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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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

I haven't been in touch with Joe Vecchio in several years. As far as I know, his musical was never produced. I believe that's his podcast, however.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

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by the way, if you want to see what a C/FO meeting looked like in 1982, check this out: https://youtu.be/jB5tvw2rFlU
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Fireminer »

davemerrill wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:09 am I haven't been in touch with Joe Vecchio in several years. As far as I know, his musical was never produced. I believe that's his podcast, however.
Well, you did appear in that podcast more than once, right?

The Kicktraq page for Joe's musical showed that his Kickstarter attempt failed. I wonder whether the play didn't get on stage because he couldn't secure the funding?
davemerrill wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:13 am by the way, if you want to see what a C/FO meeting looked like in 1982, check this out: https://youtu.be/jB5tvw2rFlU
Thank you so much! It's like looking into a time pod!

I do have some questions, though? Like back in the 1980s, did C/FO have projectors hooked to the VCR, or they just used the TV? And, you talked of Kurt Black on this threat, but were there any other C/FO members then who studied animations or went on to work in this industry?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by davemerrill »

I think I was on one of those podcasts; that was fifteen-twenty years ago. I have no idea what happened with the musical.

Video equipment used at anime club meetings was almost wholly dependent upon the meeting location. Typical locations would be meeting rooms at local libraries, which usually had a TV and a VCR on a cart. I know the Atlanta club had one meeting in the function room at a family pizza place/arcade that had a video projector.

Most clubs didn't own their own video equipment - we'd usually use whatever TVs were on site. We might bring our own VCRs and stereo systems. If there were two televisions available we'd split the signal and have one TV in the front of the room and another one in the middle, so everybody had a chance to watch.

I know personally several former C/FO members who went into the animation field, and I'm sure there are more that I don't know of.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Fireminer »

davemerrill wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:11 am I think I was on one of those podcasts; that was fifteen-twenty years ago. I have no idea what happened with the musical.

Video equipment used at anime club meetings was almost wholly dependent upon the meeting location. Typical locations would be meeting rooms at local libraries, which usually had a TV and a VCR on a cart. I know the Atlanta club had one meeting in the function room at a family pizza place/arcade that had a video projector.

Most clubs didn't own their own video equipment - we'd usually use whatever TVs were on site. We might bring our own VCRs and stereo systems. If there were two televisions available we'd split the signal and have one TV in the front of the room and another one in the middle, so everybody had a chance to watch.

I know personally several former C/FO members who went into the animation field, and I'm sure there are more that I don't know of.
Thanks! Now what I need to know more about Joe is his connection with Corn Pone Flicks--Are you by any chance familiar with the group and their involvement with anime?

One of the things that sometimes come up when I write the index is that how early did the influence of anime to Western animations go back to? Maybe those who were both C/FO members and animators held the answer?
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

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I was indeed a part of the Corn Pone Flicks group and worked on a lot of projects with them. You can see a full list of Corn Pone Flicks projects here: http://www.cornponeflicks.org/cpffilm.html

Joe appeared in two or three Corn Pone Flicks shorts, I don't know exactly how many. Generally, anyone who happened to be around when we were shooting might wind up in the background or with a speaking role. The CPF film-making group had a lot of crossover with our social circle at the time and on any given weekend we might be at somebody's home watching anime or having a cookout, at the movies, or at a convention somewhere.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by SteveH »

Is Dave familiar with Corn Pone Flicks....

I'll be over here smiling quietly to myself... ;)

OK, a further point. It's important to remember the times, and how anime got into the hands of people. Main C/Fo, Los Angeles, was a 'gatekeeper'. They did not just randomly copy tapes (my circle called it 'cloning') for people. You had to have something of value to trade, something on tape that the 'powers that be' deemed worthy for the master library, then you would have a chance to request a copy of something. I'm not sure if it was one-on-one or if just providing something gave you the bona fides that allowed unlimited access. I doubt the later. I *think* there was some kind of program where you could get access if you're starting a chapter but Dave could likely speak on that.

Anyway, this is part of what I refer to as 'California' or 'West Coast' thinking about this whole thing. There are other aspects I'll not discuss at this moment.

Contrast that with what I call 'East Coast thinking. You want a copy of something? No problem.You could send a tape, or send money or meet at a con and hook up the VCRs, One could get 'the stuff'. :) It was this way I got my copies of the C/Fo tapes of Lupin III (aka Mystery of Mamo) and Lupin III The Castle of Cagliostro. Ohhh, they were several generations down, yes they were. You can always spot an older fan who has memories of the blown out white signal hum on Mamo and the almost impossible to read subtitles on Cagliostro.

This schism, this difference in philosophy regarding content access was a problem. It was Haves and Have Nots. And all people wanted to do was watch cool Japanese cartoons. Well, until Akira and Ninja Scroll, Then it was all about seeing some animee tittays and violence. :)
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by DKop »

davemerrill wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:13 am by the way, if you want to see what a C/FO meeting looked like in 1982, check this out: https://youtu.be/jB5tvw2rFlU
Thats defineitly Fred Patten in the back during the anime watching scene. I would be surprised if he wasnt at this meet.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

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I traded tapes with some California fans and sometimes would just send blanks and return postage for copies and people seemed to be pretty open about copying anime, but this was in the 1986-87-88 time frame, a little later than the C/FO meeting shown in the video.

I do know that there were some California anime fans who charged $5 a tape to make copies, and others in California and (around the country) had a system where you would send them two blank tapes and get one back with your requests, and they'd keep the other one. I didn't do this myself, but I can see where someone who was overwhelmed with tape trading requests might want to cut down on the number of tapes they were copying without getting anything in return.

It did seem like every city circa 1987-88 had a guy who would set up a table at the local comic convention selling bootleg anime tapes. I think a lot of anime fans got their first tapes from these bootleggers. I know my first copy of the Galaxy Express movie came on a Kodak T-120 and I paid $10 for it.

What I don't know are the exact LA C/FO official tape copying policies. There must have been some sort of arrangement; somebody there was copying enough tapes to make the creation of a custom color bar test pattern worthwhile. However, being a C/FO chapter did not mean access to videotapes or copying privileges. There wasn't anybody in Los Angeles taping stuff for us in Atlanta, that's for sure.

I will say this for the San Antonio iteration of the national C/FO - they had a tape copying system in place. You'd send in blanks and return postage, somebody in San Antonio (probably Robert Gibson) would copy your request, and they'd mail it back to you.

Anime Hasshin didn't have a central service, but they did have a team of people with anime collections who volunteered to be contacts and copy anime tapes for people who'd send in blanks and return postage. I know a lot of independent anime fans who did the same thing.

Jeff Blend got volunteered to do a lot of the tape copying for the EDC, as I recall.

Most of us would much rather trade title for title. It's always more interesting to get something new to watch, even if it wasn't a title you were actively seeking, and you could put it on your list and maybe it would be interesting to somebody who had something you wanted. Eventually you'd build relationships with other tape traders and they'd copy tapes for you without trading anything, and vice versa.

And of course once we started having club meetings there were always 2 VCRs in the back of the room copying somebody's copy of something. We had decks running in our hotel rooms at conventions, if we ran something cool in the anime room somebody would have their deck wired up to it to copy the screening tape while it was playing, once we started going to Project A-Kon everybody had three or four decks going in their hotel rooms.

I do think it would be worthwhile to talk to some of the mid 1980s era anime fans from the LA or SF areas and find out what their tape trading customs were. I imagine once VCRs and blank tape got cheaper and things got less "precious," the gate-keeping got less and less -whereas in the areas of the country that weren't as exposed to anime fandom, for-profit tape copying went on for years and years. I was still seeing bootlegged VHS tapes at swap meets in Georgia in 2002 (!). We had to close down a "club" selling tapes out of their hotel room at AWA in 2000.
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Re: pages from C/FO Magazine V2 #3

Post by Fireminer »

I could really make an article out of the culture of tape exchanging in the early days, right? It just sounds so interesting to me about the conventions and customs of a time before the Internet and retailers

Say, in one of Derek Wakefield's essays, he mentioned that Yamato Con 1983 was organized by an unknown figure called "Bobb", who also had connection to Ani-Magic. Could anyone here please verify this information for me?

Also, I wonder what has Michael Lee Burgess done with anime after the period he was with CF/O Denver?

On a side note, one of Corn Pone Flicks' works is "The Christian Crusade", whose historical background makes me ask this: I do not live in the States, so could anyone here tell me about the so-called "Satanic panic" in the 1980s and 1990s and its effect on the various fandoms? I know that there was the whole thing about children being kidnapped from childcare to be sacrificed, but did this particular hoax and other urban legends being connected to the SF fandom, Furry fandom, D&D fandom, etc. or were these fans only attacked because they love something considered "Satanic" by the mass? And do you recall any effort on part of the fans to counter it? Author Michael Stackpole did write a "Pulling Report” in response to Patricia Pulling and Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, but that is the only instance I know.
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