AN INTRODUCTION TO
JEFF BLEND’S SECTION:
The Weird Parade
This is a brief
introduction to some of JEFF BLEND’S weirdness.
Jeff likes to
write SB/YAMATO stories which have a macabre bent.
First off, he
adapted two old and well-known SF tales so that they featured a Yamato theme.
The first of
these, THE CONQUERED, was based upon a story by Joe l. Hensley, and has…a
strange theme to it.
The second of
these, THE UNEXPECTED GUEST, was based upon a tale by Robert Bloch. It is
pretty weird, too.
Anyway, we hope
you enjoy these weird tales, and more is to come from Jeff, who is a very good
translator from Japanese into English….
--FREDDO
JEFF BLEND’S BIOGRAPHY:
(By Jeff Blend)
To paraphrase Dickens, I was born.
Many considered this to be a good thing; some did not. At any rate, I’ve grown into a 40-something,
slightly overweight white guy with glasses and a ponytail. In other words, the classic
image of an anime geek.
Perhaps my destiny would have been different if not for the
existence of a certain cartoon that premiered on a local TV station at 3:30 in
the afternoon on Labor Day 1979. At the
impressionable age of fourteen, I could tell something was different about this
cartoon. One, it had an old World War II
battleship turned spaceship as the focal point, which was cool. Two, said ship used a “Wave Motion Gun,”
which was the most awesome weapon I’d ever seen. It not only could blow up whole continents in
one shot, it did it sporting a sound effect that resembled the braying of a
rabid horse. And three, the characters
were important to the story. The show
was one complete storyline, so the characters changed, grew and sometimes died.
And they sweated. A lot. It had all such an impact on me that I would
race home from school to catch the last five minutes of an episode. As I said - geek.
Then, a momentous event occurred - the invention of something
called a video cassette recorder, or VCR.
Now I could save copies of the show to watch and commit to memory over
and over again! In my mind, it was
better than Sandor’s “dynamic do-all” machine.
Bless Alexander Bonatief and the Ampex Company.
The rest, as they say, is history.
I’ve met many people along the way who had also developed a love for
this over-the-top animated space opera.
I’ve exchanged many letters and packages. I’ve acquired many fanzines and doujinshi
magazines. I’ve sent many emails and
swapped art pieces via this new wonderful invention called the Internet (bless
Al Gore?). And I’ve branched out into
other anime shows that I’ve come to enjoy over the years. Such favorites included Neon Genesis Evangelion; Crest/Banner of the Stars; Witch Hunter Robin; Fist of the North Star; the films of Hayao
Miyazaki; and others.
But my favorite will always be Yamato
(or Star Blazers). It was the first - the one that deflowered me
into the world of anime. The show that introduced me to this fandom that does more to drain
my wallet of cash than any addiction to crack would. It is my gift. It is my curse. With great power comes great
responsibility... sorry, the geek came through again.
To Access the Stories:
Please click on the links below…
To Read THE CONQUERED,
click here To Read THE UNEXPECTED GUEST, click here
MORE TO COME SOON!!
Click here to return to the Introduction to Visions....