So, as I mentioned to Howard in a comment on my previous post (http://wrd205winter2016.chicagolandwritingcenters.org/?p=4047), modern fanfiction isn’t typically canonized. Fanfiction in the past (pretty much 95% of King Arthur literature, for example) became canon and is now considered canon to modern-day readers.
So, modern fanfiction. My friend Matt is a huge comic book nerd. Like, a HUGE comic book nerd. He sets aside an hour each day to read comics before he goes to school, all of his shirts have comic book characters on them, and his phone background rotates between the Fantastic Four, the Flash, Spiderman, and Jane Foster Thor. Needless to say, he’s the real authority on the subject.
I mentioned Kyla’s presentation to him on Monday, and he commented “well, all modern comics are pretty much fanfic.” And my response was, “wait, WHAAAAA?”
After 1960, apparently, Marvel and other comic companies started pushing a program that was all about recruiting new writers for all of their comic series. A lot of the people who they found were people who had grown up reading comics. And that trend continues today. People who grew up loving Spiderman are some of the people who write for Spiderman. Fans obsessed with Superman become the authors of Superman. It is fanfiction at it’s most basic definition: fans who are creating fiction with their favorite characters.
So. Have any fanfics been canonized? Well, according to my friend Matt, yes! I think it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Love what you do.”
