I visited a midnight showing of the Wizard of Oz with friends during my misspent teenage years. Callow youth that we were, I expect we might have been under the influence of some controlled substance. That's all a bit vague. What is crystal clear, though, is the memory of sitting in the theater, watching this movie I'd seen so many times previously -- watching as it unfolded, yet again.
This time though had a different quality to it. The munchkins and witches all went about their usual business, as they had all those previous times. But while they did so in the foreground, my attention was preoccupied with the background. There were these cornball, hand painted studio backdrops of distant mountains. And I was totally fixated on them. I just kept wondering, okay, the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City, fine, I know about all that. What I want to know though is what in the world is over the top of those mountains.
Herein lies the central inspiration of that phenomenon known as fanfiction. It is the art of providing one's own spin on the unexplored corners of a world created by another, mainstream art form. This is in fact a very time honored practice, but it was only in the 1960s that it become something of a popular culture craze. Little fanfiction cottage industries arose to explore the unexplored possibilities in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. Here the fans could explore in their own fiction the possibilities that the original show couldn't or wouldn't: Klingons could conquer the universe or Kirk and Spock could have a torrid homosexual love affair. This was indeed boldly going where no staff writer was about to go.
At first this fiction was presented in fanzines, which were carbon copied and stapled sheets of paper that were sent by post to subscribers, all enthusiasts and conference attendees. This was all changed by the nineties. The Internet, and especially the World Wide Web, opened up vast new opportunities for fanfiction. Recently, there has been a great boom in the available inventory people have to draw upon of visual, video material. They can be edited and rejigged in all kinds of ways to provide unexpected implications and interpretations. And now fans can do this sitting at their laptop, in their bedroom. What is consistent through it all, though, is this impulse to go over the other side of those mountains -- so to speak.
The shows upon which the fan creators based their efforts always left passages unexplored. There were rooms never seen, alleys next entered, action never taken, hopes never spoken. The original show can only wind through but a single plot line. In doing so, though, countless other portals to new possibilities are left open, unexplored. It is these that the fanfiction creators explore. In the case of The Walking Dead this has been a pretty fertile undertaking. Fanfiction.net to cite just one case has over two thousand stories within the world of the walkers. And that's just skimming the surface of what is out there.
Probably the most common theme in the Walking Dead fanfiction is the deeper exploration of the biography and psychology of characters. Daryl and Andrea are popular choices for such attention. Others though look out over the mountains from Munchkin Land, as it were, and discover the lives of their own characters, facing the same world as Rick Grimes' crew, but far from the lenses of the AMC cameras. In some cases, this is purely fictive, though, in others, one suspects, the authors have simply parachuted themselves in, imagining how they would respond to the challenges of the world of The Walking Dead. And then there's some far out adventures, such as exploring whether the zombies might have thoughts. And if so what they might be like.
There is a great resource here, in the form of The Walking Dead fanfiction, to look more deeply into the possibilities imminent in the various unexplored pathways of the official narrative. Doing that exploration is the mission of a fan base inspired by the world of the TV show that so intrigues them. And, it's just a whole bunch of fun. A question though does come to mind when considering this fascinating world of fanfiction and indeed the general popularity of The Walking Dead.
Maybe the great popularity of The Walking Dead says more about us and our society than seems immediately obvious. If you'd like to know more about that prospect, have a look at another piece we have at Pretty Much Dead Already.
This time though had a different quality to it. The munchkins and witches all went about their usual business, as they had all those previous times. But while they did so in the foreground, my attention was preoccupied with the background. There were these cornball, hand painted studio backdrops of distant mountains. And I was totally fixated on them. I just kept wondering, okay, the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City, fine, I know about all that. What I want to know though is what in the world is over the top of those mountains.
Herein lies the central inspiration of that phenomenon known as fanfiction. It is the art of providing one's own spin on the unexplored corners of a world created by another, mainstream art form. This is in fact a very time honored practice, but it was only in the 1960s that it become something of a popular culture craze. Little fanfiction cottage industries arose to explore the unexplored possibilities in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. Here the fans could explore in their own fiction the possibilities that the original show couldn't or wouldn't: Klingons could conquer the universe or Kirk and Spock could have a torrid homosexual love affair. This was indeed boldly going where no staff writer was about to go.
At first this fiction was presented in fanzines, which were carbon copied and stapled sheets of paper that were sent by post to subscribers, all enthusiasts and conference attendees. This was all changed by the nineties. The Internet, and especially the World Wide Web, opened up vast new opportunities for fanfiction. Recently, there has been a great boom in the available inventory people have to draw upon of visual, video material. They can be edited and rejigged in all kinds of ways to provide unexpected implications and interpretations. And now fans can do this sitting at their laptop, in their bedroom. What is consistent through it all, though, is this impulse to go over the other side of those mountains -- so to speak.
The shows upon which the fan creators based their efforts always left passages unexplored. There were rooms never seen, alleys next entered, action never taken, hopes never spoken. The original show can only wind through but a single plot line. In doing so, though, countless other portals to new possibilities are left open, unexplored. It is these that the fanfiction creators explore. In the case of The Walking Dead this has been a pretty fertile undertaking. Fanfiction.net to cite just one case has over two thousand stories within the world of the walkers. And that's just skimming the surface of what is out there.
Probably the most common theme in the Walking Dead fanfiction is the deeper exploration of the biography and psychology of characters. Daryl and Andrea are popular choices for such attention. Others though look out over the mountains from Munchkin Land, as it were, and discover the lives of their own characters, facing the same world as Rick Grimes' crew, but far from the lenses of the AMC cameras. In some cases, this is purely fictive, though, in others, one suspects, the authors have simply parachuted themselves in, imagining how they would respond to the challenges of the world of The Walking Dead. And then there's some far out adventures, such as exploring whether the zombies might have thoughts. And if so what they might be like.
There is a great resource here, in the form of The Walking Dead fanfiction, to look more deeply into the possibilities imminent in the various unexplored pathways of the official narrative. Doing that exploration is the mission of a fan base inspired by the world of the TV show that so intrigues them. And, it's just a whole bunch of fun. A question though does come to mind when considering this fascinating world of fanfiction and indeed the general popularity of The Walking Dead.
Maybe the great popularity of The Walking Dead says more about us and our society than seems immediately obvious. If you'd like to know more about that prospect, have a look at another piece we have at Pretty Much Dead Already.
About the Author:
Mickey Jhonny also writes at the Mad Men celebration site, The Don Draper Haircut. His controversial piece on the reasons behind the success of the Mad Men TV show is a must read.
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