Why We Need Fan GoHs

[nemorathwald]

The countless blog entries and emails that seem to nominate the recently deceased Mike Ford for the fannish equivalent of sainthood show few signs of stopping. More tears are being shed even today. So I looked up his Wikipedia entry.

I'm interested in Klingon and chess variants. Apparently so was Mike Ford. I didn't know this until I read the Wikipedia entry on him, but he invented the Klingon chess-like game klin zha, which I was given a copy of by Klingon costumers.

I know Mike Ford was in the category of Pro, but in the time since his death alerted me to his having existed, I have read relatively few descriptions of his paid writing achievements (which were considerable) from his legion of personal friends and acquaintances. It's as if it were incidental to the force of nature that was John Milo "Mike" Ford. What he did at science fiction conventions and on internet forums immortalized him.

Despite the fact that he was Pro, not Fan, his death has provided me with another reason that the practice at ConFusion and ConClave of having a Fan Guest Of Honor is a good thing, so that more of us can find out about beloved personalities-- not just works-- before it's too late.

Comments

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

I probably shouldn't have used "SMOFfing" as a shorthand for the subgroup I'm talking about; the "fandom as fandom" label is more accurate. But my basic point stands. When you're talking about people who are known solely as fans, and they aren't there to do a specific entertainment thing like "Ask Dr. Mike" or "Iron Author," they're only of potential interest to a relatively small subgroup. (Hell, even if they are there to do a specific entertainment thing, that might only be of interest to a relatively small subgroup.)

And as I said, there's nothing wrong with that. It's arguably true of any of the other GoHs, including even the Author/Pro GoH, though you'd hope that the author/pro would have broader name recognition even among people who attend primarily for the fandom/filk/gaming/art/whatever.