Fred Patten

Frederick Walter Patten (born 1940) is known for his work as a historian in the anime, manga, and furry fandoms, where he has gained great distinction through a substantial contribution to both print and online books, magazines, and other media.

Background

Patten was born in Los Angeles, California on December 11 1940 to Shirley Marie (Jones) Patten and Beverly Walter Patten. He has two younger sisters: Loel Anne Patten (born 1943) and Sherrill Clare Patten (born 1947). He learned to read at a young age, starting with comic strips in both the Los Angeles Times and Examiner, and later was introduced to "Walt Disney's Comics and Stories" around 1945. Much of his early reading also came from magazines and books, and he showed an interest in superhero comic books as well.

Science fiction became a key interest around age 9, and Patten began to collect books from Ace Books, Ballantine Books, and other publishers around that time, as well as major science fiction magazines including Astounding, F&SF, and Galaxy Science Fiction. In the late 1950s, he became involved in the science-fiction fandom. He entered the University of California at Los Angeles in 1958, and its graduate School of Library Science in 1962. He became active in fandom after discovering the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society in 1960. By the time he graduated with a Master's degree in Library Science in 1963, he had been writing for sci-fi fanzines and publishing his own stories for three years. His Master's thesis was on the books of Andre Norton.

Work in anime and F/SF fandoms

In 1972, Patten partnered with Richard Kyle to create Graphic Story Bookshop in Long Beach, California. In an interview posted on the (now defunct) website of "Pulp Magazine", Patten said he had discovered manga at Westercon, one of the largest science fiction conventions on the West Coast, in 1970. At the time, he had been aware of television shows like "Astro Boy," but had no idea then that they were Japanese. Through his bookshop, he wrote to Japanese publishers, asking to import their manga, achieving some success and in the process becoming a pioneer in the anime and manga fandom. He was one of the founders of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, the first anime fan club, in 1977.

During this time, Patten worked in numerous library positions, notably that of technical catalogue librarian at Hughes Aircraft Company's Company Technical Document Center (CTDC), in El Segundo, Calif., from 1969 to 1990. After leaving that position, he served from 1991 to 2002 as the first employee of Streamline Pictures, one of America's pioneering anime specialty production companies, founded by Carl Macek and Jerry Beck in 1988. He has been a presenter at major conventions and guest lecturer at universities in the U.S. and Australia.

Patten wrote numerous monthly columns and individual articles for Animation World Magazine, Newtype U.S.A., the Comics Buyer's Guide, and other magazines, including serving as the Official Editor for the Rowrbrazzle Amateur Press Association, until March 2005, when he suffered a stroke. No longer able to keep his collection, which had grown over more than 40 years,he donated everything — almost 900 boxes (~220,000 items [http://www.kayshapero.net/FredPatten/Apa-L/Apa-L%202155.html] ) of comic books, records, tapes, anime, manga, programs from science-fiction conventions dating back to the 1930s, convention T-shirts, paperbacks, and an array of sci-fi fanzines back to the 1930s — to the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection at the University of California, Riverside, which houses the world's largest collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror [http://www.pe.com/breakingnews/local/stories/PE_News_Local_D_gift26.e06db3e.html] .

Publications

This is a partial list of Fred Patten's many writing and editing credits, which have also included dozens of magazine articles for science-fiction, anime, manga and furry publications since the late 1960s.

Books

* "Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews" by Fred Patten. A collection of 63 articles on Japanese animation, comic books, and their fandom in America, published in various magazines between 1979 and 2004.
* "Best in Show: Fifteen Years of Outstanding Furry Fiction", edited by Fred Patten. An anthology of 26 s-f & fantasy short stories by Brian W. Antoine, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Gene Breshears, Kim Liu, Watts Martin, Michael H. Payne, & others.
* "Furry!: The World's Best Anthropomorphic Fiction", edited by Fred Patten. A retitled mass-market edition of Best in Show.
* "Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the History of Cartoon, Anime & CGI", edited by Jerry Beck. Foreword by Jeffrey Katzenberg. A history of international animation in all forms, by decades from 1900-1910 to 2000-2004. Fred Patten wrote the entries on Chinese and Japanese animation.
* "The Animated Movie Guide: The Ultimate Illustrated Reference to Cartoon, Stop-Motion, and Computer-Generated Feature Films", edited by Jerry Beck. An alphabetical listing with critical reviews of all animated feature films released theatrically in the U.S. from 1926 through 2004. Fred Patten wrote the entries for Japanese and Korean animated films.

Comic Books

Stories by Fred Patten have appeared in comics including "Mangazine", "The Ever-Changing Palace", "Albedo: Anthropomorphics", and "Furrlough" (which included the series "Theriopangrams," in 36 issues between 1997 and 2003).

Patten adapted into English volumes 2–7 of "The Skull Man" by Kazuhiko Shimamoto; created by Shotaro Ishinomori.

Animation Film Credits

:"Tekkaman, the Space Knight", (1984, TV) - Writer/adapter:"Robot Carnival" (1991) - Publicity:"Fist of the North Star" (1991) - Publicity:"Vampire Hunter D" (1992) - Marketing and Promotion:"The Castle of Cagliostro" (1992) - Translation:"Nadia" (1992-1993, TV) - Story Editor:"Neo-Tokyo" (1993, featurette) - Unit Publicist:"Silent Möbius" (1993, featurette) - Unit Publicist:"The Professional: Golgo 13" (1993, featurette) - Unit Publicist:"Wicked City" (1993) - Unit Publicist:"Lupin III: Tales of the Wolf" (1993-1994, TV) - Story Editor:"Crying Freeman" (1993-1995, featurette) - Publicity:"Doomed Megalopolis" (1993-1994, featurettes - Story Editor:"Dirty Pair: Project Eden" (1994) - Story Editor:"Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy" (1994) - Story Editor:"8 Man After" (1994, featurettes) - Script Editor:"Lily-C.A.T." (1994) - Publicity:"8 Man" (1995, live-action) - Script Editor:"Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo" (1995) - Story Editor:"Crimson Wolf" (1995) - Story Editor:"Babel II" (1995, featurette) - Story Editor:"Casshan, Robot Hunter" (1995, featurettes) - Story Editor:"Barefoot Gen" (feature, 1995) - Story Editor:"Megazone 23, Part 1" (1995) - Story Editor

Also a number of appearances in interviews on anime DVDs.

Awards

* Evans-Freehafer Award, 1965 - presented annually by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., for service to the Society.
* Sampo Award, 1971 - presented annually at the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference (Westercon) for "unsung" services to s-f fandom
* Inkpot Award, 1980 - presented annually at the San Diego Comic-Con in various categories; "For Outstanding Achievement in Fandom Services/Projects".
* Ursa Major Awards, 2003 ("The Annual Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Awards") - presented annually at an anthropomorphic convention in various categories; to Best in Show: Fifteen Years of Outstanding Furry Fiction, edited by Fred Patten (Sofawolf Press, July 2003); for "Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work of 2003".
* Life Achievement Award, 64th World Science Fiction Convention (LA Con IV) - awarded in recognition of a lifetime of service to the fandom. [http://www.kayshapero.net/FredPatten/new.html]

External links

* [http://www.kayshapero.net/FredPatten/fred.html Fred Patten News Page]
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