On ZOOM at this time we’re discussing those places, often secret, in science fiction and fantasy where are stored strange alien objects, or relics mythological, or books and instruments of magic, and other such items. Libraries, laboratories, warehouses, museums—what locales do you know of from SF/F literature, film and television, or comics in which things mysterious, powerful, dangerous, alien, or just plain weird are kept under lock and key?
Secret government warehouse, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
For those not participating in our ZOOM chat, today, you may still contribute by submitting your examples via this post’s “Leave a Comment” option. We welcome your input.
As we put behind us for another year the delicious indulgences of festive chocolate, we gather what rich, remnants of sculpted brown rabbits, chickens, and eggs remain in our refrigerators, place them on a snack plate next to our mouse pads, and hop to another of the club’s monthly online gatherings.
Welcome, one and all, to MonSFFA’s April 2023 e-Meeting!
We trust those of faith enjoyed a Happy Easter, or Passover, or Ramadan, all three religious holidays coinciding this year, an occurrence of only thrice per century, or roughly once every three decades.
Ice-coated tree branches snapped and fell all across the island of Montreal, blocking sidewalks, streets, damaging parked cars, and bringing down power lines.
Meanwhile, in a final, ruthless broadside, winter slammed the Montreal area in particular with a freezing blast reminiscent of 1998’s devastating ice storm, plunging well over a million Quebec households and businesses into darkness. Ice-coated, fallen tree limbs and branches littered neighbourhood streets and yards, and for many, power was out for two or three days, and for some, as many as six!
The West Island of Montreal was particularly hard hit.Hydro Quebec crews worked around the clock for days repairing damaged power infrastructure.
But the weather has been warm and sunny in the wake of all that, and so do we shun the glorious spring and huddle around our monitors once again, eager to enjoy this afternoon’s agenda of sci-fi fun!
If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 897 1464 2092
Passcode: 576970
3) MEETING AGENDA
Here is the agenda for this afternoon’s get-together:
As always, all scheduled programming is subject to change.
4)
How well do you know the SF/F screen’s aliens and creatures, and more specifically, their eggs? In honour of Easter, just passed, we offer this quiz.
With only a frame of film showing the egg, or eggs of an extraterrestrial being, or a monster, correctly identify said being and/or the film or television series episode in which it appears?
We have prepared for you a dozen eggs!
Good luck! The answers will be revealed in this e-meeting’s final post of the afternoon, which we’ll put up at 5:00PM.
Join us next Saturday, April 15, at 1:00PM, right here at www.MonSFFA.ca for our April 2023 e-Meeting!
Take part by contributing your top ten list of sci-fi books, authors, heroes or villains, cool spaceships, epic movies, TV shows, actors or actresses, comic books, artists… whatever you choose to highlight, just as long as it has to do with sci-fi or fantasy!
Simply list your favourites in ascending order, tenth to first, maybe share a few illustrative images, and in a few sentences for each entry, tell us about of your choices!
You are welcome to e-mail your top ten lists and images (JPEGS, please, as e-mail attachments) to us in advance for inclusion on the site, or present them live on ZOOM during the e-meeting next Saturday!
Send your lists, in advance of the e-meeting, to: veep@monsffa.ca
We very much thank our guest, today, Lloyd Penney, as well as Keith Braithwaite and Cathy Palmer-Lister for their contributions to today’s programme. Thanks are extended, also, to all of our supporting contributors this afternoon.
And of course, to those who joined us today, and took in our online get-together, thank you for your interest and attention, and don’t forget to leave a comment!
10) NEXT MonSFFA e-MEETING
We sincerely hope you have enjoyed your time with us these past few hours and encourage you to visit www.MonSFFA.ca regularly for additional content.
As club members are aware, our hoped-for return to in-person club meetings has, frustratingly, been hindered by lingering pandemic-related circumstances! And so do we continue our search for a viable meeting hall; we’ll keep you updated as to any progress in that regard. Nothing new to report at the moment.
Do join us next month, on Saturday, April 15, beginning at 1:00PM, right here at www.MonSFFA.ca, for another MonSFFA e-Meeting
11) SIGN-OFF
Until then, farewell and safe travels. And don’t forget to adjust your clocks—spring forward!—before bed tonight.
We offer, now, an open period of discussion, perhaps to continue a little more on last month’s topic of divesting ourselves of our SF/F book collections, or the latest fancraft projects of members; whatever strikes our fancy!
7) On ZOOM at this time, we welcome our special guest speaker, long-time Toronto SF/F fan, ’zine scribe, and now editor of the modern incarnation of Amazing Stories, Lloyd Penney! Lloyd will be speaking on Amazing Stories, the task of editing, and answering your questions.
5) The Short Story of the “Canadian Whites,” and “CanPulps”
Join us on ZOOM right now for this story:
During World War II, the Canadian government introduced the War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA), restricting trade in non-essential goods in order that, as much as possible, Canadian dollars be held in reserve within Canada to support the war effort. Among the products barred from importation were the popular American comic books and pulp magazines of the day, prompting Canadian publishers to seize an opportunity and fill suddenly empty newsstand shelves with homegrown alternatives.
Birthed during this period were a cavalcade of Canadian comic book crime-fighting adventurers and superheroes like Canada Jack, Nelvana of the Northern Lights (pre-dating Wonder Woman), Iron Man (pre-dating by more than two decades the Marvel Comics character of the same name), Captain Wonder, Cosmo, and many others.
Most notable of the science fiction and fantasy pulps resulting from this unique Canadian publishing phenomenon was Uncanny Tales, boasting not merely the reprinted stories of American and British writers, but fresh fiction penned by Canadians.
A colourful, Toronto-based middleweight-boxer-turned-scribe named Thomas P. Kelley, who fashioned himself “King of the Canadian Pulp Writers,” was the most prolific of these authors. Under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, he would, aided by his wife, Ethel, regularly pen a couple or more stories per day, some 100,000 words a week! He provided almost all of the content featured in the early issues of Uncanny Tales, but as quickly as he could turn out a story, such was the want of material that even the industrious Kelley could not meet demand.
Uncanny Tales and its contemporaries flourished but their success was short-lived, most of the magazines folding when the trade embargo was lifted after the war ended and American titles returned to newsstands. History has been kind to the Canadian superhero comic books that the WECA era spawned, not so much the pulp magazines, which were not as well regarded. Today, surviving copies of these so-called “CanPulps” are rare and greatly valued among collectors.
This afternoon, we welcome a special guest speaker, long-time Toronto SF/F fan, ’zine scribe, and now editor of the modern incarnation of Amazing Stories, Lloyd Penney! We’ll also be looking at the brief history of Canada’s wartime comic-book heroes, and this country’s homegrown SF/F pulp magazine, Uncanny Tales.
If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 875 9870 4593 Passcode: 552143
3) MEETING AGENDA
Here is the agenda for this afternoon’s get-together:
As always, all scheduled programming is subject to change.
4) PASSINGS
As noted right here on the club’s Website about a week ago, stuntman/actor Ricou Ren Browning passed away last month. He was 93. Browning donned the Gill-Man suit and performed underwater as the iconic Creature from the Black Lagoon in the enduring 1954 monster flick, reprising the role in the movie’s two sequels.
We also recently lost screen siren and movie star Raquel Welch, who came to the attention of film fans in 1966, starring in two SF/F pictures that year.
She played Cora Peterson in Fantasic Voyage, the story of a micro-miniaturized submarine and crew injected into the bloodstream of an important cold-war scientist, injured in an assassination attempt, in order to perform vital, tricky brain surgery not possible by conventional means.
As Loana of the Shell People in Hammer’s One Million Years, B.C., she wore an animal-skin bikini and scrambled about a savage landscape filled with Ray Harryhausen’s marauding stop-motion dinosaurs! A best-selling pin-up poster of her in costume is one of the most famous of the 1960s, and in all of fantasy cinema. The poster was instrumental in making of her an international sex symbol.
Raquel Welch died in Los Angeles at age 82.
Finally, February saw the passing, too, of one of Canada’s greatest thespians, Gordon Pinsent. Not usually associated with the SF/F genre, Pinsent, we will point out, did portray the U.S. president in the 1970 supercomputer-takes-over-the-world cult-classic Colossus: The Forbin Project.
This is post 2 of 7.
On ZOOM at this time we’re discussing those places, often secret, in science fiction and fantasy where are stored strange alien objects, or relics mythological, or books and instruments of magic, and other such items. Libraries, laboratories, warehouses, museums—what locales do you know of from SF/F literature, film and television, or comics in which things mysterious, powerful, dangerous, alien, or just plain weird are kept under lock and key?
