• Blogger Priya Sridhar suggested that fanfiction can be used to analyze canon. "'Hitchups' first addresses one of the pressing issues in [How To Train Your Dragon]: female character development. The movie has two notable females: Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup's rival and love interest in Dragon Training, and the Village Elder Gothi...The movie limits Astrid's character by delegating her as the love interest who keeps Hiccup on Berk...Before, she was more concerned about competition and coming out on top in Dragon Training, and she loses that aggression after seeing Hiccup as a romantic partner...In 'Hitchups,' both Gothi and Astrid receive more notable screen time."
• The Star News Online reported on a comic book collage artist. "Fluty's artwork has...become popular at comic conventions and with comic book fans in the area." Her work began as "a gift for her boyfriend, for whom she made a desk covered in Superman images. Once the desk was complete, there were leftover pieces and images. This led to canvas-based collage images of superheroes."
• Geekosystem was one of several outlets blogging about a Wholock video. "We would’ve been way less impressed (and not a bit surprised) if the video hadn’t been much more than scenes from the two shows cut together, but Wholock‘s creator, YouTuber John Smith, really surprised us with the visual effects he pulled off. If you want to take a look at how it was made, he put together another video showing how he accomplished the effects for the mashup."
• Librarian Colleen Theisen who works with Open Doors' Fan Culture Preservation Project discussed the variety of work surrounding the materials. "I love that we're called upon to wear every hat, and to invent some as well. In Special Collections we are librarian and archivist, but that also includes curator, teacher, scholar, conservator, writer, graphic designer, data entry specialist, genealogist, PR manager, social media content creator, web designer, historian, mentor, and even grief counselor. Recently I have added .gif animator, and video director."

What have you seen done with fanworks? Write about it on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• A post on the New York Times' Learning Network discussed students confronting 'what ifs' in classwork. "In this lesson, students will discuss how they 'read' their favorite television shows in order to make predictions about what will happen, then apply these skills to speculate about what happens to literary characters after their favorite novels or plays end. Finally, they will use the inferences they gain through close reading to create imagined futures for these characters in comic strips, next chapters, letters, journals or videos."
• Fandom scholar Henry Jenkins' hosted an exploration of comics fandom in Poland on his blog. "In the 'Participatory Poland' report a group of Polish aca-fen makes a preliminary attempt towards defining the specificity of an Eastern European country’s participatory culture shaped both in the communist and post-communist periods. By placing the development of selected fan-based activities against a broader socio-historical background, we are trying to capture the interplay between the global and the local context of participatory culture, as well as take preliminary steps towards making its Polish branch available for academic research."
• Pinboard creator Maciej Cegłowski gave a presentation titled "Fan is a Tool-Using Animal" on fandom communities online and their use of bookmarks. He discussed his interest in having fans come to his site after observing their intriguing use of Del.icio.us, but due to their attachment to the site he had no luck until the site changed enough to drive fans away. He also spoke about the importance of fandom culture and its endurance over time. "Part of the reason our television sucks less than it used to is because people are more sophisticated about the way they watch them...fandom analyzes this stuff to death and deconstructs it...and this percolates back into the culture." (Audio only)
• The University of Iowa, which houses Open Doors' Fan Culture Preservation Project, released a video about the Doctor Who fanzines in their Special Collections & Archives to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary. Although there is no transcript available, the post description includes a mini guide to the collection.

What academic explorations of fandom have you come across? Write about them on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• Entertainment reporter Ken Baker has written a novel about a pop star dating a fan but in a twist it's the star who stalks the fan. His inspiration was the intimacy provided by social networking in contemporary fandom. "Fans know so much about
 their idols. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to have spoiled 
the fantasy or dampened their fanaticism. If anything, it seems to only 
fan the flames of their passion for the celebs. As they say, information 
is power, and I think fans feel empowered to know so much and become that much more interested in their favorite stars."
• Hypebot provides a different take on music fandom, but one which also looks at the role of technology. Several public relations specialists weigh in on how music fandom currently functions. "The older online music communities were ecosystems dedicated to either genres or geographic locations...Now that communities are forming around artists and personal tastes, these older characteristics of ecosystems are evolving, but some are stagnated based on the fact that complementary activities need to take place away from the community for it to evolve." One concern? Over-reliance on a particular online platform. Another is how much the artist can offer. "The artists that have thriving fan communities are generally a result of their cult of personality, not their art. Most don't have artistic output rate high enough to maintain engagement by the community, hence the need to be...more than the sum of their art."
• Tor.com recently proclaimed Babylon 5 set the bar for fandom in the 21st century. "[W]ay back at the end of the last century, one of the first sci-fi fandoms did have the internet, complete with online spoilers! That fandom was centered around Babylon 5, and though we don’t talk much about Babylon 5 now, the narrative structure of the show, in tandem with internet discussion, essentially created the model for TV fandom today." Technology played an important role: "Babylon 5 was also one of the first TV shows to market itself through grassroots internet outreach, assuming (correctly) that science fiction fans were hanging out online. This was back in the days of Genie and Usenet, but a lot early internet jargon found its footing here. For example, those who didn’t post on the forums were called “lurkers” and at one point, [Babylon 5 creator] JMS, left the forums for a time because of too much “flaming.” He triumphantly returned, of course, after a basic moderation system was sussed out. At the time, all of this stuff was brand new."
• Speaking of fannish history, the MediaWest Con blog hosted a piece on fanzine archives citing several collections including "The University of Iowa Special Collections (aka the Fanzine Archives). This is the largest media fan collection currently in place. They have jointly partnered with the Organization For Transformative Works...which helps fans donate zines, flyers, convention program guides, fanvids, audio and video recordings etc. The OTW has an active outreach program called Open Doors with a volunteer assigned to facilitate donations. The University may be able to help pay for shipping. They can also handle large collections and, if needed, may be able to help arrange for someone to box and ship the zines."

If you're a music fan, a Babylon 5 fan, or have been a fanzine contributor, why not write about it in Fanlore? Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

Fan darksnowfalling recently took a day-long field trip to visit some of the archived Kirk/Spock zines included in the Fan Culture Preservation Project (FCPP), and generously shared the experience here, on their LiveJournal.

The FCPP is a joint venture between the OTW's Open Doors project and the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa that archives and preserves fanzines and other non-digital forms of fan culture. It includes a growing number of individual collections, as well as a general OTW Collection made up of single items donated by individual fans. You can take a look at a list of holdings here, on the University of Iowa's website.

darksnowfalling's whole post is great reading, but we particularly loved the way they described the sheaf of different forms required to access the collection. One form asked for a statement of purpose:

(...) a "description of research and reason for wishing to examine the manuscripts in this department".

Here's a direct transcription of what I wrote: "I am a huge Star Trek fan; specifically, I am a fan of the idea of a romantic relationship between Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock. I'm here to read old fanzines in order to gain a better understanding of my fandom's history in the days before the Internet."

My fandom's history. That's what Open Doors and the Fan Culture Preservation Project are all about: our history, lovingly celebrated, preserved, and made available to fans near and far, now and into the future.

Photo of an archival storage box filled with fanzines.

For information about donating zines or other artifacts of fan culture to the FCPP, please contact the Open Doors committee.

Interested in more fandom history? Transformative Works and Cultures will release their special History issue in a few short days, on 15 March.