Medium Rare

Ruthless Culture’s Jonathan McCalmont tweeted a link to the FAAn Award winners chastising them for not being available on the internet —

The 2014 FAAn Awards http://bit.ly/1q5Xxnf  None of the winners are available online. Oh Fanzine fandom… you are hopeless!

I thought that must be wrong based on what I remembered from a year ago, but what he says is absolutely true. Two of 2014’s winning zines – Banana Wings and Flag — never have digital issues. A third, Trapdoor #30, may get added to eFanzines sometime but hasn’t been yet.

Last year’s crop of winning zines were better represented online, with two of the three available on eFanzines —

2013 FAAns

Best Genzine: Chunga, ed. by Andy Hooper, Randy Byers, and carl juarez
Best Personal Fanzine: A Meara for Observers, ed. Mike Meara
Best Single Issue: Trapdoor #29, ed. by Robert Lichtman

13 thoughts on “Medium Rare

  1. “Two of 2014’s winning zines – Banana Wings and Flag – never have digital issues” appears to be untrue. http://efanzines.com/BananaWings/index.htm says, “… since issue 51 (November 2012), it has also been available in a variety of digital versions … Copies are available from the editors, and you would deduce correctly that there are reasons for the digital versions not being directly downloadable here.”

  2. And plenty of fans and fanzines that were also-rans are available on-line. It just happens that Banana Wings has been reluctant to make itself avialable digitally, and Trapdoor even more so. They represent an extreme of fanzine fan-opinion on the matter.

  3. I probably should have mentioned John Hertz as another case of extreme 20th. century-itis, who won’t even reveal his email address, lest someone try to contact him or contribute to his fanzine without the sacred medium of the USPD. I don’t even know if he reads the File 7770 blog. The irony is that John works in the computer industry. Do you suppose he knows something the rest of us don’t?

  4. Individual issues of TRAP DOOR go online *after* the next print issue is published. There are nine back issues that McCalmont could read while he’s waiting. Or he could send me $5 (to address in colophon of the most recent online issues) for his very own paper copy.

  5. Morris Keesan is correct about John Hertz’s profession. Taral is right about John’s refusal to communicate by e-mail even when, as in the last two DUFF races, it would have greatly facilitated matters for him to do so. He *does* have an e-mail address, he told me once, but declines to use it for fannish communication. (And I understand he’s denied having that address. Go figure.)

  6. A further thought. McCalmont wrote:

    “Last year’s crop of winning zines were better represented online, with two of the three available on eFanzines –” and cites TRAP DOOR #29 as one of them. That’s true *now*, but it wasn’t at the time last year’s awards were made. It got added in late December 2013 or early January 2014, after I mailed out TRAP DOOR #30.

  7. I believe that Andy Hooper announced at the recent Corflu that he will be posting future issues of FLAG online at Bill Burn’s site, efanzines.com. And, for what it’s worth, I believe Steve Stiles has a website where his art and writing is readily available, as well.

  8. Not only do I have a web site, but I’ve also, as of a few weeks ago, started two blogs, one on Google+ and the other on Tumblr. This guy didn’t do his homework.

  9. Small point, but Harry Bell’s artwork that won as Best Fanzine Cover is on eFanzines (Inca 9).

  10. Steve, might be a good idea to post links here to your two blogs.

    Dan, I didn’t watch all of the Ustream from Richmond so didn’t hear Andy say he’d be posting FLAG on efanzines. I certainly approve, though!

  11. Robert: I wrote “Last year’s crop of winning zines were better represented online, with two of the three available on eFanzines –” not McCalmont. If you’re happy delaying the appearance of your zine online for up to a year, then be happy. Just stop nitpicking and flyspecking as if you didn’t get the point of his comment about the unavailability online of what fanzine fandom holds up as prime examples.

    I’m certainly impressed by the contradiction of being asked to use my internet platform to canvass for voters — as I am every year — then watching the awards go to zines nobody on the internet has access to read. It is foolish for me to continue believing the FAAns represent an effort to give fanzines a higher and more inviting profile.

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