An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

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!
JoeVecchio
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue May 24, 2022 1:07 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1985

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

Post by JoeVecchio »

Well, I guess I'm coming into this very late: glad to see so many of my old friends either here or mentioned here. Let me give some notes after a quick read-through.

I guess my first venture into anime fandom was as a subscriber to Michael Pinto's Star Blazers Fan Club, but I would say I officially began my jaunt as an anime fan, as some have mentioned, in the Rising Sun chapter of the C/FO. Yes, we were at Misawa Air Force Base, and while there were several other military bases in Japan that undoubtedly had anime fans, to the best of my knowledge we were the only actual club. I was not personally involved with tape trading, though I believe Revell Walker had a hand in that, you would have to ask him. I helped put together our fanzine "Snow Job". We were really not much different than any other anime fan club, except that yes, we very likely had much more access to tapes and other paraphernalia than any club in the states. I myself had lots of shows recorded directly off the TV on my Beta machine, unfortunately financial troubles forced me to sell them off many years ago.

After Rising Sun, I helped found the Japanese Animation Club of Orlando (JACO), where we showed anime and created Project JACO, an excellent newsletter. This is also where JACOSub came in: the software was written by Alex Matulich, who also deserves a name on your list. This was in the early nineties, say 1992-93, I'm bad with dates. Yes there was a C/FO Chapter prior to JACO in Orlando: C/FO² (for Cartoon/Fantasy Organization Central Florida Operations), that was run by Kurt Black and Jane MacQuire (sp), who produced the national C/FO newsletter. Their feud with Randall Stukkey was legendary. They too should be mentioned.

After I moved to Atlanta I joined Anime X and yes, I was part of the team that created Anime Weekend Atlanta. Dave was the true spirit behind the con, I played a part as "Minister of Propaganda" and did the typesetting on the first four program guides, it was mainly Dave and myself who put it together. We could not have done it without Lloyd Carter, who did all of the dirty work that needed to be done. I would also add Matt Buffington, who was in charge of the dealers, and Stan Dahlin, who played an important role later as (I believe) head of guest relations.

I moved to Chicago where I was most recently on staff at Anime Central, until the pandemic shut it down.

Another name that should be added is Kevin Lillard, who attended his first anime con in 1997, and his website "A Fan's View" was one of the tops of its time. I've probably forgotten a few names here, if the conversation continues I might remember them.

At present, several of us get together to talk over old and new times on our Discord Server https://discord.gg/dvMttdW8Mg, Steve Bennett is a frequent chatter, there's also Revell Walker and Kevin Lillard and Walter Amos, to name a few. We meet every Thursday evenings at 10pm EST (7pm PST). I know it's late for the east coasters but everyone was coming in late anyway!

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Post Reply