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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:43 am
by Fireminer
_D_ wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 5:30 pm Interesting work. But spotty on several people, especially Canadian fandom. William Chow I had never heard of until a few years ago. I don't recall ever trading with him or anything. According to an old newsletter I was involved with (The Captain Harlock/Galaxy Express Newsletter dated 12 August 1980) I sent Phil Gilliam tapes of Albator for him to air at a local meeting. I also say this was the first time I had written a fan publication. Albator I had started to watch in November 1979 (I still have the tapes). I wrote to the C/FO and as far as I can recall, I was the first Canadian member. Craig Walker was #2 a month or two later. I had found out about the club from Don and Maggie Thompson in the Comics Buyers Guide. I was receiving tapes directly from Japan as of June 1980 I believe. Can anyone look up Gatchaman Fighter "Downfall of Count Egobossler" for me to check the date? That was as one of the first ones I got, though GE999 "Pirates at the at The Time Castle" part 2 might have predated it. Afterwards, I started to get other people contacts in Japan through my contact in Nagasaki who was a big foreign film collector. We traded for 20 years but I lost contact with him about 2000. There is so much more and so many people that came later. Marg Baskin has to have been the den mother of anime fandom when it first started up in Toronto. As well as the fanzines and APAs she edited. I have lots of them sitting here. Ann Nichols was invaluable for translations in those early days. Most translators I knew at the time were all women but their contributions seem to have been somewhat overlooked after all these years. A pity really. I started dealing with Helen McCarthy before Worldcon in 1987. I brought over tapes but we couldn't watch them as the con organizers would not allow us to use the multi system projector. So, the first major showing in the UK was watched by a handful of fans watching on a 5" TV that Mark Merlino had brought with him (I think it was part of his video recording equipment). I'll have to check the tapes I shot myself and see if there was anything on them of note. I did have the slide of the fans watching that TV but all that remains is a photo stat in black and white of that first viewing. The reason I had got involved at all was no one else was willing to go through with things like getting conversions done or dealing with people overseas. But I had been doing this for some time already via Dr. Who fandom. And...they needed help...

Lots more to reminisce but enough for today...
Thank you so much for sharing your history! I actually couldn't find that many source on Canadian anime fandom at the time, so I really appreciate what you have written.

Also, I don't know that Ann E. Nichols was a translator beside being the president of C/FO. Can you please talk more about her?

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2019 11:16 am
by davemerrill
_D_, I think I know Phil Gilliam, he was living in Tennessee and was part of the local SF scene when I got into organized fandom in the mid 1980s. I think some of my earliest anime tapes were copies of copies of copies that you probably swapped with him. As far as I know he's still doing fan stuff in the Atlanta area, but I haven't seen him in years.

It's my understanding from talking to some of the local fans that Marg Baskin had a few local C/FO meetings here in Toronto, but that didn't last long, and she eventually moved away from the city. I'm not sure where she is now, and I've never met her in person, though we do have some of her zines.

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:37 pm
by _D_
I've talked to Marg in the past few years. Yeah, I don't think she was particularly a con goer but without her continuations, a lot of stuff APA and fanzine wise would never have happened. And she was one of the first fans in the TO area I knew. Craig was up in Barrie. And the guys with Protoculture Addicts out in Quebec. Marg had a great video library but as I understand it, it got dumped when she moved to her present location. That probably was gut wrenching.

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:52 pm
by _D_
Thank you so much for sharing your history! I actually couldn't find that many source on Canadian anime fandom at the time, so I really appreciate what you have written.

Also, I don't know that Ann E. Nichols was a translator beside being the president of C/FO. Can you please talk more about her?
According to Fanta's Zine #3 Nov./Dec. 1979, in a letter from Ann she says that she is learning Japanese and makes reference to her Japanese class and her teacher as well as being able to do some limited translations from some 8 Man manga by looking up the Hiragana. So, she was doing limited fan translations even at that time. Reading these old mags brings back a lot of memories and a lot of names in animation fandom like Jerry Beck and Jim Korkis. As well as other names like August Ragone and Ed Godziszewski (of the JFFS [though that might have been later]). I don't know if there is an archive of these old zines online. They should have been in with the stuff donated by Fred Patten when he was hospitalized. It's unknown if it is available in digital form. I have more of these old publications but I'll have to dig them out...

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:04 pm
by _D_
_D_ wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:37 pm I've talked to Marg in the past few years. Yeah, I don't think she was particularly a con goer but without her contributions, a lot of stuff APA and fanzine wise would never have happened. And she was one of the first fans in the TO area I knew. Craig was up in Barrie. And the guys with Protoculture Addicts out in Quebec. Marg had a great video library but as I understand it, it got dumped when she moved to her present location. That probably was gut wrenching.
Corrected text

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:49 am
by Fireminer
_D_ wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:52 pm According to Fanta's Zine #3 Nov./Dec. 1979, in a letter from Ann she says that she is learning Japanese and makes reference to her Japanese class and her teacher as well as being able to do some limited translations from some 8 Man manga by looking up the Hiragana. So, she was doing limited fan translations even at that time. Reading these old mags brings back a lot of memories and a lot of names in animation fandom like Jerry Beck and Jim Korkis. As well as other names like August Ragone and Ed Godziszewski (of the JFFS [though that might have been later]). I don't know if there is an archive of these old zines online. They should have been in with the stuff donated by Fred Patten when he was hospitalized. It's unknown if it is available in digital form. I have more of these old publications but I'll have to dig them out...
Say,I always wonder what did August Ragone involved in in regard to Anime after his 1979 TV appearance to talk about Star Blazers? Do you have any idea?

Also, when you talked about Jim Korkis, you are talking about the Disney historian,right?

And finally, other than this forums and Reddit, where do all of the anime fans from the 1980s gather online nowadays?

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:51 am
by Fireminer
I forget to ask if Ed Godziszewski is the Godzilla expert who wrote a book about the franchise?

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:14 am
by _D_
Fireminer wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:51 am I forget to ask if Ed Godziszewski is the Godzilla expert who wrote a book about the franchise?
Probably. The JFFS stuff I got when I joined in 1980 has a lot of kaiju material in it from the first newsletter. I lost track of him and I don't remember seeing him at the 2000 Worldcon.

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:16 am
by _D_
Fireminer wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:49 am
_D_ wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:52 pm According to Fanta's Zine #3 Nov./Dec. 1979, in a letter from Ann she says that she is learning Japanese and makes reference to her Japanese class and her teacher as well as being able to do some limited translations from some 8 Man manga by looking up the Hiragana. So, she was doing limited fan translations even at that time. Reading these old mags brings back a lot of memories and a lot of names in animation fandom like Jerry Beck and Jim Korkis. As well as other names like August Ragone and Ed Godziszewski (of the JFFS [though that might have been later]). I don't know if there is an archive of these old zines online. They should have been in with the stuff donated by Fred Patten when he was hospitalized. It's unknown if it is available in digital form. I have more of these old publications but I'll have to dig them out...
Say,I always wonder what did August Ragone involved in in regard to Anime after his 1979 TV appearance to talk about Star Blazers? Do you have any idea?

Also, when you talked about Jim Korkis, you are talking about the Disney historian,right?

And finally, other than this forums and Reddit, where do all of the anime fans from the 1980s gather online nowadays?
For that, you'd have to ask him. he's online I think, so it should be easy. Yeah, if that is what Jim Korkis is up to these days. You'd have to check his columns on The Big Cartoon Database for sure...

Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2019 7:59 am
by davemerrill
By the way, recently I got into a twitter conversation about notable anime fan community personalities no longer with us, and we sort of crowd-sourced this list, which is in no particular order.

Mike Horne
Owen Hannifen
Eclare Hannifen
Derek Wakefield
Dan Baker
Jeff Thompson
Peter Fernandez
William Thomas III
Robert W. Gibson
Fred Patten
Steve Pearl
Patrick Bohnet
Toren Smith
Kevin Seymour
Vaunda Perry
Richard Moriarty
Gerald Moriarty
Carl Macek
Jason Jensen
Don Yee
Mark Steven Dmuchowski
Roy Bruce
Markalan Joplin
Gabe Khouth
Michael Lindsay
Madeleine Joan Blaustein
Dan Taraschke
Bruce Lewis