Zine: Scotch Doubles.
I bought Scotch Doubles: A Professionals & Champions '/' Zine second-hand (it was first published in 1993) in September, knowing nothing about it beyond the title. I have now finished it, and am not terribly likely to keep it. But, before I get rid of it, can anyone who has seen this - or perhaps Champions, the other half of the crossover - tell
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I am the same with crossovers. I don't even know the other big shows that often seem to get crossed with Pros - Man from UNCLE and Starsky and Hutch. In fact, most of what I know about those comes of trying to read Pros crossovers involving them.
I have nothing against campy 60s shows: I still have fond memories of the repeats of The Avengers, for example. I just don't have any patience to sit down and watch them all. But I'm delighted it's given you something to investigate!
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I'm afraid I do have to admit to owning this zine but never actually opening it. I think I was put off when - having bought the zine in the Nattercon auction - I subsequently found out that it was my mate probodie who had put it in the auction in the first place and who then said to me "If I'd known you'd wanted it you could have had it for nothing. But I don't think you'll like it much..."
Having read your post I somehow think she was right! *g*
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If you have time to glance through it, it'd be great to see whether you think I am being unduly harsh. I am aware that this is not the most positive review that I have ever written. But I did try to be fair!
Or whether I do genuinely lack either a sense of humour or some all-important context.
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I don't know The Champions at all, but I do wonder if the author had actually watched Pros (I gather not all Pros writers have, which just makes me wince in most cases, though The Hag seems to have pulled it off - it probably helps to be a Brit if you've never seen the show, mind, and I strongly suspect that "Ty and Paige" aren't... *g*)
I was going to say that I wonder what the point is of giving two canon-based characters a set of powers that would completely change them, and what they could do, but I suppose we're venturing into AU territory, which has its own place... It should be interesting to see how characters would cope in a completely different/overwhelming situation - but I think the key thing there is that they'd remain ( ... )
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That's a good point about AUs. But this doesn't read like an AU at all. On the other hand, it doesn't read like 'real' CI5 at all, either.
It should be interesting to see how characters would cope in a completely different/overwhelming situation - but I think the key thing there is that they'd remain themselves despite the external changes, we'd see the kernel of who they are - okay, there was one quote I considered using which is exactly about their reaction to seeing other people's superpowers, and now I can't find it. (As I said, there is a lot to wade through.) But I was fairly unconvinced.
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Both The Champions and Pros are Berman/Spooner/Clemens productions, so I can see the logic in combining them - though in every other way they are entirely different universes - the former is pure superhero comic-book style fantasy which exists in a sort of Avengers (the TV one not the comic book) universe, while Pros was deliberately gritty, modern and 'taking plots from the headlines'.
I love both series (and must go and hunt up some Richard/Craig slash, now that you remind me), but this zine sounds like a mess.
I will never understand people writing shows which they've never seen or books they've never read.
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I like crossovers but the writing style of this doesn't sound like something I could cope with - and it sounds like the kind of humour people come up with when they're drunk and the world is hazy and funny...
I have never seen a hot tub at Connotations but the new hotel may have jacuzzis or saunas for all I know. One of our neighbours has a hot tub - used to rent them out and sell them in fact. We're intending to have one in Portugal. I have never heard of them leading to fic of any kind but maybe if the bathers were drunk - see above...
I sometimes get the impression that some writers of the earlier zines lacked access to good betas.
I think this review just strengthens my resistance to buying zines. You have so little idea what you are getting! And at the srot of costs involved that kind of gamble isn't for me!
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The editor who took my first published story was, I have to admit, barely literate :(
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"I think this review just strengthens my resistance to buying zines. You have so little idea what you are getting!" - Oh no! Don't say that! There are some *excellent* zines, and I was lucky enough to find some of them early on. The thing is that those are the ones it is easier to find reviews for - perhaps because people are happier to praise than to criticise? It was seeing positive reviews of Kitty Fisher's Paper Flowers - specifically, this review - which spurred me to take the plunge and buy it as my first zine.
Part of the reason I wrote this is because this is what I would have liked to have known before buying it. If someone else sees it available then at least they have a chance of finding out something about it. As for the costs involved: I got this for $10 plus postage across the Atlantic - but... butbutbutbut... I bought two at the same time, and the seller managed to squash them both into the same envelope. The postage was far far less than what I paid ( ... )
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Since I was finally able to post my entry for the DiaLJ Christmas challenge, I have a few moments before I keep over in exhaustion to comment - if LJ allows. *sigh*
I would like to know: what am I missing? Is it simply that my sense of humour is very different? Or non-existent....But anyway, is this zine a product of its time and place? Is this the sort of thing that comes out of hot tubs? (Do all conventions have hot tubs? (*books for Connotations immediately*) Or of Media West?Where to start ( ... )
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However, MW began as a GEN con - I lived in Lansing during the time it first began - and for many of it's early years MW was actively uncomfortable with an open slash presence, though slash fans have always attended as I said. Even today, vids are segregated by type with GEN vids shown earlier, followed by HET vids, then slash vids late at night. I don't think that's changed recently has it?
Regardless, MW was, and remains, an important fannish con and one that I know many, many fen value highly. I've always appreciated that it is very zine friendly and so many zines times their release to premiere at MW. I hope that attendance picks up - I don't want cons to disappear and we've lost so many in recent years!
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