June 1997 Meeting
The 242nd meeting, on 20 June 7, at Gustav Baron's home/comics shop in Sun Valley, drew 33
attendees: 22 members, 5 guests, and 6 public. Fred Patten sold new issues of YARF! and FUR
SCENE, and gave out flyers for Loscon 24 in Burbank in November and for a Los Angeles bid for
the 1999 NASFIC. Steve Schultheis took orders for imported manga. David Bliss sold his Furry
art prints, and gave out applications for the Civilian Astronauts Corps. Kelley Benham also was
selling some magazines.
There was considerable favorable conversation about last month's 20th anniversary meeting at the
ASIFA Animation Center. The main excitement of the day came when it was discovered that wasps
were starting to build a nest in the eaves right over the front door. Ed Ngai knocked it down with a
broom, but without giving warning. Fortunately, others slammed the door before any annoyed
wasps could get in.
Don Yee had just returned from Project A-Kon 8 in Dallas over the 30 May - I June weekend. Its
Costume show had been pretty good, and he was trying to borrow a video copy of it from a fan who
had taped it. The con had grown serious about discouraging video piracy. No bootleg videos had
been allowed in the dealers' room, and future AKons would probably restrict the sale of Hong
Kong and Chinese knockoffs. The con had outgrown its hotel of the past few years, and would look
for a bigger hotel for next year. He reported that the only "bad news" about it was that nobody
had bought any of the C/FO's anniversary T-shirts. In fact, the general attitude had been, "I didn't
know that the C/FO was still alive." A news crew from NEWSWEEK had covered the con for an
article for the magazine's Japanese edition on the growing popularity of anime in America. He was
checking the local Japanese-community bookshops for the NEWSWEEK with that article, but it
had not appeared yet.
Yee asked Fred Patten to tell about how the C/FO was supposed to get a similar interview today.
Patten related that Streamline Pictures had received a phone call earlier that week from a Nippon
TV news crew who said that they wanted to interview both professionals and fans for a similar
video story about the popularity of anime in America. Patten had told them about today's C/FO
meeting and they had expressed eagerness to attend and interview the fans, but it did not look like
they were going to show up.
Yee said that a similar article had appeared in last Sunday's Los Angeles TIMES, but on the
growing popularity of Asian pop culture in general, not just anime & manga. The article had
mentioned a new book on the topic, Eastern Standard Time, which he had bought as a result; he
showed & recommended it.
In other convention news, he had been invited to be on a panel on the twentieth anniversary of
anime fandom, at Anime Expo over the July 4th weekend. He felt that such a discussion should
include the "prodom" as well as the fandom; the TV companies and the anime video companies
that brought anime to America during these twenty years. He asked Fred Patten to tell about the
anime panels scheduled for the Westercon and the Comic-Con International.
Patten said that he had been invited to appear on three anime panels at Westercon 50, in Seattle
over the July 4th weekend; one on anime fandom history, one on why animation is acceptable for
adults in Japan but is only for children in America, and one on Japanese vs. American popular
culture stereotypes. Antonia Levi, the author of Samurai from Outer Space, was also scheduled as
a panelist. The latest Progress Report of the Comic-Con International: San Diego announced that
Scott Frazier and Fred Patten would speak on anime fandom at the con; and he had received a
phone call from Fred Ladd, who said that the Comic-Con had just invited him to be on "Patten's
anime panel" at the con. But he had not received any information from the con yet about any of
this.
Yee reported that FanimeCon '97 in Los Altos Hills on 8 March had been so successful that the
1998 Fanimecon would be expanded to two days. There was a photoreport on it in
PROTOCULTURE ADDICTS #45.
V.P. Jeff Roady reported on the Mad Model Party IV in Pasadena last month. He entered only two
models; neither won. There were about 15 different models of various versions of Godzilla, and
about the same number and variety for Gamera. This year's Party had a greater variety of models
of obscure movie, TV, radio, and comic-book characters; he was freaked out to see one of
*SANTO: EL ENMASCARO DE PLATA*. In other news, HBO's midnight animated "Spawn"
was up to six episodes, and Bakshi's "Spicy City" would debut on 11 July. Roady had just seen
"Batman & Robin"; Director Joel Schumacher had tried to capture the spirit of the 1960s TV
series rather than the previous movies. Warner Bros. was producing new episodes of "Batman"
and of the other DC superheroes as "World's Finest Comics" for TV. A new "Batman" OAV was
due out.
Bob Miller corrected the latter statement. The OAV, "Batman: Sub-Zero" had just been finished,
but WB had decided to postpone its release until next year so it would not compete with "Batman
& Robin". Siskel & Ebert had named the previous OAV, "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm", as
the best of the "Batman" movies in terms of a good story.
Sec. Fred Patten commented that he'd already given about all of his report. Laurine White of the
Anime Sacramento club had just ordered one of our 20th anniversary T-shirts. John Hall offered a
correction to the May minutes: the "Speed Racer" theme song arrangement on the new pilot was
grunge rock, not punk.
Treas. "Red" Baron said that we had started the day with $477. $40.60 had gone to Steve Paschke
for two issues of our monthly BULLETIN, and we owed Don Yee $250 which he had personally
paid on the T-shirt bill. This left only $186, which was dangerously low for only halfway through
the year. Yee volunteered to take his $250 in small installments rather than all right now. Yee
added that the Ken Crane store had a sale on laser disc players for about $200 every three or four
months, and that he would keep an eye out for the next sale if the C/FO wanted to buy a laser disc
player. The consensus was that there was not enough interest to justify a purchase. Jeff Roady
talked about the dangers of all current videos and laser discs becoming obselete once the new digital
players came onto the market.
Programmer Richard Reichman reminded us that next month's meeting would be on the 4th
Saturday, to avoid the Comic-Con's weekend. "Babylon 5" had just ended its season; the news of
whether or not it would be renewed for another season would be announced at the "B5" program
at the Comic-Con. He had been guaranteed video copies of this year's four final episodes from
England before they would be shown on U.S. TV; and did we want to watch two episodes a meeting
for two meetings, or watch all four at a marathon? The meeting became chaotic as several different
plans were proposed, but Pres. Yee insisted on voting "yes" or "no" on each suggestion before the
next suggestion was heard. This resulted in members switching their votes if they heard a plan that
they liked better than what they had previously voted for, and the meeting quickly lost track of
which suggestions had how many votes. The final proposal, by Roy Yeakey, which passed by a vote
of 8 to 1, was to show all four "B5" episodes at two successive meetings, two on the regular
program and two on the "unofficial" front-room monitor, then reversing the order the following
month.
When Reichman made his usual request for requests, Mitch, Beiro offered a WB advance video
screener of "Cats Don't Dance" for our July feature, which would enable us to see it a month
before its August video release. Those who had seen it during its too-brief theatrical release
recommended it very highly, but the consensus was to save our feature time-slots for harder-to-see
anime titles, since most of us had already seen "Cats Don't Dance" &/or planned to buy it in
August.
BULLETIN Editor Steve Paschke had nothing to report. He repeated his request for articles,
clippings, and similar appropriate materials to help fill the BULLETIN. Don Yee promised a
photocopy of the L.A. TIMES' article on Asian popular culture.
Librarian "Red" Baron reported that we now had a video copy of "Vampire Hunter: The
Animated Series" (a.k.a. "Darkstalkers") #1. He could hardly wait for #2 to come out in July.
General Announcements. Mitch Beiro requested that we observe one second of silence in respect
for the death of Hong Kong's independence. Mark Freid said that TV GUIDE had an article about
upcoming programming on "Comedy Central" which included the two "Spirit of Christmas"
animated shorts which we had watched in April and May. TV GUIDE also announced the filming
of the first "Babylon 5" made-for-TV movie. Bob Miller asked if anyone had any news about
Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" being released in America? Nobody did. Don Yee had manga
news: Steve Bennett & Kuni Kimura of Antarctic Press had formed their own company to translate
manga for publication by U.S. comic-book publishers. Glen Danzig's Verotik Press had lost all
rights to Go Nagai's works. Yee showed his painting that was the result of his being bought as an
art-slave by Robert John Williams at the May auction. The painting, "The Big-Footed Slope",
caused much retching and almost cleared the room.
A brief auction brought only $5.75, from Steve Schultheis and "Red" Baron.
Those in the front room socialized and watched a video of the final episode of "Star Trek: Deep
Space 9", 'A Call to Arms'. The June program shown was:
Assemble Insert (beginning)
Assemble Insert (conclusion)
Dragon Half (vol. 1 & vol. 2 edited together into a feature)
Gall Force: The Revolution, #2, 'Galaxy Run'
Flash Gordon, #2, 'The Monsters of Mongo'
Dexter's Laboratory, 'Mock 5'
Spawn, #2
Spawn, #3
featurette: Vampire Hunter: The Animated Series, #1, 'The Resurrection: A Gathering in
Darkness of the Undead' (Amuse/Madhouse, 1997)
feature: X: The Motion Picture (Kadokawa Shoten/Madhouse, 1996)
-- Fred Patten, Secretary
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