Cartoon/Fantasy Orgainization
October 1997 Meeting
The 246th meeting, on 18 October at Gustav Baron's home/comics shop in Sun Valley, drew 21 attendees: 18 members and 3 public. Fred Patten sold YARF! and gave out convention flyers for Loscon 24 in Burbank in November, BAKA!-con in Seattle in February, Fanime Con '98 in Los Altos Hills in February, and Conucopia in Anaheim in August 1999. Patten & Stephen Paschke both brought display copies of the 15 Oct. issue of Bridge U.S.A. with a cover article on anime. Steve Schultheis took orders for manga imports.
Don Yee opened the Business Meeting with a fading bellow; "THE MEETING willcometoorder." News: the Las Vegas anime megaconvention anounced for 10 - 12 October did not take place (cries of, "Surprise, surprise!"), but the Japanese organizers had told Anime Crisis that it had not been cancelled but merely postponed, until "roughly" the end of November. We wondered what excuse they would come up with at that time. Yee announced that he would fly to the Anime Weekend Atlanta at the beginning of November to represent the C/FO. He would try to sell C/FO 20th-anniversary T-shirts there. It was decided that the Treasury was too low to print more C/FO information sheets for Anime Weekend Atlanta, since we couldn't expect to get any members from that far away. Fred Patten suggested that if we did want to publicize the C/FO at any anime conventions, we should consider taking out a display adv't in their Program Book rather than putting out flyers.
Yee had collected some news off the anime Internet sites. There were lots of postings of a 30 September article in The Hollywood Reporter announcing Disney's plans to release Miyazaki's Mononoke Hime theatrically in America in both dubbed and subtitled versions, unedited; and to begin releasing Miyazaki's earlier features dubbed with "A-level talent" on video beginning in April 1998. CNN and CBS This Morning! had reports on how Mononoke Hime was setting box-office records in Japan, which included complimentary descriptions of the movie. AnimEigo had announced that it was stopping production of dubbed anime videos and would concentrate on live-action movies. The past week's trade friction with Japan had resulted in an order yesterday halting all Japanese cargo ships bound for U.S. ports; but today's news said that an agreement was being reached. A trade embargo might block manga and anime books & magazines from entering the U.S.
Yee asked Fred Patten to tell why Mitch Beiro would no longer attend our meetings. Patten explained that Beiro & his mother had just moved from Los Angeles to Onyx, about 150 miles away at the South end of Sequoia National Forest. Beiro wanted to remain a C/FOer and planned to pay his 1998 dues, and would still take art commissions by mail. He hoped to phone during the Business Meeting to express his regrets at no longer being able to attend. [He didn't.]
Vice-Pres. Jeff Roady had had to leave just before the Business Meeting because he was on duty that evening as a monster at Knott's Berry Farm's Halloween Haunt. It was noted that several of our regular attendees were absent because they were spending all day at the Haunt.
Sec. Fred Patten noted that our 1998 club elections would open with nominations for President next meeting, and nominations & elections of all 1998 officers at the December meeting. Candidates would have to pay their 1998 memberships to be eligible to run for office. Don Yee inserted an announcement that Fox's Anastasia and Disney's The Little Mermaid were both coming to theaters in November. Patten commented that the current issue of Bridge U.S.A. with the cover-article on anime in the U.S. was free at local Japanese community supermarkets and bookstores, while it lasted or until the next issue came out on 1 November. Bridge U.S.A. tried to make Southern California sound like the center of Japanese culture in North America; therefore the article implied that Los Angeles' Streamline Pictures was America's major anime video distributor and Los Angeles' Banzai Anime was America's major anime specialty store. Patten recommended the Loscon XXIV s-f convention, at the Burbank Airport Hilton Hotel over the Thanksgiving weekend, as traditionally having an excellent 24-hour anime video program. He had been invited to be on a panel on the 20th anniversary of anime fandom in America.
Programmer Richard Reichman made his usual request for requests. (John Hall: "Smurfs!' Reichman: "Kill that man!") He had four episodes of Fish Police, if anyone was intercstcd... The reaction indicated that we would rather watch The Smurfs. Somebody commented that this month's Inland Empire Anime program was a "Rip & Rape Month" featuring "all the tentacle stuff." Rcichman commented that the Japanese seem to have finally had enough of tentacle-rape in their animated adult fantasies; recent releases are swinging back to comedic oversexed magical girls. He closed by requesting a special round of applause for Jerry Shaw for letting us tape his latest anime laser discs all afternoon for the club library.
Treasurer "Red" Baron said that we currently had $378, or $128 not counting the $250 set aside that we owed Don Yee for the 20th-anniversary T-shirts. John Hall wanted to know why we didn't reimburse Yee instead of continuing to announce the debt month after month. Yee was in no hurry for the money, and he felt it was better for the club to leave it in the Treasury. Hall argued that it was a dangerously false cushion, since it might tempt us into spending it needlessly before we paid Yee back. The discussion got to the point of needing money to pay rent when the C/FO has to move to a new location, which brought up the question of when that might be. Baron said that it was unlikely to be before June or July 1998. Hall was finally dissuaded from calling a vote to require us to repay Yee immediately.
Bulletin Editor Stephen Paschke noted that he had added our e.mail and Web page addresses to the Bulletin. He had asked Yee to give out both at the Anime Weekend Atlanta. He asked if anyone would like to help with the Bulletin -- not that he intended to give it up, he reassured us; he just didn't want to seem to be hogging it if anyone else liked to work on newsletters.
Librarian Baron noted that we had been copying Jerry Shaw's laser discs of Maho-Tsukaitai!, Nadesico, Gestalt, and Birdy the Mighty for the Video Library all afternoon. He would update the Library's catalogue of videos by the November meeting.
General announcements: Stephen Paschke said that Video Japan in Gardena had a video of the four latest episodes of Hyper Police, copied off TV with all the commercials, for $0.75 a night rental. Several people mentioned other Japanese-community video stores with tapes of home-recorded TV cartoons. There were requests that some of these be obtained for our programs.
Don Yee said that, now that his computer was up again, he planned to resume work on The Directory of Anime Fandom. He felt that the work he'd done so far was so outdated that he would start over from the beginning. He also wanted to get the C/FO Membership Starter Packs made up, and announce them as a benefit of membership on the Net. "Getting our site on the Anime Turnpike."
Yee conducted an auction with donations by Kelley Benham and Fred Patten, plus a rare Road Rovers animation crew T-shirt donated by Bob Miller. The auction raised $66.45 for the Treasury, from John Hall, Mahlon Miller, Steve Schultheis, and Roy Yeakey.
The October program shown was:
Neon Genesis Evangelion, #1, 'Angel Attack'
Spicy City, #4
Flash Gordon, #8, 'The Frozen World'
Those Who Hunt Elves, #1, 'The Raid! Those Who Hunt Elves'
Hyper Police, #3, 'The Dubious Combination'
Tattoon Master, The Second Gate
Martian Successor Nadesico, #1, '[Be A Man] Daredevils, Let's Go!'
featurette: Vampire Hunter: The Animated Series, #1, 'A Gathering in Darkness of the Undead'
(Madhouse, 1997)
featurette: Vampire Hunter: The Animated Series, #2, 'Blood of Darkness; Power of Darkness'
(Madhouse, 1997)
Fred Patten, Secretarv
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