Cartoon/Fantasy Organization
| Anime Club | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Cartoon/Fantasy Organization also known as C/FO |
| Affiliation: | |
| Dates: | 1977 to the present day |
| Founder(s): | Mark Merlino and Fred Patton |
| Country based in: | United States |
| Activities: | watching and discussing anime and other animations. |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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"The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (also known as C/FO) is a Los Angeles, California club primarily for the discussion and enjoyment of Japanese animation which has held monthly meetings, usually on the third Saturday, from May 1977 to the present day. Several of the founding members of the furry fandom are or were also C/FO members, notably Mark Merlino and Fred Patten, two of C/FO's own founders. The club's mascot Fanta is a furry character, specifically one of the first three Skiltaire created in the late 1970s by Merlino. Southern California furry fandom began in the Los Angeles chapter of C/FO in the early 1980s, as several of the members were more interested in what would later be called "furry" than the fantasy giant robots that dominated anime at the time.These proto-furries would hold impromptu furmeets in the anteroom, swapping info on critters/comics/artists while the proto-otaku watched away in the screening room.
The C/FO as an international club was disbanded in 1989. Most of the remaining chapters became independent anime clubs with new names, leaving the Los Angeles chapter to reclaim the name as "the" C/FO. It has remained a local Los Angeles anime club since then, with no connection to furry fandom except to move its meetings from third Saturdays to other Saturdays when necessary to avoid conflicts with major furry conventions which many C/FO members will attend." [1]
The club issues an anime zine called C/FO. Vaunda K. Perry had been one of the organizers in Orlando.
"Politics"
In its later years the C/FO was haunted by internal politics, in which fourth president Randall S. Stukey was a major player. Both the C/FO Bulletin and Celluloid Diversions featured frequent editorials detailing his frustrations on topics like video piracy and "C/FO politics". Stukey was outspoken in his criticism and activism even before ascending to the position of president:
It is with great regret that I must anounce the cancellation of the general C/FO elections which I announced last year becatue of numerous election irregularities which have called into doubt the legal status of any officers who would have been elected under those elections. Randall Stukey of C/FO-San Antonio, a longtime student of parliamentary law, has pointed out numerous election irregularities, most of which would leave our elections open to a court challenge which could paralyze the C/FO for as long as it took the case to drag its way through our slow court system.Many of Randall Stukey’s listed election irregularities seem highly technical and even somewhat silly to me, however, I cannot argue with the following points:
1) Two candidates, one for C/FO President and one for C/FO Secretary, were left off the ballot.
2) The deadline for returning the ballots was never stated, but was arbitrarily imposed by the person receiving the ballots, without prior notice to the membership.
3) Because of mailing list and communication problems, numerous members of the C/FO (both old and new) did not recieve a ballot.
4) Two candidates for office were actually conducting the election.
If you are interested in further details of these and other election irregularities, Randall Stukey has assured me that he will send a copy of his (now infamous) "Election Irregularity Letter" to any C/FO member who sends him a SASE and 20 cents to cover copying costs. Randall Stukey is NOT the only member who has pointed out problems with the 1985 elections, he (and C/FO-San Antonio) have just been more organized and vocal (and insistant: proper elections --- even in a little fan organization --- are evidently very important to Texans) than other members.
NEW ELECTIONS CALLED
I am calling for new elections immediately to be completed by the end of December....June 1986: Cartoon/Fantasy Organization Election Notice & Mini Bulletin Anime Fanzine
In 1989, a final schism took place and the C/FO was disbanded in its current form after years of tension between the general membership and the leadership of Stukey's San Antonio chapter, which had in 1987 become the overall leaders of the club nationwide. Addressing "The Death of the C/FO" in the final issue of Celluloid Diversions, Stukey cited general exhaustion, and predicted either the club's rapid death or a return to its previous state under Los Angeles leadership, which he described as basically inactive.
This issue of Celluloid Diversions is probably the last you will see for some time.... the C/FO as you know it will soon be no more. Almost all of the active people and groups are leaving, having put up with more grief than they can take. In all probablity, the C/FO will quickly return to the "do nothing, publish little" condition that the C/FO was in before the current leadership took over in 1987. For that we all apologize, but three years of doing all the work and putting up with all the nonsense have taken their toll, we have done all we can and put up with all we can stand.Stukey in Celluloid Diversions Vol V Number 9, June 1989
Video
- Footage of CF/O Meeting 1982, video taken by Mark Merlino
Zines
Other
- "[Anime] How the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization - torchbearers of anime in America in the 80s - was brought down"Archived by Infinitus_Potentia (2 June 2022)