May 11th, 2008
Conventioning, verb: A term used to describe any activity related to conventions, be it attending, organizing, or otherwise participating.
Fandom already has several gazillion blogs (including this one), and several gazillion more pages on various social networks. But so far, with all the various social network sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc), there don’t seem to be any social networking sites specifically for fans. (Or if there are, nobody’s invited me!)
So I’ve created the Conventio.ning network. Although the main focus is on the world of conventions, all are welcome.
It’s very small right now, but I’m hoping it will grow over time. Please stop by, check it out, and be sure to invite your friends!
The Conventio.ning web site can be found at: http://conventio.ning.com/
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April 22nd, 2008
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April 16th, 2008
When the Starship Farragut Crew launched their series at last year’s Farpoint convention, they also announced plans to release new episodes at the rate of two per year. I was quite impressed by the boldness of their plans and even more so when they actually did it!
I had the opportunity to talk to several members of the group back in February, during this year’s Farpoint. During one such chat, someone, I think it was Michael Bednar, told me they had some big changes in the offing. About the only details I learned were that they would be doing fewer episode length productions, but making up the difference with more short subjects.
The cat is now out of the bag. Farragut Films has announced Starship Farragut-The Animated Episodes. The trailer currently displayed on the site’s home page shows a brief montage of clips from the existing live-action episodes (I recognized at least one clip from “For Want of a Nail“) and then cuts to animated clips done in the same style as the 1970s animated series done by Filmation.
No episodes yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they have up their collective sleeve.
Thanks to DaCap for passing along the news!
Links of Interest:
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April 15th, 2008
It’s not unusual for a convention to cross multiple genres — most SF conventions book a few Fantasy guests and there’s certainly no rule which says gamerooms are the sole provence of gaming cons. But every so often I still run across an event which manages to combine things I hadn’t previously considered.
A few weeks I was contacted by the organizers of Scout Con. It’s a one-day Science Fiction event in Tampa being run by the local Boy Scout council.
Science Fiction and the Boy Scouts? Well why not? A good number of SF heroes seem to live by the motto “Be Prepared.” That aside, I think it’s kind of neat that a mainstream civic group such as the Scouts would think outside the box and hold a con. When I was in scouts, anyone who watched Star Trek or read anything by Isaac Asimov or Douglas Adams was regarded as somewhat unusual; so this sounds like a promising sign for the future.
Now if only I could get the Jaycees interested in doing something like that.
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February 15th, 2008
This being an election year, we’re going to spend the next nine months being bombarded with campaign ads. This morning it occurred to me that in convention dealers rooms, we’re probably going to see an abundance of T-shirts and stickers promoting various fictional Presidential tickets (e.g. “Picard/Riker 2008: The Team for the Future” or “Spock/Data 2008: The Logical Choice.”)
Those gags go back 10 or 20 years. Wouldn’t it be great to have a candidate from a more recent show? Then it hit me. We already do. One of the main threads in the first season of Heroes had to do with Nathan Petrelli’s Congressional campaign.
I didn’t have a lot of time this morning, but I’ve put together a few quick items on CaféPress. Check out the Fanboy’s Convention List online store. Based on feedback, I’ll decide how much more to do with that.
Updated 2-17-08: Apparently CaféPress considers “Petrelli for Congress” merchandise to infringe on NBC’s intellectual property. I had hoped this would be a permitted use, but so be it. It’s not the end of the world.
In the meantime, I’ve discovered what I’m guessing is an NBC-owned “Nathan Petrelli for Congress” site at http://votepetrelli.com/. The current status of the site seems to reflect the show’s story line. And who knows? Perhaps NBC is selling some “Petrelli for Congress” merchandise.
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February 13th, 2008
Starship Farragut
When Starship Farragut released their first episode last February, their goal was to release new episodes at a rate of two per year. The first episode, “The Captaincy” premiered at the Farpoint convention, so with the 2008 edition of Farpoint approaching, it occurred to me to check whether there were any updates.
Sure enough, when I visited Farragut’s web site (http://www.starshipfarragut.com/), I was greeted with an announcement that a new episode was available for download.
“For Want of a Nail” premiered on October 13 and was released on the web (with a variety of download mirrors) on December 3. I haven’t had a chance to view the episode yet (I may have an opportunity this weekend), but the trailers make it sound quite enticing.
Starship Exeter
After downloading the new Starship Farragut episode, I decided to check the status of another fan series, Starship Exeter (http://www.starshipexeter.com/). Rather than the “all at once” approach Farragut and New Voyages use for releasing their new episodes, Exeter has been releasing individual acts of the episode as they finish the post processing.
The advantage to this strategy is that you get to see new footage a little more often. The down side of course is that when a segment ends on a dramatic note, it can be quite frustrating waiting for the next segment to be released. In the case of Exeter’s current episode, “The Tressaurian Intersection,” it was a year between the release of Act II and Act III. (As frustrating as that might be, it’s still faster than IMPS: The Relentless which is coming up on three years since the last installment was released.)
As with the Exeter episode, I haven’t had a chance to watch Act III of “The Tressaurian Intersection” yet, but I do remember Act II as a classic cliffhanger. I’m definitely looking forward to watching it, though I can’t help wondering whether I should wait for the ending piece to be released.
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February 10th, 2008
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February 3rd, 2008
Fans haven’t had much good to say about the Fox network since Firefly was canceled (likewise for the cancellation of Futurama), but I do have to give the network credit for being able to laugh at themselves (for example, the various Fox-targeted jibes on The Simpsons).
For the past several years, Fox’s Superbowl coverage has included a “robotic football player” jumping around during the breaks where they name the sponsors. The spots promoting The Sarah Connor Chronicles, featuring the football player being attacked by Terminators, definitely got my attention.
I haven’t regularly watched anything on broadcast television for a few years, but this has me intrigued. (Seeing the two commercials they ran may also have something to do with it.)
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January 14th, 2008
Due to unexpected circumstances, FenCon has undergone a change of date for this year’s event. The event will now be taking place October 3-5.
Per the convention’s web site, all of the previously announced guests will still be present and any registered attendees who are unable to attend on the new dates are requested to contact the convention committee.
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January 5th, 2008
The Farpoint Convention has a new web address — http://www.farpointcon.com/. They’ve actually had that one for a few years, but because it worked through a redirector, a lot of people didn’t know about it. And just to confuse things, Google is still redirecting people to the old hosting provider, which has out-of-date information.
So if you’re planning to attend Farpoint, make sure you check out http://www.farpointcon.com/. (Fanboy’s convention list has been using the new address since the 2003 event.)
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