Victoria: "So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!""
Actually...I think this it true, though. I think PK is right. When I think of the 'main' comic-fic community, I think of CFAN, Subreality, the associated message boards of Scratching Post, Behind the Scenes, Duke-Out Board, Rant and Rave, the assorted IRC chatrooms such as subcafe, fictalk, etc, the LJ 'collectives' (for lack of a better word) of most of the members who USED to frequent said messageboards...and the Dexcon/Subcon, assorted fan-fic gatherings.
OTL is *generally* where most of the people in the above collage of places tend to post fanfic. Though there are posters on OTL who don't generally frequent said above collage of places. :)
Confusing enough? :) To the best of my recollection, and I came in about two years or so later, Hawk's fanfic archive spawned several other archives and eventually led to CFAN. Most of the people frequently those previous archives congregated to OTL, and to the CFAN community (referencing all of the above listed gaggle of places).
To the best of my memory, X-Fan didn't even HAVE messageboards when the 'CFAN community' started, and FF.net wasn't even on the radar. So I think the 'CFAN community' does tend to regard itself as the 'main' comic-fic community, because we've been around longer. That's not to say that there's not mix and match, and I'm sure there are plenty of 'CFAN' folk who post to X-Fan, and FF.net, and etc.
But when I hear 'comic-fic community', I think of CFAN. X-Fan and FF.net, and other assorted posts are an afterthought. (And personally, I've always lumped movieverse in as a subgenre of comic-fic...but I guess others don't. :) While I can't speak for everyone, I'm fairly certain most 'CFAN' people do NOT regard X-Fan or FF.net as part of the 'CFAN' community...which as I've already said, we tend to kind of think of as the 'main' comic-fic community.
No arrogance there at all! :) The only other point I have is that the 'CFAN' (and I keep using those quotations because it's not an entirely correct term. There are so many people who use/know/interact with CFAN that probably wouldn't be considered or consider themselves to be part of the 'CFAN community.') community may be slightly different from X-Fan or FF.net, in that there are QUITE a lot of 'real-life' meetings and gatherings and friendships. Most (not all, of course) of the individuals responding to Dex's journal are individuals who've meet each other in person at least once or twice. I don't think, from what I've heard, that that is true of FF.net or X-Fan. And I have no idea if that's true of folks on the big Yahoogroups lists.
I don't know if any of that is clarifying, or just more confusing. :)
Re: Quick question
Date: 2002-10-29 10:11 am (UTC)"So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!""
Actually...I think this it true, though. I think PK is right. When I think of the 'main' comic-fic community, I think of CFAN, Subreality, the associated message boards of Scratching Post, Behind the Scenes, Duke-Out Board, Rant and Rave, the assorted IRC chatrooms such as subcafe, fictalk, etc, the LJ 'collectives' (for lack of a better word) of most of the members who USED to frequent said messageboards...and the Dexcon/Subcon, assorted fan-fic gatherings.
OTL is *generally* where most of the people in the above collage of places tend to post fanfic. Though there are posters on OTL who don't generally frequent said above collage of places. :)
Confusing enough? :) To the best of my recollection, and I came in about two years or so later, Hawk's fanfic archive spawned several other archives and eventually led to CFAN. Most of the people frequently those previous archives congregated to OTL, and to the CFAN community (referencing all of the above listed gaggle of places).
To the best of my memory, X-Fan didn't even HAVE messageboards when the 'CFAN community' started, and FF.net wasn't even on the radar. So I think the 'CFAN community' does tend to regard itself as the 'main' comic-fic community, because we've been around longer. That's not to say that there's not mix and match, and I'm sure there are plenty of 'CFAN' folk who post to X-Fan, and FF.net, and etc.
But when I hear 'comic-fic community', I think of CFAN. X-Fan and FF.net, and other assorted posts are an afterthought. (And personally, I've always lumped movieverse in as a subgenre of comic-fic...but I guess others don't. :) While I can't speak for everyone, I'm fairly certain most 'CFAN' people do NOT regard X-Fan or FF.net as part of the 'CFAN' community...which as I've already said, we tend to kind of think of as the 'main' comic-fic community.
No arrogance there at all! :) The only other point I have is that the 'CFAN' (and I keep using those quotations because it's not an entirely correct term. There are so many people who use/know/interact with CFAN that probably wouldn't be considered or consider themselves to be part of the 'CFAN community.') community may be slightly different from X-Fan or FF.net, in that there are QUITE a lot of 'real-life' meetings and gatherings and friendships. Most (not all, of course) of the individuals responding to Dex's journal are individuals who've meet each other in person at least once or twice. I don't think, from what I've heard, that that is true of FF.net or X-Fan. And I have no idea if that's true of folks on the big Yahoogroups lists.
I don't know if any of that is clarifying, or just more confusing. :)
peace,
Heatherly