Why Is JWFC A Sponsor Of CSTS?
Decoded for acronyms, that translates into this question: Why is the so-called Joss Whedon Fan Club listed as a global sponsor of this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity? The answer is that I have no earthly idea.
Their “contribution” to the screenings is listed as a “special fan club membership package”. And yet membership in this alleged club is free for the asking, and offers no benefits other than “being able to tell everyone you’re a member of the coolest fan club in the ‘verse”.
As near as I can tell, this “club” has been around since 2006 and has done nothing except put ads on its website and open an eBay store to sell you stuff, despite its founders claiming to be “proud of what they’ve accomplished so far”.
This “special membership package” being provided to CSTS events in exchange for being listed as a global sponsor reportedly includes not just the club membership (which, as noted, is free anyway) but “t-shirts” — although as of early April it was indicated that this year’s CSTS coordinator did not even know what t-shirts, exactly, allegedly were being contributed, and to date this information still has not been provided.
What’s more, this “club” appears to not actually know very much about Joss Whedon or his activities.
According to their Joss Whedon 101 page, “he is currently in pre-production on a new Wonder Woman movie and a film he’s written called Goners. Whedon also writes comic books. His comic book work can currently be seen in the Astonishing X-Men series for Dark Horse Comics.”
Almost nothing in that statement is correct accept for “Whedon also writes comic books”. Outside of including no mention of recent, current, or future projects (such as Sugarshock, Dollhouse, or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), it’s so out of date that it misses that he got kicked off of Wonder Woman and that Goners has long since stalled in development.
Not to mention that I’m quite sure it would be news to Dark Horse that they, and not Marvel, own the X-Men franchise.
All of which leads to the point: Why is the so-called Joss Whedon Fan Club listed as a global sponsor of this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity?
All the evidence suggests fairly convincingly that this “club” shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar at all, let alone allowed to attach its name to a charity endeavor which needs to have far more credibility than this improper sponsorship suggests.
Who’s flying this thing?
Addendum: See their MySpace blog for more on just how half-assed and semi-existent is this “club”.
Addendum: In the days after this question was asked, those behind the JWFC added some items to their website to make it seem more current, although in the process of doing so they broke substantial portions of the website, thereby maintaining the clueless and amateurish nature of the endeavor.
As for the original question here, which never was answered by anyone in authority, there now is what appears to be the answer, found in this interview with this year’s global coordinator: “I … help run the Joss Whedon Fan Club.”
And that would explain why a half-assed and out-of-date (until they were caught at it) endeavor that’s existed for years as little more than a storefront to buy things from them ended up as a global sponsor of CSTS.