Fannish Ramblings

Have you ever wanted to participate in a convention? Not just attend, but actually be a panelist, or maybe do a presentation for the children’s programming track? Or maybe there’s a killer topic you’d like to see discussed in an a panel?

Many of the conventions out there are looking for someone just like you! Programming chairs are always looking for suggestions on workshops and panel topics. And if it’s something you’d be willing to run, that’s even better! (Likewise, most gaming conventions are looking for people who would like to run a game.)

So how does this work? All you have to do is ask! Just visit the web site for your convention of choice, find the contact information for the event’s programming chair, and send them your idea.

That’s all it takes!

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:

• Starship Farragut: http://www.starshipfarragut.com/
• The Animated Episodes: http://www.farragut-animated.com/
• StarTrekAnimated: http://startrekanimated.com/

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.