to make a tax-deductible donation, you can do so through Franzeska's film school. There are instructions on their website.

 

Beta Testers Needed: We’re exploring ways to expand the Media Fandom Oral History project into a DIY effort along the lines of Story Corps. What we’re looking for:

Two (or more) fandom friends willing (a) to interview one another (aka rambling fandom chats) and (b) to include their recordings into the existing oral history project

We need fans to test these methods

*Fans willing to chat with each another over phones using a conference call system

*Fans willing to chat with each another over Skype in connection with free recording software (we need people willing to test both PC and Mac)

*Fans willing to do chat with each another in person using free iPhone or Android recording software on their smartphones

Once done, you will upload the audio files into a Dropbox account. A permission form will also need to be signed by both parties and uploaded (scanned or photographed copies are fine).  There will also be a set of sample questions you can use.

Original Star Trek art by Caren Parnes, logo design by Morgan Dawn

1. CECIL BALDWIN WILL BE READING LITERARY EROTIC FANFICTION CONCERNING ALAN MOORE’S WATCHMEN.

2. Naomi Novik is participating

3. Date: Tuesday Oct 7, Brooklyn New York, Tickets still available.

naominovik:

et-in-arkadia:

shipwrecksf IS DOING ANOTHER LITERARY FANFIC EVENT AND THERE ARE STILL TICKETS LEFT! IT IS THE SAME WEEK AS NYCC BECAUSE LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

I WAS SKEPTICAL ABOUT THIS AND THEN IT WAS LITERALLY ONE OF THE FINEST AND FUNNIEST CULTURAL NIGHTS OF MY LIFE THAT IS WHY I AM SHOUTING

THEY ARE DOING WATCHMEN YOU GUYS

CECIL BALDWIN WILL BE READING LITERARY EROTIC FANFICTION CONCERNING ALAN MOORE’S WATCHMEN

YOU GUYS

TICKETS!

I’m one of the writers doing this fabulous event, btw! Hope to see some of you there. :D

(I am totally writing Dr. Manhattan/Ozymandias slash hahaha.) 

heliwr:

so my roommate melissa works part-time at a thrift shop pricing donations and she happened to come across this gem

and bought it for me because she is a good friend

it’s signed, framed and dated 1976

this is framed ot3 fanart from 1976

it is now hanging on the wall in our living room for everyone to see

The artist is Connie Faddis. She published a beautiful series of  Star Trek zines called Interphase and illustrated one of the most sought after Starsky & Hutch fanzines, Scales of Justice.

[Note: of the 8000+ notes, these are my favorites:
*"This proves that OTPs and OT3s existed before our generation."
*"I’d expect Spock in the middle for body heat reasons."
*"this makes me so happy though because there’s K/S/McC fanart that literally predates me as a human being bless you..."
*"this seriously makes me wonder what all the porn etc people have been making will wind up doing about 40 years from now..."
*"the saddest part: to end up in a thrift store, somebody had to have parted ways with this thing in the first place."
*"Never forget: women invented fandom."
*"What an amazing find! Have some old-ass fanfic to go with it, circa 1976! http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6671809/1/Shelter"
*"Epic, also * gorgeous* even if you don’t ship them. The detail work is lovely!"
*"Trekkies are the elves of fandoms."
*"Things like these make me feel hopeful about humanity"
*"#we are your gay shipping predecessors #star trek started this stuff man."
*"I wonder about the journey this drawing made like how did it end up in that shop? who had it originally?"
*"- 1) My god, it’s full of stars. - 2) Now I wanna know how it ended up in the thrift shop. And what the store *"workers had to say when they processed it in. You know that was a rockin’ day in the stockroom."
*"After my mother died, I went through her things and came across notebooks full of writing. She’d been writing Star Trek fanfiction for years, and while none of it seemed slashy, she certainly spent a lot of time on Kirk and Spock. It was bittersweet, discovering her secret. I’d started writing X-Files fanfiction when I was fifteen or sixteen, shortly before she died, and it would have been nice if I’d known about this thing we could have shared."
*"this is like really impressive actually, also they’re all staring at jim’s dick."
*"woah!!!!!!!!! there should be an antiques road show for fangirls."
*"Not going to lie, this is the type of thing that finally convinced me to watch Star Trek."
*"Star Trek slash is immortal."

There is a long history of fan run conventions which, for the most part, have been successful and fun.  Some of the early Star Trek conventions in the 1970s, which drew crowds of thousands, were also organized by teenagers with little or no experience in running events.  And whether you are a Star Trek fan, an anime fan, a filker, a slasher, or a furry, there has been a convention made for fan by fans where you could gather and let your freak flag fly free.

cover of the program guide for the first Star Trek convention
held in 1969 at a local library in New Jersey.

That is not to say that all fan run events were perfectly run. In fact, the list of snafus and cock-ups are legion and there have instances where events veered into gross negligence or fraud.   In the 1970s, a Star Trek convention run by Lisa Boyton was so badly oversold that is was the subject of an investigation by the New York Attorney General.  Two years before, another Star Trek convention organizer, Al Schuster left the Committee that had been organizing the Star Trek fan events until then and took with him some of their operating funds.  In the 1980s, The Houston Ultimate Fantasy Convention failed to apply prepaid funds to convention goers hotel rooms and local fans put them up in their homes. In 2003, fan Victoria Bitter allegedly defrauded Lord of the Rings fans in connection with a charity event.   But the list of fan run conventions is long and proud.

So if you are thinking on putting on a fan run convention, know that you will be part of a grand “can do” tradition. And also know, you do not have to do it alone: you can reach out to these other convention organizers and ask questions. How to set up a dealer’s room? Should I offer a con suite? How do I negotiate a hotel contract? What is a room block and how can I avoid getting hit with thousands of dollars of penalties if I don’t meet the “numbers”.  Should I have celebrity guests or would my event be better with just fan created programming? Is it really OK to use Klingons for security?

Rewritten for the dawn of fandom's Livejournal migration (2002):
"Absolutely, LJ is a time sink and decisions must be made, or else the days extended to 48 hours each. Also, LJ is not a place to leave/receive deep and long thoughts.  It is great for multi-fandom exposure and schmoozing and human contact (yes, I mean human — I've been touched in heart-warming ways by many people on LJ even if I don't remember why I added them to my friendslist in the first place). But the thoughts evaporate and you find yourself repeating yourself every week or so. For memes and icons LJ is a powerful tool, but for thematic development and thoughtful discourse LJs are made of teflon."

Rewritten for today (2014):

"Absolutely, Tumblr is a time sink and decisions must be made, or else the days extended to 48 hours each. Also, Tumblr is not  a place to leave/receive deep and long thoughts. It is great for feels and exuberance and human contact (yes, I mean human — I've been touched in heart-warming ways by many people on Tumblr even though I've never interacted with them). But the thoughts evaporate and you find yourself repeating yourself every day or so. For gifsets and screencaps, it is a powerful tool, but for thematic development and thoughtful discourse Tumblr is made of teflon."