High Quality
Open the downloaded document, and select print from the file menu (PDF reader required).
I thought the cover andits artist deserved a few wordsof appreciation, and that theeditors of
Exhibtion Hall
could beimposed upon to publish them.Although I take full credit(or blame) for the Photoshopcolouring, the artist who drew“Modern Times” was Joshua W.Kennedy. Josh is a furry artistwith a love/hate relationshipto the subject, who lives asomewhat hermit-like existencein Virginia. I think I may be oneof the few people in fandom – any fandom – to have methim. We’ve been friendly for agreat many years, and have beenfrequent parnters in art-crime.A couple of years ago, Josh was going to have a comicbook published. Unfortunately,monopolistic practises of theonly major distributor of comicsput an end to that foolishness.Worse, the publisher hadalready persuaded me to writea glowing introduction whichwould subsequently never beused.Josh has a thing about myhis narrative for its expression,and bounces right along.When I came to the page223 of “Zandar’s Saga” I foundthe medieval heroine had beenkidnapped from her Poe-ian self-immolation in a wall, stuffed intougly and uncomfortable Victoriangarb, and nally whisked awayinto a steampunk city that shenever imagined could ever exist.What else could she say, but“Eela!” – which is some sort of pseudo Anglo-Saxon for “HolyShit.” Or possibly a misspellingof “Eilah” which is a misspellingof pseudo-French that I originallyborrowed from Walt Kelly.From the moment Isaw page 223, I knew it hadto be coloured. Josh does fewbeauty shots like this one, andonly rarely colours anything, soI took it upon myself to do thehonours. I knew how it had tobe done, almost down to the lastsooty brick. What I didn’t knowwas how long it would take. Bysticking by it, doing a little morework every few days, I eventuallysurprised myself by nishing.skunk characters. Also my deer characters. And oneor two other things over the years that he found tooirresistable to leave where he found them. For a whileit was enough to simply draw pages and pages andpages of skunks in lascivious poses, crediting them as“inspired” by Taral Wayne. Then, Josh went far beyondthat by inventing his own cartoon character, Zandar.She was a walk-on character in his own work at rst.Next, the star in a couple of short stories. Then,without warning, Josh began an epic saga about Zandarthat has run for around 250 pages, so far, and showsno sign of ending as long as he can nd patrons. He isbecoming the Charles Dickens of furry fandom.I like Josh’s story-telling. Okay… the plotsometime bogs down a bit while Zandar is put throughher sexual paces. Wild, unrestrained, energetic sex.This tedium rarely lasts more than three or four pages.Often less, thankfully. Then it’s back to mirth, magic,tragedy and mayhem – the good stuff. His art matchesMyself, I’m not partial to steampunk. I cantake it or leave it. Given the Victorian architectureand costumes, though, a steampunk fanzine seemed tobe the natural place to submit the art. That gave metwo alternatives –
Exhibition Hall
or
Journey Planet
. Bysome arrangement I remain happily ignorant of, bothzines have more or less the same editors, and theysuggested
Exhibition Hall
. It was a fairly simple matterin Photoshop to expand the speech balloon to make itlarge enough for the longer title. And there you have it;the story behind this issue’s cover. Don’t you wish youhad skipped right to the editorial?And, when you have read the rest of this issue,you might consider reading “Zandar’s Saga” from thebeginning. Including, of course, this cover in its originalblack and white glory.
The beginning
Page 223
exhibition hall the thirteenth
chris garcia - editor, james bacon - london bureau chief ariane wolfe - fashion editor, mary kingsley - ‘zine naturalist
I’ve been busy. Work, taking The Little Oneto her Roller Derby practices, running around thecountry for conventions, writing, making strange foodconcoctions, it’s across the board. Luckily, there aregood folks out there who have more time and areputting out great stuff.Including movies.There’s Steampunk: The Movie. I’m interestedto see where it goes. There’ve been a lot of attemptsat Steampunk lms that have just fallen at. This onedoes have the advantage of having an ‘Honest-to-God’bareknuckle boxer among the characters. You can seethe trailer athttp://steampunkmovie.com/. There’s nottoo much there, but you’ll get a taste with the trailer.Luc Besson, whose forays into science ctiongave us Subway and the amazing Fifth Element, hasmade The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, an adaptation of a Belgian graphic novel. I’venot seen it yet, though the trailer is awesome. It’s aninteresting point that a number of the best Steampunk movies have been French. The City of Lost Childrensprings to mind (directed by the Amazing Jean-Pierre Jeunet who recently did Mic-Macs) and various shortsthat’ve been around the festival circuit. Besson, one of my favorites, has gotten good reviews for the lm andI’m pretty sure we’ll get it in Art House release in theUS shortly.Ahnectha is a Turkis short lm directed by CanEren. It’s a good one, though I’ve not been able to ndit available for home purchase yet. I saw it and I thoughtit was really good. Turkish lm takes some getting usedsee it. There ain’t no Victoriana in that one!I was at ReConstruction, the NASFiC (NorthAmerican Science Fiction Convention) last month andit was a good time. It was much smaller than I hadhoped, but the Fanzine Lounge ran well and the scenewas a blast. London Bureau Chief James Bacon wasthere and hosted a grand party for the 2014 LondonWorldCon bid. I loved that party. Also excellent wasMary Robinette Kowal’s party for the release of herrst novel. She’s good people and the party’s themewas Regency, which is always fun. Our Pal John Hertz,famous for bringing Regency Dancing to science ctionconventions, was there dressed splendidly as usual. Theparty wasn’t quite at the level of the famous releaseparty for Gail Carriger’s Soulless at World Fantasylast year, but it was a great time. I also got to meetand chat with the magnicent Emmett Davenport of the Clockwork Cabaret. She’s a blast and I hope thatwe can get her out for the Nova Albion convention inMarch! Maybe the Exhibition Hall scholarship fund willhave to come into play!What’s this issue got? Well, you’re going to getto read about the new Cheri Priest book, Clementine,and Diana Vick’s been kind enough to get us a previewof SteamCon II, where a bunch of the folks who arerelated to this here zine will be in November. We’vegot James Bacon on various things, Taral Wayne gave usthe business up-front and there’s on and on! We’ll alsobe looking at a couple of comics that caught my eye!Alright, let’s do it!to, and this has many of thehallmarks of great Turkishcinema, including the rareuse of dialogue.I disliked 9, though Idid enjoy the short lm thatthey made before the feature.I was most impressed withconcept, but didn’t like howit came together. It’s was anexcellent example of whatthe steampunk aestheticcan be used in fantasyscience ction instead of thetraditional ways in which we
commentary? complaints? co-signing loans? journeyplanet@gmail.com
Add a Comment