For decades, our hobby has focused on a very small number of franchises (Star Wars, Aliens, Star Trek, etc), but as attention spans grow shorter, we have seen a marked shift in our hobby towards a trend/fad/seasonal based fandom in which a franchise is hot today and gone tomorrow. This forum is a testbed to see if we, as a community can/should support this type of trending fandom.
Before I go any further, let me go ahead and address what is on many of your minds. Why not Iron Man? Admit it. That is what you were thinking. There IS a very good reason why not. Unfortunately, I am not going to talk about it and will only say, we feel your pain, but we will not make an Iron Man forum. I am sure, if you give it some thought and consideration, you can imagine why...
With the Iron Man issue addressed, you are probably wondering why, of all the popular franchises that our members have a passion for, we have chosen to focus on Dredd. The primary reason is that we see it is a pretty hot topic here and a large number of RPFers are involved in a group costume build of the Judge uniforms from Dredd. They already have a 150+ member following on Facebook, yet Facebook doesn't provide the kind of robust platform for building costumes like a forum does. As I mentioned earlier, we are creating this as a temporary home for that group as well as anyone interested in the Dredd franchise (comic books, Stallone movie, new movie) to see if having its own forum, even on a temporary basis while the subject is hot, generates more involvement and better serves our members.
As the interest in movies like this have an expiration date, so too will this forum. At the end of 2013, based on traffic, we will evaluate whether to keep this forum longer, or whether to disband it and move the content from it back into our costuming and prop forums.
If we see that this forum fails from the get-go, we may dissolve it at any time.
Before I go any further, let me go ahead and address what is on many of your minds. Why not Iron Man? Admit it. That is what you were thinking. There IS a very good reason why not. Unfortunately, I am not going to talk about it and will only say, we feel your pain, but we will not make an Iron Man forum. I am sure, if you give it some thought and consideration, you can imagine why...
With the Iron Man issue addressed, you are probably wondering why, of all the popular franchises that our members have a passion for, we have chosen to focus on Dredd. The primary reason is that we see it is a pretty hot topic here and a large number of RPFers are involved in a group costume build of the Judge uniforms from Dredd. They already have a 150+ member following on Facebook, yet Facebook doesn't provide the kind of robust platform for building costumes like a forum does. As I mentioned earlier, we are creating this as a temporary home for that group as well as anyone interested in the Dredd franchise (comic books, Stallone movie, new movie) to see if having its own forum, even on a temporary basis while the subject is hot, generates more involvement and better serves our members.
As the interest in movies like this have an expiration date, so too will this forum. At the end of 2013, based on traffic, we will evaluate whether to keep this forum longer, or whether to disband it and move the content from it back into our costuming and prop forums.
If we see that this forum fails from the get-go, we may dissolve it at any time.