–– All voting is by e-mail only. Simply copy this ballot (cut-and-paste works fine) and send an e-mail with your picks to me, David Colton, at taraco@aol.com by Sunday night at midnight, April 10, 2016.
— You can send a quick e-mail, or you can cut-and-paste the ballot and highlight your choices, or place an X next to your choices; or you can type your choices in an e-mail. And no, you do not have to vote in every category.
— One vote per person, please. Every e-mail must include your name to be counted. All votes are kept strictly confidential. No e-mail addresses or personal information will ever be shared with anyone.
— Feel free to spread the word about the Rondo voting — go social on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; place Rondo banners on websites, urge friends and fans to vote. But please do not mass-produce or duplicate ballots; suspicious ballots will be rejected at the sole discretion of Rondo organizers. Let’s keep this a fun vote!
— Again TO VOTE e-mail your picks to taraco@aol.comTo access the ballot, go here.
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| Above, stop-motion effects artist Ray Harryhausen, just one of those we lost this year. |
David Colton is Executive Editor, and has been with USA TODAY since almost the beginning. He oversees all print products and occasionally writes a story or two himself.One of his duties at USA Today is to compile the list of prominent people who passed away each year. He has compiled the 2013 list, "Passages 2013: Remembering Those We Lost."
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| Above, Armand with Monster Kid Hall of Fame inductee Ted Newsom at the 2012 Monsterpalooza. Photo by Don Glut. |
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| Above, the ad banner that appeared at the Classic Horror Film Board. |
I don't know if there was a problem with my download or if this guy just needs an editor/proofreader in the worst way. This book was pretty unreadable. Paragraphs end abruptly or meld into others without any rhyme or reason. Sentences end with no punctuation. They just stop. Sections of the book just seem to be dropped into chapters that have no relevancy.
I know nothing about the FM situation, but will say that digital publishing is an extremely complex endeavour. Even at USA TODAY, where we have great minds and resources, getting a product to render correctly on all platforms is maddeningly difficult.
An app that plays fine on the latest iPad sometimes crashes on an original iPad. Apps for Android devices similarly need to be tailored for each OS (Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich -- yup, that's what they are called). On desktops, which browser you use can cause problems -- what displays on Firefox sometimes won't play as well on Safari; what's good on Chrome freezes on IE.
Videos that use Flash won't play at all on Apple iPads and iPhones, which don't use Flash and instead need HTML5 language. Plus, the screen resolution people use on their computer can make a huge difference in how displays of a magazine page can look.
It is the craziest tech world ever, with so many things open source and not standardized it is as if a car battery will work fine in a Buick but not in a Chrysler, or a Sunbeam toaster won't work with rye bread. It is amazing anything works, truth be told.
Anyhow, I don't know if anything I just said has anything to do with FM's digital magazine or YUDU, but sadly, one digital size does not fit all.My response at the CHFB:
I am glad the Kindle subject came up. I had The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan converted to a Kindle ebook at Amazon a few months ago. One guy complained about it. Everyone else who has seen it had no complaints. I suspect that whatever program software he was viewing it on wasn't compatible with the Kindle program.
While checking around for ebook conversions beforehand, I found that conversions are as very complex as [Colton] stated. Issues like uniform sizes and font embedding, etc. came up (many of which I never even heard of). It was a hassle. I was about to abort the idea of an ebook until I went to Amazon.I guess the bottom line in all this is to make sure you have the correct software, app or programs compatible with the various ebooks so that they render correctly for you. As David Colton stated, one digital size does not fit all.
From terms like "Bridezilla" to films like Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, the thought of Japan's most famous monster usually evokes a chuckle, not a roar.
But the roots of the Tokyo-stomping beast are dark and terrible. Long before its 27 sequels and endless spinoffs, the original 1954 film, called Gojira in Japan, was a fearful atomic fable from expert filmmakers, a metaphor for the bombing of Hiroshima that ended World War II just nine years earlier.
On Tuesday, the highbrow Criterion Collection, which usually traffics in the world of Hitchcock, Truffaut and Japan's Akira Kurosawa, will add digitally restored editions of Toho Studios' Gojira and the watered-down American version from 1956, Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Raymond Burr, to its prestigious DVD and Blu-ray catalog.
Above, Miki Hayashi with "The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan." Photo by Armand Vaquer.
The voting is over.
More than 2,900 people voted this year, about the same as the last two years, in the NINTH ANNUAL RONDO HATTO CLASSIC HORROR AWARDS. Thanks to everyone, whether you voted in one category or many.
Tallying the final results -- I still need to collate it all -- will take a little time, as will uploading photos and images, so the plan is:
-- As is tradition, CHFB members will be the first to know as the results are revealed, category by category, in a live chat in the Blind Hermit's Hut here at the CHFB. Time: 10 p.m. ET, Wednesday night.
-- An hour later, at 11 p.m. ET Wednesday night, full results and press release will be posted here and at rondoaward.com.
-- We hope to giive out a few statuettes at Monsterpalooza in two weeks, but the bulk will be awarded at WonderFest during the annual Rondo Awards Ceremony in Louisville on May 15 (5 p.m.).
Some winners are obvious, but other contests are so close I still won't know who won until I add up the various count sheets. So even I may be surprised.
Again, thanks to all and be here Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET for the exciting reveal!
A reminder to all CHFB* members that voting in the 9th Annual Rondo Hatton Awards ends Saturday** night. A ballot can be found at the Classic Horror Film Board, or at rondoaward.com. Thanks for all your support of the CHFB over the years.
It's always struck me how far and wide the Rondo 'electorate' is, and one thing that is consistent from year to year is the amazing number of women who vote.
I just did a rough estimate of the first week's votes, and a good 20% -- and it seems to build as the voting goes on -- are women, and they are knowledgeable and full of genre energy. (And no, despite that, TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE still only has a handful of votes. Another myth busted.)
I find it fascinating, and heartening, and it does seem to impact the results in interesting ways. But anyone who thinks the horror world is fanboys only need simply count up Rondo ballots -- or attend any convention!
WE'VE HAD SOME DELAYS, BUT ON SUNDAY, FEB. 21, WE'LL PUBLISH THE BALLOT FOR THE 8TH ANNUAL RONDO AWARDS.
VOTING WILL CONTINUE THROUGH SATURDAY., APRIL 3, 2010.
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY (changing host sites is never easy), AND HOPE YOU'LL HELP HONOR THE BEST OF 2009 BY VOTING!
SEE YOU SUNDAY NIGHT!
Above, a vintage issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland.In a major turning point in the seven-year legal struggle over ownership of Famous Monsters, a federal court Wednesday issued a strongly-worded injunction against Ray Ferry and Connie Bean, ordering them to end all use of the "Famous Monsters" trademark and to stop operating their websites.
Granting a request from Philip Kim, a producer who purchased the Famous Monsters trademark for $25,000 at a bankruptcy sale in 2007, Judge Gary Allen Feess of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, concluded:
"Defendants are hereby ENJOINED from operating the famousmonsters.com, famousmonsters.biz, and filmlandclassics.com websites, and from marketing, selling, or offering to sell any goods or services that contain, or are confusingly similar to, the 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' trademark, or any derivatives thereof, including 'Famous Monsters,' until the present litigation has been fully resolved.
"Defendants failure to comply with this Order may be grounds for contempt sanctions, including possible imprisonment. In addition, Defendants are cautioned that they are not to impose upon this Court any further baseless or frivolous arguments that are directly contradicted or undermined by the evidence in the record, including those that the Court has expressly rejected in this Order.''
