Paul’s comments are inteersting, but I wonder if the disconnenct between JN-T and the show’s fans in the 80s sufficiently describes the burst of activity elsewhere in the late 80s and early 90s? Did it promote the creation of TSV, for example? As one of the ‘creative’ fans, I know I was just inspired by what I saw around me and wanted to be part of it. If it hadn’ been DW, it would have been something else – probably Judge Dredd or something else comics-related. Time and place.

1, To me creative fandom seemed to explode to fill the void left when the series ended. It seems like no coincidence that fans made things they enjoyed when they stopped seeing it made by others, and the works they created sort of aged and matured with them. And once one fan group (and it only needed to be a few people) were able to put something together, it followed like a case of “monkey see monkey do”. I’m not suggesting they were easy, but printing your own fiction/stories/articles wasn’t technically difficult (not for the fledgling and often only first issue anyway). If you saw a gap you could fill it. Trouble is now the series is back everything is merchandised to pieces. There are no gaps to fill (books, audios, spinoffs) there is no need to do you own stuff, and in many instances it’s pretty hard to keep up with all the “official” merchandise.
Which brings us to the second bit…

2, It was pretty easy to be a creative fan in the days when the series was “dead”. It was like Latin. You could do what you liked with it. It was a closed system to study and everyone knew what you were on about. But now, by the time you’ve been able to get your stuff printed in a fanzine it’s very well out of date. It’s odd but you could write an scholarly analytical article about a twenty year old story and it could be fresh and interesting, but if you do one about an episode that aired a year before it sees print, it feels like yesterday’s news. A really bad analogy could be: it’s like a necrophiliac whose girlfriend’s come back to life.

3, And part of it is the personal stake we all used to have in Doctor Who. When the series was off the fans ran the asylum. We took the ball and ran with it. We owned the show. Not in any legal sense, but in the way we invested time and effort, blood sweat and tears caring for it and nurturing it, keeping it going well after it’s use by date. It was like an abandoned toy you take home and repair and make yours, but now it’s back in the public domain, it’s hard to carry the nostalgia for something your kids are watching. With the toy example – the kids have come and claimed it back, and with the dodgier example previously – she’s come back to life and gone back to her old boyfriend…

Most forums I post on have rules about using txt speak and that it is unacceptable. So much can get lost in translation!

With the lack of a series to rage about in the 1990s, coupled with the growth in professional outlets for fans (many of the staff of magazines like TV Zone and SFX are former fanzine editors & contributors), the whole fanzine revolution died away.

Of course there are sections of fandom today who are just as critical of the new series, but internet forums have replaced fanzines as an medium for sounding off.

m’eh, I could never be bothered getting round to it…

Thing is, I’m not sure it’s so simple. Fanzines in the UK were big in the 80s when the show was, while no longer storming the ratings, still alive and kicking. The fandom of that age came of age and became the same fans who contributed to DWM, wrote novelisations, produced fan videos and got involved in Big Finish. And some of course went onto the new series. I think that with some exceptions we’ve lost a generation who would have come of age in the 90s. New fans – teens, are perhaps a bit young to be creatnig on a level equivalent to the 1980s UK fanzine boom, so what we get on the Net is typical of young fandom – mashups over fan fiction, and not a lot of examining the show in the context of the broader series (I bet if there’s a ‘I Kissed a Girl’ Who mash up out there it sure as hell won’t involve Nyssa, Susan or, er, Erato).

Jamas tells me the D&D/RPG community has gone through this sort of soul searching too. We’re getting old, and the cavalry is some miles behind at the gymkhana.

Fair comment about not wanting to burden anyone else with ZB. I guess if there were any contenders with time, talent and inspiration they’d have waved a hand in the air by now.

Why is it that fandom in general seems to be so much less creative these days? Has the all pervading internet sucked the juice out of them? There was a time when you couldn’t move for fanzines, chock full of fan writing; now fandom seems to post to forums grumbling about how they don’t have the latest book/DVD/CD/magazine (delete as applicable) yet.

I’ll shut up now before I complete my transformation into a grumpy old man! (“Back when I were a boy, we had typewriters and glue sticks, and glad of it…”)

It’s ironic that the blog’s winding down just as the series is itself going to be less busy, but if I have any time next year… well, I’d still like to have a go at my own blog someday!

And Al, your comments are as always welcome and flattering. I’ll definitely be keeping my hand in on artwork somewhere.

Tim, there is a project I’m working on, ever so slowly. I may have told you already, but more information will come when things are more concrete!

I’ve fans state that The Sun is fairly reliable when it comes to Doctor Who rumours, but to my mind it doesn’t add up. All too often their reports are culled from DWM or the Doctor Who Forum, and the times they’ve been way off the mark (Ben Kingsley as Davros, Zoe Lucker as the Rani…) seem to be forgotten after a while. So I treat everything printed in The Sun (or any other tabloid) with a very large dose of scepticism.

I’m sorry to learn that Zeus Blog is winding down, but I’m not sure why it has to be this way. Have you considered bringing in a co-editor to keep things ticking over in your absence?