pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
davemerrill
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pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

Over in Fireminer's thread about "prominent figures in early anime fandom" I mentioned that the C/FO Magazines of the early to mid 1980s might be a good place to see who was active. Here are some pages from C/FO Magazine volume 2 issue 3, published in the fall of 1983. Ann Nichols had just been elected President after Fred Patten stepped down, there are some interesting comments in the letters pages about the new look of the magazine and what exactly the focus of the C/FO should be, and there are some C/FO Chapter roundups that detail what was being shown at each chapter.
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The Chapter Screening Roundups go show by show and there are abbreviations detailing what was screened where. There are six pages of this so I haven't scanned them all, but the anime series being watched at C/FO meetings in 1983 were: Acrobunch, Amazing 3, Bannertail the Squirrel, Baxinger, Bryger, Captain Harlock, Gatchaman II, Gatchaman F, God Mars, Gold Lightan, Golion, Great Mazinger, Gundam, Kimba The White Lion, King Arthur, Go Leo (in French), Lupin III, Macross, Muteking, Patarillo, Raideen, Rainbowman, Robotan, Srungle, SSX, Star Blazers, Technovoyager, Tetsujin-28 (1980), Tetsuwan Atom (1980), Urashiman, Urusei Yatsura, Votoms, Xabungle, Yamato III, Yatodetoman, Yattaman, and Zanbot 3.

Features included Adieu GE 999, Andromeda Stories, Be Forever Yamato, Lupin III Castle Of Cagliostro, Cyborg 009 (1966), Dr Slump Great Space Adventure, Galaxy Express 999 (dubbed), Gatchaman, Harmagedon, Heavy Metal, I Am A Cat, I Go Pogo, Jungle Emperor, Phoenix 2772 in Japanese and English-dubbed, Pinocchio In Outer Space, The Secret Of N.I.M.H., Starbirds (dubbed Daimos), The Talking Parcel, and Winds Of Change.
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(I have redacted private street addresses in these images.)
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mbanu
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by mbanu »

Amazing!! The president's bio is intriguing; maybe she is the reason the University of Arizona has always had such a strong anime fandom?

It's interesting that as early as 1984 people were starting to notice that tape collectors won't join anime clubs if they don't have to, leading to the anime club crisis of today.
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

mbanu wrote: Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:38 am Amazing!! The president's bio is intriguing; maybe she is the reason the University of Arizona has always had such a strong anime fandom?

It's interesting that as early as 1984 people were starting to notice that tape collectors won't join anime clubs if they don't have to, leading to the anime club crisis of today.
I can remember meeting anime fans in my home town back in the 80s who had sizeable tape collections and would buy anime magazines, toys, model kits, etc., and yet were totally uninterested in being a part of the local anime club, or of any national anime club. I couldn't understand it myself.

Of course, I guess I'm one of those people today, I haven't been to an anime club meeting in almost twenty years. These days we do our anime fan socializing online.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Moonsaber »

The last advertisement I saw for an anime club was for a High School. Sorry, not interested.
Is there such a thing as Too Much Anime?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Moonsaber »

I missed it, but is there an archive of these magazines online? I would love to read them.
Is there such a thing as Too Much Anime?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Fireminer »

Thank you so much, davemerrill! You have no idea how much you have made my day!

Your scans give me so much information, and more importantly, several more questions. I hope that I can bother you some more with these questions bellow:

1. From the schedule and designation system, I take it that the number of anime tapes circulate inside America in the early 1980s was extremely limited? I know from previous threads that people then bought their tapes imported by travelers or specialized shops in Japantowns, so might they could not bought in bulk? What about duplicating the tapes?

2. A cursory Google search for "Doug Rice" came up with an animator who worked with Animaniacs. His LinkedIn page also states that he helped organizing WindyCon 1 in 1975 (and was it the first regional SF convention in Chicago?) Is he the same Doug Rice of C/FO Chicago who wrote to Kurt Black?

3. On the topic of Kurt Black, was he an important member of any CF/O?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

Moonsaber: There are scans of old anime fanzines here and there, but no one central source online for old anime fanzines. There ought to be, I guess. Miles (formerly of Crunchyroll) has worked with the Internet Archive and we had a little discussion this week about setting something up over there. The Internet Archive already has some issues of the EDC zine "Nova" and some A.P.A.s online.

Fireminer:
1. Tapes of anime came from many different sources. Americans would have people in Japan copy anime off TV or from rental tapes and mail the tapes to America, and those tapes would then be copied, and those copies would be copied, etc. Japanese communities in the US had video rental shops and American anime fans would rent tapes from those shops and copy them, and those copies would be copied, etc. Copying VHS tapes was (still is) a simple matter of connecting two VHS decks together. Any anime fan from the 1980s will have stories of getting five or ten VHS decks all wired together to make multiple copies at the same time. Sometimes this would go on for two or three days.

2. The C/FO Doug Rice is the same Doug Rice that went into animation, as far as I know. He wrote and drew an anime-inspired comic book in the 1980s titled "Dynamo Joe."

3. Kurt Black was a member of the Orlando chapter of the C/FO. He and his wife Jane produced this edition of the C/FO Magazine, and the issues they produced are widely regarded as the best - they had a wide talent pool of translators, writers, and artists producing excellent work.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

personal tape-copying anecdotes: I bought my first VHS deck for $350 in November of 1985. I'd bring it to the homes of other anime fans and I'd copy anime they had that I needed, and they'd copy tapes I had that they needed. I bought my second deck a year later and I'd copy anime for people who gave me blanks, or who sent me copies of anime in trade ("I'll trade you a tape of Space Battleship Yamato episodes for a tape of Project A-Ko").

Occasionally I'd pack my VCRs and tapes up and drive to visit friends in another state and we'd spend the weekend copying tapes for each other. Or we'd get a room at whatever local convention was happening and set up our VCRs and spend the weekend copying tapes. We might have a room party on Saturday night and show a movie or some TV episodes.

We would make regular trips to the local Japanese grocery store to rent tapes, most of which were copied off the TV - one tape would have an episode of Dragonball, an episode of Saint Seiya, an episode of Kamen Rider Black, and an episode of whichever sentai show was on the air at that time. Sometimes we'd find tapes with reruns of series like Gundam or Grendizer.

When laserdiscs became an option we would pool our money and buy a LD box of a series, and then everybody who contributed would get a first-generation copy on VHS. Original commercial release VHS tapes were more expensive and we didn't see as many of those, but occasionally they would crop up and we'd copy those too.

When we started attending Project A-Kon it was a chance for anime fans in the eastern part of the US to meet anime fans in the central and western parts of the US, so there were even more opportunities for fans to trade tapes and have more copying events. Fan-subtitlers would bring shows they'd completed, we'd copy those tapes, then take those copies back to our home towns and copy them again.

What I'm trying to say is that we bought a lot of VHS tape.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Fireminer »

davemerrill wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:12 am personal tape-copying anecdotes: I bought my first VHS deck for $350 in November of 1985. I'd bring it to the homes of other anime fans and I'd copy anime they had that I needed, and they'd copy tapes I had that they needed. I bought my second deck a year later and I'd copy anime for people who gave me blanks, or who sent me copies of anime in trade ("I'll trade you a tape of Space Battleship Yamato episodes for a tape of Project A-Ko").

Occasionally I'd pack my VCRs and tapes up and drive to visit friends in another state and we'd spend the weekend copying tapes for each other. Or we'd get a room at whatever local convention was happening and set up our VCRs and spend the weekend copying tapes. We might have a room party on Saturday night and show a movie or some TV episodes.

We would make regular trips to the local Japanese grocery store to rent tapes, most of which were copied off the TV - one tape would have an episode of Dragonball, an episode of Saint Seiya, an episode of Kamen Rider Black, and an episode of whichever sentai show was on the air at that time. Sometimes we'd find tapes with reruns of series like Gundam or Grendizer.

When laserdiscs became an option we would pool our money and buy a LD box of a series, and then everybody who contributed would get a first-generation copy on VHS. Original commercial release VHS tapes were more expensive and we didn't see as many of those, but occasionally they would crop up and we'd copy those too.

When we started attending Project A-Kon it was a chance for anime fans in the eastern part of the US to meet anime fans in the central and western parts of the US, so there were even more opportunities for fans to trade tapes and have more copying events. Fan-subtitlers would bring shows they'd completed, we'd copy those tapes, then take those copies back to our home towns and copy them again.

What I'm trying to say is that we bought a lot of VHS tape.
So, VHS scarcity was not an important matter, right, but how to hook up with the right person who had a show you wanted? And how bad was the tape-exchanging culture hurt after anime titles started showing up at Blockbuster or Suncoast? (Also, do you remember approximately when did these stores started carrying anime titles? Before that, how did companies like AnimEigo or Manga Entertainment distribute their tapes?)
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by DKop »

Fireminer wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:25 am

So, VHS scarcity was not an important matter, right, but how to hook up with the right person who had a show you wanted? And how bad was the tape-exchanging culture hurt after anime titles started showing up at Blockbuster or Suncoast? (Also, do you remember approximately when did these stores started carrying anime titles? Before that, how did companies like AnimEigo or Manga Entertainment distribute their tapes?)
I know with Streamline Pictures their first videos were sold to comic book stores and then later distributed through brick and mortar chains, and then landed on the rental shelves at video stores. Early Streamline tapes would have this "Property of Orion Home Video Not for Sale or Rent" text throughout certain parts of their videos since it was a decision from Orion that they wanted tapes to be sold only once and not resold/rented out. You can find that example on Megazone 23 Pt 1. I remember Macek mentioning that in the old ANNCast interview before he passed away, really interesting podcast through his perspective on video distribution during that era. I really can't say if that was the case for AnimEigo or Manga when they first started to distribute, but those rules totally changed in due time.
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