Jim and Blair Do the World

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Zine
Title: Jim and Blair Do the World
Publisher: Blackfly
Editor(s):
Date(s): October 2000
Series?:
Medium: print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom: The Sentinel
Language: English
External Links:
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Jim and Blair Do the World is a slash Sentinel anthology. The outer cover is "The Thin Blue Line," facilitating the reading of this zine in public places.

The cartoons are by Bog and the photo-manips are by Jenny Saypaw.

Sister Zines

Contents

  • "Waiting for Words" by Cara Chapel (Jim and Blair vacation in North Carolina's Outer Banks where a beautiful, insightful tale unfolds. Away from their lives in Cascade, Jim reflects on his relationship with Blair, and realizes his focus has been too far afield: some fine-tuning is in order.) (1)
  • "The Valley of Ghosts" by Bluewolf (Knowing his Sentinel desperately needs respite from the 'the most dangerous city in America', Blair arranges a pleasure trip to Scotland. While there, they visit a number of ancient sites of anthropological significance: in particular, a mysterious circle of standing stones. It is a sequel to "Paramours" in Jim and Blair Do Canada) (29)
  • "Amusement Spark" by Bog (Continuing their romantic saga from "Canada's Paramour's Blunderland" in Jim and Blair Do Canada, our detective duo heads to the Sunshine State for some blissful downtime.) (57)
  • "The Oktoberfest" by Geli (How has Oktoberfest survived for 200 years without Jim and Blair? And how will Jim and Blair survive Oktoberfest? Read Geli's romp through the time-honoured German festival to find out.) (79)
  • "I Surrender" by DragonGuide (Blair wins a Caribbean cruise, and guess who he takes along as his travelling companion?) (93)
  • "Fall Toward Grace" by Stormy (On that fateful night, September 20, 1999, during the much-anticipated SciFi Chat, our hero, Danny Bilson, stated: "[Jim's] mom runs a brothel in Spokane..." ) (145)

Image Gallery

  • another version of the actual front cover

  • front cover: Blackfly tends to put a "read anywhere" cover on top of the more risque covers. We call them "the zines you can read at family gatherings"." This issue has a cover that reads: "The Thin Blue Line: An Anthropological Study of Closed Societies within West Coast Police Organizations"

  • inside front cover

Reactions and Reviews

[The Last Time I Saw Sandburg]: Summary: Post-series, Blair starts at the academy, but part-way through he tells Jim that he cannot reconcile becoming a cop and decides to leave to try to find another way to rebuild his life. Jim already knows that he loves Blair, but decides not to say anything because he wants Blair to be happy. Although Blair agrees to keep in touch, he doesn't.

Six months have passed and all Jim knows is that he wishes he had spoken his heart. He thinks back often to those last days and realizes that, despite his super senses, he missed some telling clues. Then, when Blair's academy classmates starts their careers at the PD, the Major Crime detectives realize that there were other reasons for Blair to leave. Worse still, Jim starts dreaming about Blair's spirit animal, and the dreams aren't good.

Reccer's Notes: Aly has been writing steadily in TS since the show originally aired. She's written in a variety of genres over the years, which include a few more pining stories. I like this one because of the touch of destiny. Enjoy. [1]

[zine]: I got this yesterday, at work, and only had time for a quick glance. I was pretty impressed.

Then I got it home, settled in to really look and read and was just floored! Man, Blackfly Press has got it together in a MAJOR way.

Before I get to the totally awesome stories, I just have to gush some on the format! It's very cute and clever. The faux-cover, nicely protected with a plastic cover, reads like a dissertation title... A 'zine you'll be proud to have your mother catch you reading.

Better not leave it lying around, though, because just inside is the "good stuff"! A Bog cartoon of our two fave dudes in bed with the lower half of their bods and the bed cut out to reveal the "real" title page underneath, which is printed on paper featuring a world map theme. Totally neato idea!

Well this is sorta silly of me, but I love the paw sticker they put inside their 'zine. A seal of approval if you will. Hey, it's pretty!

I was totally blown away by the editing. They must have worked very hard and it shows. I've often commented that spelling and grammar errors don't bug me too badly, and that's true, but I do enjoy and appreciate a 'zine that's well edited!

The interior b/w photo manipulations and pics are a lot of fun. They all have something to do with the story they represent, like the picture of the "cup and ring marks" found in the story which takes place in Scotland. Some of the pictures are manips which place our guys in front of the appropriate scenery. We also get to enjoy a couple of humourous cartoons drawn by Bog.

So, wondering about the stories? If plot is what you're looking for, you aren't going to find much deep stuff here. Just some really wonderful, first-time fluff, some pretty good angst in a few places, lots of laughter, and some sweet, tender, steamy, hot love scenes. Who needs plot? I'd buy this just for the Stormy story. But let's take 'em one at a time....

Waiting For Words: Post-TSbyBS, first-time. Jim takes Blair off to find some private time together and try to heal some of the wounds between them. Some great writing here. I really like the way the author conveys Blair's emotional state in this story. And the first-time scene is just beautiful. I love the way Jim wets his fingers and then... sigh... well, anyway, it's a hot love scene!

The Valley Of The Ghosts: Post-TSbyBS, first-time. A nice quiet walk through a bit of history as Jim and Blair do Scotland. Getting away for a much needed vacation, the guys get *really* close to some ancient Scottish history, prompting them to face some truths about themselves and their current roles in each other's life. And as an added bonus, we get the much sought after highly coveted Jim owies!

Amusement Sparks: Established couple. The synop reads "sequel", but I don't think one would have to read "Paramours'..." in order to thoroughly enjoy this. You might miss some "inside jokes", but there's waaayy lots here to keep you entertained! Some of the MC gang go to Disney World, where Jim and Blair continue to try and hide their relationship from their assumed clueless co-workers. Meanwhile Rafe and Megan spend the trip trying to get, ahem, hard evidence to prove the guys are doing the deed. As the story progresses so does Jim and Blair's amorous attentions toward each other as demonstrated in this line, "The saccharine-spewing couple cooed as they strolled along the waterfront of the Showplace." Hee. IMO, some of Bog's best writing to date!

The Oktoberfest: First-time. I thought the synop made this sound as if it would be slightly angsty, but I didn't find it so at all! The guys are having a blast while I learn some interesting history about Oktoberfest. I loved the first kiss scene!

I Surrender: Looove, exciting and neeewwww... Great first-time story with a little cruise through history while seeing our guys acknowledge their mutual attraction and slowly move together towards the ultimate, er, climax. And what a climax it is, too!

The Last Time I Saw Sandburg: Post-TSbyBS, first-time. A true angst-fest as only Aly can write one! Sniff. Some wonderful Jim-introspection opens the story. Things aren't going well at the academy so Blair makes false excuses and leaves Cascade, believing he is doing the right thing for both Jim and MC. Things aren't going too well for Jim either, but when Jim learns the truth about why Blair left he determines to find him and never part. *SOB* Loved it!

Fall Toward Grace: AU, first-time, J/B, J/o B/o - both off-scene. I just don't how to describe this one. It is incredible. I didn't know whether to think it was a humorous piece with angst tossed in or and angsty piece with humor mixed in! Just as I would be thinking of getting some serious sniffles going, the author would throw out something that had me laughing my ass off! I SO loved this story, but I think I would have *hated* it if I had decided the author was serious! I decided to accept it just as it says in the synop, "...unrepentantly raunchy...". This has to be the freshest plot I've read since, well, ever! Jim's mom runs a brothel in Spokane. Jim, having been medically discharged from the service, pays his keep by doing odd (and I do mean odd) jobs around the, er, establishment. Jim's mother, being the sharp businesswoman that she is, sees the revenue generating potential of having a male of the species added to her stable. She sends Jim out to find a likely candidate and the rest, as they say, is history....

An absolutely awesome story. I would buy this 'zine just for this story. [2]

I bought a copy of "Jim and Blair Do The World" (originally from Blackfly Press, but I got mine used), and wanted to let some folks know what I thought of it. The original price is $20, and since it's digest sized, that seems like a bit more than I'd like to pay for 198 pages. But used (aka half price!), it was fine.

The theme of the zine is to write a story where Jim and Blair are not in Cascade. Some of the authors used this as a way to write a 'travelogue', with Jim and Blair occasionally featured. Those stories weren't as good to me as the ones that featured actual character interaction, actual emotions. :) Most of the fic in this zine had a first-time theme, which is fine by me.

The first story is set at a beach (North Carolina's Outer Banks), and is a good blend of atmosphere, location, and emotion. But then, I'm a sucker for Blair-angst, and this takes up after the whole TSbyBS fiasco. Quiet hurt, quiet comfort. Lovely.

There's a story set in Scotland that had a good idea behind it, but I was left wanting more -- more emotions, more... something.

The last two stories were by far the best, I thought. One was by Alyjude, so I knew it would be pretty good -- it was set (for the most part) in the Bahamas. It's a post-series story of Jim and Blair figuring out how they can each be happy. It had good angst, good scenery description, and (of course) a good ending.

The last story, a long one, was by Stormy (who I haven't heard of, or at least haven't noticed -- until now), and is set in Spokane, Washington. Spokane? Yep, and it's based on a comment Danny Bilson (Sentinel co-creator and co-producer) made at a convention (I think) about Jim's mother running a brothel in Spokane. Well.... Stormy makes this real! It's a wonderful AU, with real character emotions, but real humor as well. I'll admit I do like a 'hooker with a heart of gold' slash story, and this was a great surprise.

So, overall, I think I'd say that almost half the zine is worth re-reading (Alyjude's and Stormy's two were from page 111 to 198), while the others were less so. At $20 that seems like a less than good deal, but as a used zine, it's fine by me.

Other random notes: The layout was really interesting, with small scans of area landmarks appropriate to each story inserted alongside the text. Nicely done, even if the pix did copy pretty dark. (The zine pubber geek speaks!) Some of the stories sounded as though they had been written by non-English speakers, and so some of it could have been 'smoothed' by an editor or beta-reader, but none of it was hard to understand -- just occasionally distracting. And finally, the front cover is worthy of a double-take! It's a plain blue cover with the title, in large type: The Thin Blue Line: An Anthropological Study of closed societies within west coast police organizations, by Blair Sandburg, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. -- now that's something you can read on the bus!

All in all, I think I'll keep this one, at least for a while. The brothel story was really enjoyable, and memorable! [3]

References

  1. ^ 9.26.2014 at Fancake
  2. ^ from Destinies Entwined
  3. ^ Destinies Entwined
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