From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: rehash of mundanes VS fans
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:14:01 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Pederson" <mike at nthzine.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 1:34 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: rehash of mundanes VS fans

> Mostly because it's a missed opportunity. Fandom had a chance to bring
> media, comics and anime into our fold but there were too many people
> that had a very exclusionary attitude about non-literary SF. And now
> that they have all outgrown our type of fandom it's too hard to bring
> them back into the fold. Look at some of the biggest cons that they run
> in comparison with World Con... Media: DragonCon - 30,000 attendees.
> Comics: San Diego Comic Con - 32,000 attendees. Anime: Katsucon -
> 20,000 attendees. Us: World Con - 6,000 on a good year. We're the runts
> on the block now and have to learn to be more accepting of our bastard
> children. We may still be able to bring some of them back into the
> fold.

I cannot imagine why we'd want to.  (Do *you* want to attend a Worldcon
with 30,000 attendees?)

Comics fandom has been separate and distinct from SF fandom since the
mid-'50s (I have been in both).  There was never a question of it escaping
from "the fold," although *all* the early comics fans we know about (going
back to the late '30s) were also SF fans, and SF fandom's nomenclature was
imported wholesale into comics fandom when EC Comics fandom was started by
Bhob Stewart (and, to a much lesser extent, myself).  But it was always a
separate fandom, with separate interests.

When you say "media," I assume you mean STAR TREK.  ST was part of the 1966
Westercon, the 1966 and '67 Worldcons, and no doubt others which followed.
All the original Trek fans were SF fans who created Trek fandom as a
subfandom, but it quickly took on its own qualities and moved off at right
angles to fandom.

SF fandom is a fandom of *science fiction* -- not of individual authors.
(This enormously disappointed David Gerrold when he found that out.)  Trek
fandom is a fandom devoted to *one* TV show, and it worships that show's
"stars."   In this it is much closer to old-fashioned Hollywood movie star
"fandom" -- which used to be celebrated in what were called "movie fan
mags" in the '30s, '40s, and '50s.   (Those were newsstand publications;
not fanzines.)

Likewise, anime fandom (which kinda grew out of furry animal fandom) is
devoted to a cultural phenomenon which is tangential at best to SF, much
less SF fandom.

I'm a fan of automobiles, jazz and rock music.   I actually belong to a
segment of rock "fandom" -- and I had a hand in launching the first rock
fanzine; CRAWDADDY #1 was mimeod in my basement -- where, as "Dr.
Progresso," I'm internationally known as a radio deejay and for my website.
But it has never occurred to me to amalgamate my interests into a single
fandom -- nor do I want to.

--Ted White