Klingon Fan Clubs
| Related terms: | Klingon Fan Clubs |
| See also: | Role Playing, Cosplaying, Fan Club
 art depicting members of the Klingon Diplomatic Corps, one of the first Klingon fan clubs. Printed in Klingon Empire Appointment Calendar. |
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- "“And some [Klingon fan clubs] dress-up like ferocious, scowling aliens who like their combat brutal, their conversations blunt, and their sex ferocious.” [1]
Klingon Fan Clubs are an early form of Star Trek cosplaying and role-playing. Klingons, their language and culture are a popular theme for many Star Trek fans and fan clubs have sprung up based around Klingon warships much like the Star Trek fan clubs that center on fictional Federation starships. According to one article, dress-up Klingon fan clubs were born in 1974, when Robert Asprin formed the Klingon Diplomatic Corps to provide security at cons.[1] One of the largest, global, Klingon fan clubs is the Klingon Assault Group which was founded in 1988 by John Halverson with the goal of spreading Klingon costuming. He also founded the Klingon Strike Force several years earlier, however that club was more paper based.
Fan clubs recreate the military hierarchy of a battleships, with each fan member creating a Klingon identity and assigned a military rank and role with a back story and skills and interests. Klingon fanzines and newsletters are written and published by club members. Fan clubs also meet in person (and more recently online), host social and charity events, and engage in mock battles with other Klingon fan clubs. At fan run conventions club members often stage elaborate battles in costume to often large and enthusiastic crowds, as well as run panels on aspects of Klingon fandom. Klingon Karaoke is also a popular fan club activity at conventions. Argerial Konfederation of Free Traders Convention was as convention with a Klingon fandom focus.
After the release of Star Trek III, Paramount decided to have Dr. Marc Okrand write a Klingon dictionary documentation the Klingon language he created for the movie. This led to a Klingon language summer camp followed a few years after with the founding of the Klingon Language Institute. It soon began to publish a peer reviewed newsletter devoted to the language called HolQeD. They also published translations of two of Shakespeare's plays, several collections of short original stories, as well as two books of Chinese philosophy (Tao Te Ching and The Art of War).
The interest in the Klingon language and culture has even lead to the creation of entire plays and operas performed in Klingon.
External Resources
- Klingon Assault Group, the world's largest Klingon fan club
- Imperial Klingon Expeditionary Forces Website, a worldwide listing of affiliated fan clubs
- Klingon Language Institute, which published the quarterly newsletter HolQeD and has a course that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzLzbGV9Ibg
- A sample scene from A Klingon Christmas Carol
- 'u': the Honorable Battle opera, video footage of the first Klingon Opera held on Earth 2010
- The "Sue Frank Klingon/Star Trek" collection, part of the larger Paskow Science Fiction Fanzine Collection
References
- ^ Klingon Like Me: Travels into the Dark Side of Trekkerdom by Erik Davis, originally appeared in The Village Voice, November 23, 1994