or fans who consider the art show a high point of any SF convention, ASFA's official site offers a banquet for the eyes and imagination. All members of this artists' association have space on the ASFA site to showcase their work, and the resulting Internet gallery is packed with mind-blowing SF and fantasy images. In some cases, the artists have taken time to write about a work's inspiration: the story they were illustrating, or the general idea behind a particular creative impulse. These mini-tours of the artistic process are almost as compelling as the pictures they accompany.
Visitors unfamiliar with ASFA can, naturally, learn all about the association's structure, membership perks and services at their site. Along with working to protect artists' rights as publishing continues to be changed by electronic media, ASFA publishes a quarterly bulletin that
includes convention listings, information about the state of the field and articles specifically geared to helping newcomers break in. Another big goal is in keeping the membership connected, and to that end, the site offers discussion forums on copyright issues, community news, SF and fantasy Web sites of interest and similar topics.
ASFA also hosts the Chesley Awards, and the artworks gathered in the Chesley section of the site reflect the pinnacle of speculative illustration. Showcasing pictures by household names like Michael Whelan, Frank Kelly Freas and Kinuko Y. Craft, this site showcases the elasticity and creativity of SF artists, all the while taking visitors on one astounding visual journey after another.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—September 16, 2002
new television season is finally upon us, and along with the crop of returning favorites comes a new show that fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have dubbed a must-see. At the official site for the show Firefly, hopeful aficionados of Joss Whedon's work can see what's up with this new SF western ... before it has aired so much as a single episode!
The most exciting content on this site—at least for now—comes from its plethora of video clips, which include a short scene from an episode called "The Train Job," an advance look at some of the program's visual effects, and a quartet of short clips where Whedon talks about his plans for the
show. Other shots bring visitors behind the scenes, showing actors and crew in the process of filming an episode while discussing life on set.
Less flashy but still entertaining are sections about Firefly which outline its basic premise, describe its main characters, provide ship blueprints and offer downloadable wallpaper. A behind-the-scenes weblog keeps visitors up to date with the pace of shooting. As with the clips, the tone of these sections is cheery and informal; everything is as humorous as it is informative.
The "Joss Speaks" section also includes a brief discussion of Whedon's vision for the Firefly Web site, stating that the creative team's desire is for this site to be something more than a run-of-the-mill page for a television show. Whedon actively solicits visitors' input on how to make the
page more interactive and useful. To that end, the site already has an active and vibrant discussion forum running, with topics from whether the show will ever have a musical episode to worries that Firefly's cast is too large. Whether the site can transcend its basic need to serve as the Web face of a television program is anyone's guess. The attempt may well bring some interesting and worthwhile content to the Firefly page, though, especially once this much-anticipated program hits the airwaves.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—September 9, 2002
love of silent horror films is the animating spark that brings Cory Gross' Silent Movie Monsters to life. A source of reviews and film criticism about the earliest creatures to slouch across the silver screen, this site is a must-see for Web surfers curious about classic films like
Vampyr, the lives of silent movers and shakers such as special-effects pioneer Willis O'Brien, or the process by which films like 1927's Metropolis end up resurrected from the pop culture graveyard ... with substantial editing and modern musical soundtrack.
With a dark but tidy design and plenty of stills of classic film monsters, this Web site offers up film reviews, character studies and articles on topics from German Expressionism to vampire lore. The reviews are detailed and place the movies in their historical context, comparing the originals, when appropriate, to their source novels as well as sequels and remakes. What's more, they tend to be footnoted with off-site links to other places on the Web concerned with the same film.
Silent Movie Monsters is most emphatically not an encyclopedia. Instead of trying to cover every silent horror film in brief, it chooses a select cross-section and discusses its choices at some length. For visitors who do want a larger view of silent film, though, the site's general links page is
long, annotated, well indexed and thoroughly packed with nifty suggestions for further surfing.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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