The Unifying Star Wars Fandom Panel (1993)
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Unifying Star Wars Fandom Panel |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | |
| Date(s): | May 1993 (discussion), autumn 1993 (printed) |
| Medium: | panel discussion |
| Fandom(s): | Star Wars |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Unifying Star Wars Fandom Panel was a panel discussion held at MediaWest*Con 13. A transcript was published in Southern Enclave #37.
Panel members were Cheree Cargill, Ming Wathne, and Judith Yuenger.
The panel discussion was transcribed and edited by Cheree Cargill.
Some topics: Is there a Star Wars list on the Internet, is Star Wars on GEnie, Star Wars role-playing, the existence of Star Wars fans in other countries other than the US and Australia, technology and Star Wars fans, what is a modem, what is a network, George Lucas and his vast technological empire, and the famous Ewok pelt on the cover of a zine called Crossfire Zone.
A similar panel was held a year earlier at MediaWest*Con, and that discussion was included in Southern Enclave #32. See Unifying Star Wars Fandom -- A Panel Discussion.
Excerpts
[CC]: This is a continuation or rerun from last year. As many of you know, about three years ago we began the effort to unify Star Wars fandom. We were broken up into multitudes of little groups with no one speaking to each other and no one knowing what was going on with anybody else and this gave rise to the rumor that Star Wars fandom was dead. And I said, I don't believe so because I know there are a lot of people out there. They're just not talking to each other. We began to gel together and I think we've been pretty successful. Last year we were told that Star Wars was the largest organized fan group at MediaWest. [APPLAUSE] And from the flyers I have seen stuck around on all the walls, I think we're a pretty active group this year.
[Audience Member]: I don't know if there's a GEnie one, but I can't get to GEnie. I'm only on the internet. [MW]: Okay, this is one problem we have right here. There are a lot of people who aren't on GEnie. There's a lot of people who do not have computers. There's a lot of people who still use pen and paper to write. [APPLAUSE]
[MW]: First of all, let's forget about the idea that Lucasfilm is for fan information. What it is is a sales magazine. It's 98% tales magazine and 2% information. The so-called "large" Lucas interview on Star Wars contained exactly two paragraphs on Star Wars. The other pages were anything he was doing otherwise and what he had to sell. I get it all the time for the Library.
[a fan named Tina]: I'm not an eofan. I've been in this for about three years, but from what little I've seen of the old zines, I think the quality is getting better. I don't know if this is my imagination or not. I don't know. They're getting more sophisticated, more professional, and the quality of the printing and everything is just really...MNow: That's one of those areas we've argued for years because do we want the story out and cheap, or do we want it looking nice?
[CC]: That's what people were saying three years ago. "Oh, I can't afford to do a zine" You don't have to have 300 page zines, or color covers, or foldouts, or sparks shooting out of it. Okay, that's what I'm doing because I've been at it for 20 years and that's what I've worked up to. But, it's not necessary. If you can type, xerox and staple, you can do a zine! If you can afford and have the talent and the energy and the drive to do [so].
[CC]: A friend of mine put out a small, little zine. That's what I'm doing for a friend of mine right now. It's 61 pages. She had no money. She had a very small little Lisa Mac, a real old Mac. She sent it to me. A guy I work with formatted it for me. I laid it out and printed it up. And it's 25 little editions of it and it's the first time she's ever had anything out and it took me all of an hour to do it. You don't need a $10,000 computer, but it's simple. Get a hold of friends. Someone's gonna have a friend with a friend and believe me it takes no time at all for these computers to do it. Computers are a God-send for editors. 1 mean, I don't know what I'd do without my computer, but the first two or three zines I ever did were typed on a $10 Royal Electric with a broken space bar. It did not stop me from doing my zines. We did 61 pages in four minutes. That text-flowed everything perfectly with a template.