Editorial: Teletoon, X-Men, and the Columbia
by Michael Morbius

Kudos to Canadian cartoon channel Teletoon for having the courage tonight to show the X-Men episode “The Phoenix Saga, Part I: Sacrifice” (original airdate 5 September 1994), in which the space shuttle crashes. They could have chosen to skip that episode in case someone would be offended by its coincidental relationship to the recent Columbia disaster. Instead, they continued to show X-Men complete and in order. I appreciate that. I’ve sent them an e-mail letting them know. It may not have been necessary—I may have been the only person awake and watching cartoons at 3:30 a.m. and there may be no controversy—but in case Teletoon receives complaints I want them to have my opinion to balance it out. Then, if they do decide, based on complaints, to censor future episodes, they will at least know that not everyone in their audience consents to that.

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Editorial: Media SF Fans
by Michael Morbius

Sometimes fans of “media SF” find themselves looked down on by fans of “lit SF.”

Until now I’ve always assumed that this was just an internalization of the paradigm that “pictures are easier than words.” Therefore, the unspoken message was: “If you prefer watching a movie or a show to reading a book, you’re not smart.” And science fiction fans are supposed to be smart.

Tonight, though, I thought of a new reason while talking with my Dad. A bit of background: he’s an electrical engineer, and read a lot of SF in his youth. He’s always maintained that “hard SF”—SF that uses actual science in the story—is the only thing that can truly be called “science fiction.” Although he’s never been anti-media, he has noticed that media SF has never carried over the scientific ethic of hard literary SF. He wasn’t fannish back when he read SF; he never wrote a LOC or went to a con; he didn’t read SF in particular: he says, “I read a lot of everything.” I asked him why he doesn’t read SF anymore and he said that all the authors he liked are either dead or retired and he doesn’t feel like looking for new ones. I asked him how he found the ones he liked before and he said that he encountered their stories serialized in digests like Analog (which he read regularly) and bought their books based on that (or else he just went to the bookstore, chose a book that looked like it had an interesting premise, read some of it there, and if it was good, bought it). Among the rare media SF he liked a long time ago were Star Trek (the original series) and The Prisoner. I’d say that he believed in Gernsback’s Fallacy at some point in his life. He still has all his old paperbacks and Analogs.

So that tells you where he’s at. Even so, I was shocked when he said tonight that he thought mediafans were just interested in special effects! Of course, that’s not so. The last twenty-five years have proven that effects can’t save a bad story. I’d agree if someone said that mediafans are more interested in story than science; how could they not be when (as my Dad pointed out) there’s no “hard media SF”? You’d have to have a pretty low opinion of mediafans to think that they were just interested in special effects, though. Ouch.

My point, then, is that if there are other litfans like my Dad who actually believe that mediafans are just interested in effects, that could explain why mediafans get looked down on. For that matter, if enough litfans are hard SF fans, just the fact that media SF isn’t hard SF could make litfans believe that mediafans aren’t really SF fans at all.

(For the record, in case you’re wondering, I’m a fan of all media, including books, zines, comics, movies, and shows. I’d like to think I enjoy a good read as much as the next fan, and that if a hard SF story is well-told, there’s nothing to stop me from reading it just because I’m not particularly into science. I’d even go as far as to say that I need to read books regularly to be happy, just as I need video.)

I think I’ll do more editorials on lit vs. media and hard vs. soft SF in this space in the days to come.

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Editorial: Mundane Cosplay
by Michael Morbius

Fandom is stereotyped as fat nerds in silly costumes. In covering a con, the media usually focuses on what my friend Ryan calls “the guy who looks like Peter David in a Starfleet uniform.” Sercon fans criticize both the media and the fans for this.

But I ask you: are these fans any worse than mundanes? Think about it. How many times have you gone to Safeway and seen white trash in iridescent nylon jumpsuits? Or teenage girls with too much tan makeup and big bell-bottomed pants? Who hasn’t had a job at some point in their life that required wearing a depressing polyester uniform? Was this uniform designed by Bill Theiss? No, it was some mundane somewhere who thought that burgundy slacks and polo shirts should represent his corporation’s public image.

Face it: Sturgeon’s Law applies to fashion as much as it does to fiction.

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