Every web page has a story behind its development, and mine is no exception. As you can figure out from Xena's page, (see link below) one night back in March of 1997, she and I ran into one another on one of the IRC networks. I don't remember which one. . .I'm not heavily into IRC. Anyway, I remember that at one point in our brief conversation we talked about the Last Unicorn film, one of my all-time favorite animated movies. I figured that anyone who liked *The Last Unicorn* was probably worth knowing.
We exchanged e-mail addresses and the next thing I knew, I was having a series of in-depth discussions about animation, anime, and related topics with a person I'd only known for perhaps 10 minutes on IRC. And such was born a trans-continental friendship and the genesis of this page.
Xena and I realised that despite the plethora of animation pages on the Web, most of them were of two varieties. There were the Image Archives created by fans who dutifully scanned in as many stills as they could find. And there were the Fan Art/Fan Fiction pages in which animation fans expressed their creativity by submitting short stories, plays, original artwork, DOOM wads, etc. Both of these types of sites provide useful services to Internet animation fans and some of them are so good that they have created a standard that is difficult to top. Links to some of these pages are provided in the Links Section of our page.
However, there were comparatively few sites that were organized around criticism of animation. Many animation issues are hotly debated on the animation newsgroups, yet very little of that critical attitude has been translated into a Web Page. A newcomer to animation might want to know more about the medium's history, or might simply be looking for which series are most worthwhile. Such information might be difficult to find, because the newbie would have to wade through multiple posts on the animation groups, and because many series-oriented animation sites are developed by fans, they are largely 'preaching to the converted.'
Xena and I hope that our dialogues have resulted in essays that are interesting to read, entertaining, and have helped you to decide which animation to enjoy.
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