lb_lee | "Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian haunts of hell, barbarian!"

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Today is hard, but sci-fi can still be catalogued, and today I got to catalog the Eye of Argon. It feels like touching history. (And it was misshelved with the nonfiction.)

RIP Jim Theis. Sorry this is what you're most known for.

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From:

talewisefellowship

[Janusz]

I adore Eye of Argon, it makes me nostalgic for Conan-style sword and sorcery fantasy and an older era of fandom

From:

lb_lee

I feel kinship with Jim Theis, who wrote Eye of Argon when he was sixteen and apparently felt pretty crummy about it becoming a running joke in fandom. I too have written very mockable things! That said, it felt wondrous to touch an ‘80s fanzine of it, before they even found the ending!

From:

talewisefellowship

[Janusz]

Yeah I feel bad for him that his story from when he was 16 got so widely mocked and he vowed to never write again because of it. Knowing his age at the time of writing, and how it's such a product of its time, I find the story quite nostalgic and endearing actually as mentioned.

Even though I didn't exist in the 70's. Can you be nostalgic for a time period you were not there for?

From:

lb_lee

Yeah, it's a weird thing because if not for the con party game that sprouted out around it, Eye of Argon would likely never have been remembered at all. It'd just go the way of so many other things kids make, just a tumbleweed on the wind!

And sure, I don't see why not. Different eras get things associated with them, after all!

From:

storyheight

..from the wikipedia article :D even the synopsis makes me giggle;

how did he decapitate a rat in his jail cell? How it's summarized, that implies he had a bladed weapon in prison; it isn't the term i'd use for "wringing the neck of..", or anything else you could do to an attacking monster do with your bare hands.

also "a hard kick between the testicles" reminds me of the 'Dennis Moore, Highwayman' Monty Python skit ("I hardly need to shoot you RIGHT between the eyes; it's not about hitting a spot bisected by a line, I mean for my purposes anywhere in that general region will do..")

having just heard of this thing, i make the (probably obvious) connection to it being the precursor of the "Viral Meme" Photo (like, taking some Jr High School photo of a kid and using it as the emblem for Nerdiness, etc)
-kc