July 1997 Meeting

The 243rd meeting, on 26 July, at Gustav Baron's home/comics shop in Sun Valley, drew 30 attendees: 25 members, I guest, and 4 public. Fred Patten sold YARF! and gave out flyers for BAKA!-con in Seattle in February. Henry Brown brought "Gorilla Gunslinger Sampler" booklets from the Comic-Con International. David Bliss set out flyers for the Inland Empire Anime club meeting, and advertisements for his Furry Art.

Don Yee stopped at the meeting only briefly to leave his notes, on his way to a rock concert at Universal City. Vice Pres. Jeff Roady opened the Business Meeting with anime news from the Comic-Con International the previous week. Tatsunoko's "Gatchaman" OAV was being dubbed into English by a new anime video company, Urban Vision. It would retain the original character names. Jerry Shaw added that Urban Vision was an offshoot of Software Sculptors, which had been absorbed by Central Park Media.

Roady gave a summary of movies previewed at the Comic-Con which featured extensive computer graphics. He highly recommended "Men in Black", and digressed into a description of Icon, a company that was making licensed reproductions of props from s-f movies. "Starship Troopers", on the other hand, was more like "Space, Above & Beyond: The Movie" than the Robert Heinlein novel. Lost in Space", "Event Horizon", and "Godzilla" all promised to be very dark & serious. "Spawn" looked very good, although it remained to be seen how it would compare with the comic book and with the HBO cartoon series. Roady and Alan Van Dalsem got into an impromptu joint review of "Lost World" as a movie which they agreed looked good but was a disappointment compared to its original book.

"Red" Baron read Don Yee's notes. Yee had enjoyed the Comic-Con. He had met Yuko Moriyama, the actress who played Iria in the live-action "Zeiram" movies. She was about the only anime-related celebrity listed as a Comic-Con guest. There were quite a few new anime dealers at the Comic-Con (or there for the first time), such as Mandarake, a Japanese company with an office in Torrance, and Nikaku Animart. Yee had met Stan Lee on the train from L.A. to San Diego. Yee and Mitch Beiro both had fullpage drawings on the Comic-Con's Tribute to "Star Wars" theme published in its Souvenir Program Book. Yee did two "Star Wars" drawings for the Comic-Con's charity auction; his "Princess Leia" brought $180 and "Darth Vader" went for $200. C/FOer Carlos Saldaña was selling his BURRITO comic book; Mitch Beiro had the lead story in the latest issue of GENUS, and James Lomax claimed he had just sold a story to FURRLOUGH. The highlight/lowlight of the con had been the panel on the 20th anniversary of anime fandom. This had gone well until a fan arrived who began shouting from the audience that the panelists and everyone else were all idiots who didn't know anything about anime, like he did. One of the panelists, Lea Hernandez, had told Yee later that, "I thought about doing more cover work for ANIMECO. But now after this panel, I definitely am quitting!"; because the obnoxious fan was a columnist for ANIMECO, and she no longer wanted to associate with the magazine.

Aside from the Comic-Con, Yee now had an e.mail address: hayase@earthlink.net. He had spent some time going through the anime websites and had found much of interest, including the Anime Crisis Web page and the SB3A's Web site. The Anime Weekend Atlanta's Web page had him listed as a tentative guest.

Yee felt that the C/FO should invest some time & money to put up a Web page. This would help to correct two problems that he had just learned about. First, most of anime fandom is no longer aware that the C/FO still exists, despite our flyers, our Directory of Anime Fandom, and our listing in places like Tlze Complete Anime Guide. Second, our use of Fanta as a mascot makes people think that the C/FO is a Furry club instead of an anime

club. Yee was not asking the club to replace Fanta, but suggesting that we either create a second, more anime-looking mascot for our publicity, or create publicity that did not show a mascot at all.

Miscellaneous Yee news: he had talked with the Hazelwoods at Project A-kon, and they had confirmed that they would no longer allow knock-off merchandise to be sold at their cons. The issue of V-MAX for which he had done the cover was not published yet, because the magazine was looking for another financier. In the meantime, its publisher, R. Talsorian Games, had brought out a two-volume Bubblegum Crisis: The RolePlaying Game. Yee was talking with the new MIXXZINE magazine about doing some work for it.

Yee finally had a message for Stephen Paschke: Tracy Brown of the Bay Area Anime Society had complained that they were no longer receiving our monthly BULLETIN. They were sending us their publication, and they were entitled to ours in exchange.

Sec. Fred Patten gave his Comic-Con report. He had appeared on three anime program events: Friday's "Violence in Anime" panel along with Scott Frazier and John O'Donnell; Saturday morning's "The Future of Anime Fandom" panel along with Scott Frazier again, Lea Hernandez and Brad Demoss; and a Saturday afternoon discussion group on the history of anime fandom. There was also a Saturday afternoon discussion by Fred Ladd on the American adaptations of "Gatchaman": "Battle of the Planets" and "G-Force". Jerry Shaw added that Fred Ladd's appearance had officially been a "Gatchamancon" within the Comic-Con, organized by a Gatchaman fan club with the ComicCon's cooperation. All had gone very well. The Saturday morning panel had been opposite the extremely popular "Babylon 5" presentation, and it had still drawn an audience of over three dozen. In addition to the panelists, there had been a lot of active participation from the audience, especially from Antonia Levi, the author of Samurai from Outer Space, and from Widya Santoso, who was probably the oldest and best-known anime fan from Australia. The heckler, Kevin Karvonen, had only arrived about ten minutes before the conclusion of the panel; so although he gave it a sour ending, he hadn't ruined it. An additional manga highlight of the Comic-Con had been the "beach display" for MIXXZINE run by Ron Scovil and his staff. Scovil had reported that the first issue of MIXXZINE had already completely sold out.

Treas. "Red" Baron reported that there was $415 in the Treasury after this month's expenses, not counting the money owed to Don Yee for our anniversary T-shirt manufacturing. If that was figured in, there was only about $165 left.

Programmer Richard Reichman gave us a choice for this month's feature: the 1997 "City Hunter" OAV, untranslated; or a double-bill of "Bio Hunter" and "BlackJack", Clinical Chart 2, subtitled. The vote was for the latter. Reichman commented on the announcement at the Comic-Con that "Babylon 5" had been renewed, but that it would be moving to TNT and would rerun all of the previous episodes before starting the new ones. This meant that we would have months to show the final episodes of the current season which he was getting from England, before they were broadcast in America.

Librarian "Red" Baron reported that there was nothing to report.

BULLETIN Editor Stephen Paschke reported that he was currently sending out about 60 - 65 copies per month, at a cost of $25 in postage alone.

General announcements: Peter Santell announced that the six animated episodes of "Spawn" on HBO would be released on laser disc on September 2nd. Steve Paschke asked how many C/FOers had access to the Internet? About ten hands went up. Paschke had been discussing the idea of a C/FO Web page with Jerry Shaw and Ed Ngai, and said he would investigate the possibility of posting our scheduled program and monthly minutes. Greg Villagrana reported that Frank & Sons had moved two blocks, and that he had their new address for anyone who wanted it.

The TV monitor in the front room played Alan Van Dalsem's "Grandia Demo Disc" for most of the meeting. Two "Johnny Bravo" episodes, 'Bravo Dooby Doo' and 'The Sensitive Male', and a video interview with "Johnny Bravo" creator Van Partible, were also shown. The main July program was:

Mobile Suit G Gundam, #25, 'The Curtain Rises on the Decision! Gundam Fighter Great Meeting'

Mobile Suit G Gundam, #30, 'Denjaris Arenbe, the Pretty Young Girl Fighter!' Flash Gordon, #3, 'Vultan - King of the Hawkmen'

Spicy City, #1

Spawn, #4

Slayers, #13, 'Money! Crush Those Bounty Hunters!'

featurette: Hyper Police, #0

Slayers Special 2: 'The Knighthood of Mr. Jeffrey'

featurette: Bio Hunter (Madhouse, 1995)

featurette: BlackJack, Clinical Chart 2, 'A Funeral; The Procession Game' (Tezuka ProBlack Jack Committee, 1993)

Fred Patten, Secretary

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