kevin_standlee | Speak of the Devil

...and he appears. I was invoked this afternoon to enter a discussion about someone's unhappiness with the Semi-Prozine Hugo Category. (Update: She's hidden the post.) I concentrated on the technical issues, but I can also highly sympathize with Cheryl's unhappiness with a definition of "fanzine" that dismisses them as "squeeing about other people's fiction, or writing fanfiction based on someone else's creative property, or gushing over your favorite actor and drawing bizarre little comic strips to honor her/him."

But I can certainly see how some people would think that's all there is to a fanzine, because that's all they've ever seen. In fact, I suspect such people, if forced to read something that's actually been nominated for a Best Fanzine Hugo, would be completely bemused and probably say, "But there's almost nothing about science fiction or fantasy there!" Funny thing, fanzines.

Still, as I wrote over there, the Semiprozine category is more likely to be abolished than it is to be redefined as "fiction magazines paying more than zero, but less than SFWA-defined professional rates."