Of general interest:

• Less than thirty days remaining to make nominations for the 2006 Daria Excellence in Fandom awards. Fans can nominate three people, including ones not on the list in the linked post. Send your nominations to:
  
  • CINCGREEN at “cincgreen[at]yahoo[dot]com”
  • Frank Sinisterra at “dr.sinisterra[at]gmail[dot]com”
  Nominations will be accepted until midnight, 20 August, 2006.

New and updated fan fiction since July 13 at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Angelboy added a new section to “Diary Entries.”
• Professor posted “Going APE,” a complete ficlet.
• cyke posted part 1 and part 2 of “Ted's Coma.”
• The Ranting Klown posted chapter 6 of “North and South.”
• Roentgen continues his mass cross-posting of “Legion of Lawndale Heroes.”
• The Angst Guy posted a link to the latest version of “Scarlett.”
• Erin M. posted a complete Kim Possible ‘QuickFic’ entitled “The Dare.”∗
• Erin M. also added chapter 6 to “Kim Possible: Timebreaker.”∗
• Ranger Thorne has posted the finale of his Daria/Teen Titans crossover, “The Gem and the Sword.”
• Decelaraptor started a new serial called “Revenge: Best Served Cold—With a Schmear,” and is up to part 5.
• Angelboy has posted part 8 of “Embers.”
• Richard Lobinske posted “I Meant to Do That,” a complete ficlet.∗
• Richard Lobinske also started “Falling Into College 48: Dividing Spiral.”

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

New and updated fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Dervish posted “Another Day in a Quiet Mountain Town,” a ‘Daria’/‘South Park’ crossover.
• Psychtol started “An Accident.”
• In the hidden section, Angelboy is up to chapter 5 of “Repression and Repercussions.”

New and updated fan art at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• MDetector5 posted a link to a cartoon featuring Quinn.
• Robin Sena is on a tear, posting:
  
  • a boxcover of a fictious NeoGeo version of ‘Daria's Inferno’
  • a vision of judgment titled “Goats Go to Hell”
  • a takeoff on the cover of the Beatles' Abbey Road, “Fashion Road”
  • a ‘Star Wars’/‘Daria’ crossover, “Dar(ia) Wars.”

Fan art: Isa Yo-Jo's non-seasonal Daria and Jane drawing. Click for full-size image:

This is the second year in a row that the EIF will be awarded by the Daria Fandom Blog. (Not very many votes last year, but that will not stop us from soldiering on.)

Looking at the post for EIF nominees of 2005, I am surprised that we are in our ninth year of "Daria" fandom, and we are less than one year away from the 10th Anniversary of Episode 101 of "Daria", "Esteemesters" (air date: March 3rd, 1997).

However, despite lasting for almost ten years, Daria fans still have big problems in getting it together. Many attempts have been made to have a large convention of "Daria" fans. What would count as "large" would be a matter of dispute, but I would have to say you would need at least twelve people and three BNFs. Frankly, I'm just glad the fandom exists in any form. That might depend on whether or not "Daria" has any television outlets -- the day "Daria" episodes go off the air is a day the fandom is in danger. On the other hand, if "Daria" fans ever get their episodes on DVD -- and I see that as more likely than a fan convention, no matter how much I want such a convention to take place -- then the fandom will have dodged the bullet. As long as DVD episodes exists, then "Daria" can never die.

On this year's list, you will recognize fewer unfamiliar names. We are moving away from the alt.tv.daria-based fandom and towards an Internet messageboard based fandom, and you should sense the shift by looking at nominee names. At worst, only two or three of the names should leave you scratching your heads. As nominator-in-chief, the goal was to create a nominee list which gives great emphasis on seniority in this fandom.

So if you're pissed that you didn't make the list, then a) these people have been around longer than you, wait your turn, and b) someone didn't make a case that you should be nominated. In either case, not my fault.

A bone of contention among some fans was that I was the "decider" -- no input was asked for in drawing up the following list. This is as it is for a number of reasons. First, you have to get the veterans out of the way before opening the floor, else they'll be forgotten. Second, after the veterans have been considered -- my list has about 20 names on it right now -- the floor will be opened. Third, you can write a letter pleading someone's case (I'll post it on the blog, my address is cincgreen@yahoo.com), and you ALWAYS have the power to use your three votes to vote for people not on the list.

Another might ask, "why are some people on the list? Don't you have a feud with X"? I might have or have had a feud with "X" in the past, but this is an honor to recognize achievement and importance. I recognize that some people have made contributions that warrant recognition in the eyes of many people. My opinion regarding these contributions is, to quote an old "Daria" fan, "as important as all-f***".

You will also see that some people are "repeat nominees". These were people who earned enough votes to be considered in 2006, but not enough to win in 2005.

Now, I'll repeat the old part of this post:

Currently, this list has ten names on it.

Every Daria fan can vote for THREE of the names on the list. You may not combine votes, saying that you intend to give two votes to nominee A and one vote to nominee B. Each vote must be for a different person.

Furthermore, the nominees are just that -- nominees. They are only suggestions, after all. You can vote for people who are NOT on the nominees list, if you feel that some other fan is so deserving of recognition that special consideration should be made. For example, instead of voting for three people on the nominations list, you could vote for three other Daria fans.

And you can vote for ANYBODY. The person you're voting for doesn't have to own a website, or be a writer, or an artist, or anything. They can simply be person you enjoy reading on the message boards, perhaps someone you've met in real life, or someone who personally means a lot to you. Maybe a fan who lent a hand, or who is a voice who listens. Someone who represents the best of what Daria fandom has to offer.

There are only three groups of people excluded from nomination:

1) my wife and I, for obvious reasons
2) people who have no connection to Daria fandom, and
3) people involved with the creation/production of the television series - thus people like Glenn Eichler and Wendy Hoopes would be ineligible for an award recognizing Daria fans.

Votes for the above would be considered "null" votes.

There is no material or financial prize awarded. The only prize rewarded is simply recognition of the fact that in some way, these people were very important to Daria fans and that in some way, that importance deserves a bow of the head in respect.


1. Mike Quinn

Mike Quinn is a member of "Daria" fandom from its earliest days. For five years, Mr. Quinn wrote the famous "Mike's Delayed Reaction Reviews", where he reviews and comments on each of the 67 Daria episodes -- it's a lot of text and a lot of work, and the complete archive can be found on Outpost Daria. The reviews stirred up a lot of debate in Daria fandom, but most fans eagerly awaited the publishing of a review after an episode.
(Mike Quinn was a 2005 EIF nominee.)

2. Martin J. Pollard

When Planet Daria and alt.lawndale.com went down, there was an outcry among the fandom. Where would the fan fiction and transcripts of Daria episodes be stored? As it turned out, they would end up on Outpost Daria, the fifth major Daria fan site which is still more or less the first stop where you go to find Daria information.

Most of the fan fiction on Outpost Daria is quite literally irreplaceable. Many of these fan works are from 1997 and 1998, from the older Daria fan sites. These early fans have stopped writing but their fiction lives on at Outpost Daria. All the transcripts from the Planet Daria site can be found there, as well as a large collection of essays and archived news.

In addition, Mr. Pollard used to run a message board (The Outpost Daria Message Board). The board no longer exists (it did run before 2000), but Mr. Pollard directed the former message traffic to the Paperpusher Message Board, which is now the primary Daria message board. He also posted/posts on USENET and frequented the #daria+ channel. (Martin J. Pollard was a 2005 EIF nominee.)

3. "The Paperpusher"

"The Paperpusher" (first name Rich) has been a Daria fan since at least 1998. And, like many Daria fans, created his own site with fan fiction, news, and a message board.

The scorched remnants of the first Paperpusher Site can be found here . As the message boards in Daria fan history went up, and then went down, they were first directed to the Outpost Daria Message Board, and finally, the message board at Paperpusher's site, which would later be referred to as the PPMB.

Rich paid for the message board for a long time, providing a great benefit to Daria fandom. However, he came to turn the actual operation of the board over to other Daria fans, and in 2005, the actual possession of the board was turned over to Kara Wild. Rich is involved in academic studies now and is no longer active in Daria fandom. ("The Paperpusher" was a 2005 EIF nominee.)

4. (Father) Martin Sylvester

Since there are two well-known "Martin"s in Daria fandom, the other Martin of the two is sometimes called "Father Martin" or "the Padre". He's called "Father Martin" as he is a Catholic priest in England.

A Daria fan since at least 1998, the "Irony Maiden" website has been up since at least 1999. The site has a different purpose than most Daria fan based sites -- the purpose is to keep up with the show outside the United States, to follow on which channels in which nations one can find "Daria".

In addition, one can find information about some of the earliest "Dariacons", which are "mini-collections", gatherings of a few fans here and there around the world to meet and discuss Daria. Father Martin has himself travelled to the United States and met many Daria fans in person, and has been nothing less than a gracious spirit. (Martin Sylvester was a 2005 EIF nominee.)

5. Chris Smith ("Reese Kaine")

Chris Smith has been in Daria fandom since the days of alt.tv.daria. From a write-up by Thea-Zara, modified by myself:

"Another of the early fans, he ran a site located here with the famous "Daria Sounds Archive" (also at here by Web Archive), the LHWF, and his 'Kain' series of fanfics. Chris Smith started #daria+ on Dalnet, and was/is a regular in Daria chat in both IRC and AIM. He's still active in the community working on both fics and on creating Daria characters with many different 'create a character' video game systems.

Mr. Smith has been a consistent member of fandom since the beginning and has added a quirky sense of humor and some much needed levity to our community."

6. Chad Page

A fan of long standing, Chad Page spends most of his time now at the most recent incarnation of the #daria + channel, located at sorcery.net. He contributed to
alt.tv.daria and as a writer for Kara Wild’s series, "Abruptly Amy", and he
formerly served as a moderator of the Paperpusher Message Board.

Even though most of Mr. Page's contributions to fan fiction have been as a beta reader, he is generally known as a major supporter of Daria fandom since its
beginning.

7. Janet Neilson ("Canadibrit")

Better known to Daria fandom as "Canadibrit", Janet Neilson has been a longtime message board poster, fan fiction writer, reviewer of fan fiction, essayist, and web master.

In particular, her website called "I Am Not Daria" was considered to be at one time the first stop for any serious Daria fan. (The scorched remnants of the second version of the site can be found here .

In addition to her presence on all of the versions of #daria on IRC, Neilson is best known for "The Look Alike Series", a long running alternate-universe fan fiction serial of Daria and her look-alike sister, Lynn. The series has over fifty parts and more new parts are being produced.

8. Damon Domjan ("Orca")

Also known as "Orca", Domjan opened "Damon’s Half-Assed Daria Shrine" in 1999 as a response to the closing of the "Daria Sounds Archive" page. In three months, the site was renamed "The Sounds of Cynicism" and would soon be given a home here . The site opened in 1999 and was closed on May 11, 2000 due to copywright infringement.

According to Mr. Domjan,

"At the time of closure, 2,500 screen captures, 1,100 sounds, and 41 full episodes at a variety of bitrates representing approximately 1.4 gigabytes of data were available. Every day 300 Daria fans pummeled the servers with 11,000 hits and 1000 page views, representing a staggering 2.5 to 3 gigabytes of bandwidth, and traffic was still going up at the time of closure. *sniff* We'll miss you SOC..."

From 1999 to 2003, he was a presence on the IRC #daria+ channel and kept the stats for the channel here .

Mr. Domjan is no longer active in Daria fandom.

9. Steven Galloway

Steven Galloway, a Daria fan of long standing, has several accomplishments to his name.

He is the writer of the "Spotlights", very popular summaries of noteworthy Daria fan fiction writers. Mr. Galloway would choose a fan fiction author to spotlight approximately once a month; seventeen of these spotlights can be seen here . Unfortunately, all of the spotlights were posted on Daria message boards, and most of them are lost.

In addition, he is the author of "Revelations" and "Visitations", perhaps the longest Daria fan fiction series ever written, regarding Daria and Quinn's heretofore unknown older brother. He is a moderator at the Paperpusher Message Board, an early contributor to alt.tv.daria and remains active in Daria fandom.

He was also the creator of a floorplan for the Morgendorffer home, based on his viewings of the episodes.

10. Kara Wild

A fan of "Daria" since its earliest viewings, Kara Wild has several noteworthy fan accomplishments to her name.

She is probably best known for the "Driven Wild" continuum, an alternate universe diverging from standard "Daria" reality and noteworthy for its take on Helen and Jake's relationship. Other fans might know her for her creation of the "Abruptly Amy" website and series of stories (by herself and other writers) detailing a wild take on the concept of a series based on Aunt Amy, and mocking the standard conventions of broadcast television.

It is hard to find a field in which Kara Wild has not made her mark. She is the webhost of the "Contrarian’s Corner" website located here . She is also a noteworthy essayist. And her most current and prominent contribution is as the new owner and manager of the Paperpusher Message Board.

......

In order to cast a vote, please send your votes to either:

a) me at cincgreen 'at' yahoo 'dot' com
b) Frank Sinisterra at dr.sinisterra 'at' gmail 'dot' com.

You can even vote for persons not on the list. The deadline for voting is the midnight of August 20th, 2006.

At the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Roentgen posted an image of a Daria character in a stock car race. (I think it's a stock car race—please correct me if I'm wrong.) From the list of sponsors and line of dialogue, I'd judge it to be Stacy Rowe, although it might be another member of the Fashion Club, bar Tiffany (“Would an Indy car make me look fat?”)
• Other contributors to Roentgen's Daria in other cartoons thread: Kristen Bealer, Scissors MacGillicutty, (who also contributed an image of Daria in a movie) S.C., (of whom more below) Scissors MacGillicutty again in a followup to one of S.C.'s images, and Ranchoth, (based on this image from Evangelion)
• Wouter added links to new pages from his graphic story in progress, “Growing Pains.”∗
Isa Yo-Jo breaks with her own traditions and provides a non-holiday oriented image of Daria and Jane.∗
• Finally, S.C. provides links to four large, photorealist renderings of Daria's room from various angles.

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

Incorrect report of a new thread of the Sh33p's Fluff removed, with my apologies.

...as well as dull excursuses on various HTML tags and entities. So, right to the point:

Items of general interest:

• E. A. Smith replaces Ranger Thorne as a moderator at the PPMB. Congratulations to Mr. Smith, and a nod of gratitude to Ranger Thorne.
• Roentgen, using the new Google Trends tool, finds that Australia may be the home to the most Google-web-searchingest Daria fans with the UK and US in second and third places respectively.
• For those fans new to the PPMB, Isa Yo-Jo has started a re-introduction thread.
• For Firefox users, Daria fan Insanity has compiled an extensive list of extension to that popular browser.Unfortunately, no Daria fan activity aggregator extention is currently available.
• New fan TheKnave seeks recommendations on fan fiction, especially Daria/Trent shippers.
• Richard Lobinske speculates on Jodie's future academic performance once away from intense parental pressure and concludes that she may well crash and burn.
• DJW seeks information on Amelia's background.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Angelboy has added new sections to “Embers.”
• DJW has added part 3, part 4, and part 5 to “Open Windows.”∗
• Richard Lobinske completed “John Lane 19—Retouched Parents.”∗
• Ranchoth completed “Inauguration.”
• Ranger Thorne continues his Daria/Teen Titans crossover, “The Gem and the Sword.”

Items marked with a ∗ (∗) can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

New fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Gord, a new author, posted “D&D with Daria & Jane D20.”

Fan art coverage to follow shortly. My apologies for the delay.

Ahem. My apologies for the previous post. I'd given my keys to the blog to someone I thought I could trust. Rest assured, that person has been sacked.

New and updated fan art at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Roentgen posted an image from an episode of the Simpsons with Daria embedded to appropriate effect. (affect? I can never keep them straight)
• S.C. continues his hyper-realist renderings of Daria's room.

—Our chief weapon is surprise—surprise and items of general interest:

• Daria fan IOXMO turns twenty-one, as reported by Deref.
• Wouter Jaeggers inquires about musicians that Daria fans now or ever had crushes on.
• Ranger Thorne is giving up moderator duties at the PPMB, and Kara Wild solicits applications for his successor.
• Vladimir1 gives an example of how to correctly code URLs that include punctuation in BBCode.

—All right—two weapons: surprise and items of general interest—

—'ats not two, it's five!

—No no—you see, it's the items of general interest that are the second weapon, but they change from time to time—

—Sod off! 'e ain't even got to fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff yet!

—Ah! I've always wondered how you pronounce '33'...

—That's right! Our two weapsons are surprise, items of general interest and new and updated fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Napalm Kracken posted “Daria vs. Jane,” described as a ‘Red vs. Blue style spoof.
• The Angst Guy posted a link to his updated short story “Scarlett.”
• Mistress Thea Zara posted bit two of “Protecting the Line.”
Psychotol added part two to “Living Dead Girls 6.”

—All right—our three weapons are surprise, items of general interest, new and updated fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board, new and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board—wait—among our—I mean amongst our weapons—sorry, why don't I just come in again...

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquistion!

—That's not right!

—What do you mean it's not right?

—I mean the heading was just enclosed in <h2> tags. 'Ere you've got <i> tags inside a pair of <h3> tags.

—What bloody difference does it make?

—Well, I mean if you wanted to start over, you should use the same heading tag, yeah?

—Look, I didn't expect a bloody HTML tutorial—

HTML Tutorial: Use <ul> for Unordered Lists

Although the entity &bull; may be used to introduce items in a bulleted list, using the <ul>...</ul> tags to create a block-level unordered list and <li>...</li> to enclose each element in the list indicates the logical structure of the list, and shows the semantic role it plays in the document.

Example:

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Richard Lobinske started “John Lane 19: Retouched Parents.”
• Gregor Samsa completed “The Rime of the Auntcient Mariner.”
• Roentgen set down the framework for an untitled multi-author story in a thread titled “Thought Exercise—Multitask.” Of the twenty-five sections put down, seven have been claimed so far.

Here, the list is coded as follows:

<ul>
<li>Richard Lobinske started <a href="http://thepaperpusher.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13497">“John Lane 19: Retouched Parents.”</a></li>
...
</ul>


Note that some blogging tools will turn carriage returns into <br /> tags, so lists like the one above will have to be run together on a single line.

Of general interest:

• Martin Pollard has updated Outpost Daria! Details may be found here.
• Kara Wild has updated The Contrarian's Corner! Details of her updates may be found here.
• Father Martin Sylvester posted this reminder about the Daria IRC chat room. If your browser supports such things, you can connect to it at irc://iuturna.sorcery.net/Daria+.

New and updated fan fiction at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Ranger Thorne made a brief update to “Shadow of a Cynic.”
• Erin M. added chapter 4 and chapter 5 to his Kim Possible story, “Timebreaker.”
• cyke added ‘Evils of Being Green, Part 2’ to “Lawndale Force 4.
• cyke also added chapter 10 1/2 to “New Masters of the Universe.”
• Angelboy made updates here and here to “Is It Smiting Yet?”
• cyke posted a Celebrity Deathmatch crossover.
• The Angst Guy posted chapter 2 and chapter 3, part 1 and part 2 of “The Others.”∗
• DJW posted part 1 and part 2 of “Open Windows.”
• Angelboy posted an update to “Diary Entries.”∗
• Richard Lobinske posted part 4 and the conclusion to “Falling into College 47: Melody of Life.”∗
• Ranchoth added part 2 and part 3 of “Inauguration.”
• Angelboy added part 4 to “Embers.”
• The Lawndale Stalker posted a ficlet entitled “Don't Bet on It.”∗
• Roentgen continues his mass cross-posting of “Legion of Lawndale Heroes” starting here.
• Decelaraptor posted “Dry, Dry, My Darling,” a complete story.
• The Ranting Klown added part 4 and part 5 of “North and South.”
• Richard Lobinske posted “Promise in Green,”∗ a complete fiction in script form.
• Psychotol added part 2 to “Living Dead Girls 6.”∗
• Gregor Samsa started “The Rime of the Auntcient Mariner,” a cross-over/parody of Coleridge's homophonously-titled poem.

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board.

New and updated fan fiction at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Mistress Thea Zara posted “Kitty Poker” and “Protecting the Line.”
• Psychotol posted “An Accident.”

I hope to cover fan fiction since 6/20 tomorrow. But right now—

New at the Sh33p's Fluff Message Board:

• Christ Olivier renders Daria as Supergirl∗ (with a stunned Quinn in the background) and Daria, Jane, Quinn, et al. as chibi.∗ For those unfamiliar with the term (as I was), Wikipedia says that chibi are characters drawn with

  stubby bodies that are about the same size as the head. A chibi rendition of a character is usually done for comedic purposes. Sometimes, in the Western fandom, it is used as a modifier with a name to denote a child version of a character . . . Chibi are typically known to be super-cute, speak in childlike voices, have large puppy-dog eyes, and often a mischievous or indignant personality. Chibi-style characters are often also lacking in detailed anatomy such as fingers; their hands closely resemble those of the Powerpuff Girls (which postdates the influence of anime on Western animation) or look as if they are wearing mittens. When they do have fingers, they are often shaped like baby hands.

• In the hidden section, the Great Saiyman continues his story of Jane in college, “Growing Pains.”

Items marked with a ∗ can also be found at the Paperpusher's Message Board.

New at the Paperpusher's Message Board:

• Prince Charon issued an Iron Chef challenge to create the type of airplane graffiti known as nose art based on Daria characters, and Richard Lobinske and S.C. rise to the challenge.
• Gregor Samsa offers a drawing of Daria non compos mentis. Has Quinn's insistance she's an only child finally gotten to Our Heroine?
• Displaying one of the most unusual works of fan art I can recall (not that I've been around that long, however), Mr. Orange shows photos of a cake decorated with the Daria logo.
• S.C. updates his animated Daria fantoon with a GIF of Quinn walking and short QuickTime movie of Sandi talking by the lockers.
• S.C. also provides a new image of 3D Tiffany and preliminary sketches of a realistic rendering of Daria's bedroom.
• Finally, Roentgen gives us a glimpse of what the PPMB might look like if Quinn were the main character.

Gallery:

S.C.'s walking Quinn GIF:







The Daria cake:







Christ Olivier's Daria chibi: