From the fandom archives: How a fish changed the fandom forever

It has been four years now—four years and almost two days to be precise, I was unable to get online in time, so this may be a bit belated.

So, some of you may ask what happened on that day four years and almost two days ago? Well, join me on a little trip into the past of the Ranger fandom, and you'll find out.

January 12, 2003. It was evening in New York City when one of its citizens took his first step into the Acorn Café and placed his first posting—a posting with an impact rarely seen in the history of the fandom even looking back from today. The newbie called himself Mayhem, today he is known as Fish, and his posting contained a link to his website which in turn contains the world-famous graphic novel Of Mice and Mayhem, widely known even far beyond the Ranger fandom. Nobody had ever created something like this or has since then. The drawings can easily keep up with the best RRt, and the story has been voted onto the same level as Michael Demcio's Rhyme and Reason which is being used as a fan fiction reference since 1996.

This one thread grew up to four pages within a short time. It took the Rangerphiles a while to realize what had been created and linked to there. But when they did, discussions started among the patrons who had just brought the 2002 Golden Acorn Awards behind themselves. Some suggested another special 2002 award for Fish, but more patrons were concerned about the 2003 awards. They expected Fish and OMAM to snag every award they would be eligible for. And some not even dared to declare their works done since October 2002 and to be done in 2003 eligible as they wouldn't have the slightest chance anyway. The writers had believed that it would be an easy year since the J.A.M. had finished Death of a Comedian in time for the 2002 awards, but they had to reconsider.

Still they managed to gain enough confidence to take part in the 2003 awards—although they were right, Fish won 23 awards, 16 of them directly for OMAM, and among them were Best Story, Best Fan Art, and all four not website-related All-Time awards.

Since that day, Fish's one-of-a-kind creation made countless people Rangerphile, one could assume it's more than the show itself did.


Midnight Man, RangerBlog columnist