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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. A Word from the Publisher
2. A Word from the Club President
3. Special Events Update
4. Spotlight on: The Unofficial Fan Club BBoard
5. Sound Off!
6. What Happens Next?
7. Important Addresses

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A WORD FROM THE PUBLISHER
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Hi Fellow I-Maniacs & welcome to all our new members!

Well, we finally made it to season two, the sign of a successful show! With the new season, we got a spiffy new opening credit sequence and, more importantly, Mike McCafferty is now officially a full-fledged member of the cast (I hope they've taught him the secret hand shake :) It's all very exciting and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us this season!

Also in the category of exciting is a story from Nobby Coburn, which he's given his permission for me to share with everyone:

   "Hi... I was at two location shootings for 'The Invisible 
   Man' the last two days. I had the chance to talk to 
   Paul Ben-Victor for a few minutes and he told me 
   about your club. He told me to search IMan or 
   I-Maniacs so I did and I found you... I didn't realize 
   there were so many fans and I am so glad to see this."

Isn't that cool?! I think we can consider it Paul's unofficial stamp of approval for our club!

As a reminder to all and an invitation to the slew of newbies who had the sense to join us :), Nebula30 is working on a photo album for the fan club web site. If you'd like to have yours included, please send the file to imanfanclub@yahoo.com. If you don't have a scanner and are willing to send a photo in the mail, please contact Neb at nebula30@spacecookie.com. As our membership grows so does my list of missing or unreachable members :( I'd like to make you all aware of these poor unfortunate souls whose email addresses are not working for me. They are: bookwormgirl, Sinister1 (mailbox full), canadiannational, quickslvrchick, kento, quicksilver, thrakman, Fennec, Slave2chiana and LuvnVinVin. If you see any of them in the chat room or on the bboard, please do me a favor and send them my way at imannewsletter@yahoo.com so I can get things straightened out and make sure they don't miss out on anything!

Any and all feedback is welcome. Please send your comments and suggestions to imannewsletter@yahoo.com.

Gina

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A WORD FROM THE CLUB PRESIDENT
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Agenda

*Greetings and Welcome*
*Need to Know Shirts*
*Future Chat*
*A Plea for Calm*

*Greetings and Welcome*

Hello my fellow I-Maniacs! With Season Two of our favorite show steadily underway, I must confess that I am one happy woman. Well, except for one small detail, but that's beating a dead horse and I'll go into that at a later time. I'm just thrilled that this show is doing so well and that more and more fans are finding it and want to learn more about it. This is a very exciting time, boys and girls, this show is growing and expanding in such proportions that sometimes it's hard to keep up with it! Number One in New Zealand and Number Two in France?! If that isn't cause for rejoicing then check your pulse, 'cause I think you're dead!
As the show continues to grow, we are also seeing a very similar effect taking place here. It surely is a grand sight to behold, I'll be the first one to tell ya!'
Our numbers are now up to a whopping 285 members! And that's only with a 2 week break! Big thanks to Joyce (Invisible Mom) for rounding up all our newbies and getting them aquainted. Our newest newbies are : Stage5, InvisibleKiwi (GO NEW ZEALAND!!), Coralbelle, RatheSunGoddess, SarahBewley, IndianSciFiGirl, Janzaroo, JigsawJester, JDlucas2000, Triza, InvisibleButHere, Nightshade69, SilverChex, ThunderGibbon, AlphaReagent, Barkeep, TheDesertFawkes and Tobias32433. Let's give them all a huge round of applause!! *R2 dons her party cap and pulls out her noise maker* Welcome to our crazy family you guys, this is the most fun you will ever have with people you've never met! Wait. That sounded really bad. Before I move on, I just want to say a special Thank You to our international fans, those from New Zealand : Rackles, Sasscat, VampyrFox, InvisibleKiwi and our first one from the United Kingdom : ThunderGibbon. It's so wonderful to see our show taking root overseas, and the fact that you guys are here is proof of what a great show we have going on. So, from all the U.S. fans, WELCOME!!

*Need to Know Shirts*

A few nights ago, after a false start and someone *coughmecough* arriving late, the Imaniacs Board of Directors had their first "official" meeting *insert cheers here*
On our Agenda were the "Need to Know" shirts that ShelBel and Logan are working so hard on. Guys and gals, let me be the first one to tell you ... these shirts are gonna ROCK!! First off, we had about 20+ quotes that we had to narrow down. We wanted people to be able to tuck these bad bears in without losing a quote down inside your shorts. *ahem*
Anyway, half the meeting was spent narrowing down 20-something quotes to about ten. These ten quotes are awesome, you will *not* be disappointed. On the front of the shirt, we are going to have Hobbes' "Need to Know" speech from Impetus, on the back of the shirt there will be "All I Need To Know I Learned from Watching I-Man".
As of last communicado with the Board, we had decided on a Heather Grey T-Shirt with Black lettering. This way, you can easily get the shirt signed by any of the cast and crew, and it'll look cool too! There are a few more specs to be worked out and then these wonderful pieces of fan club merchandise will be put on the shelf to be consumed by the raging hordes (that's you guys). We are trying to keep the cost down as much as possible since we know that a great many of you guys are poor college/high school students or have other costs. Like, oh, groceries and the electricity bill. Stuff like that. However, these shirts are going to be great and I tip my hat off to Shel and Logan for the great job they're doing with it. You guys are gonna love 'em!

*Future Chat*

Okay. I just have one question. Would you guys like to have a chat with Joel Bissonnette? I just want to know because he's interested in doing one, and I just wanna know if this is something you guys would be interested in doing. If not, just let me know and I'll keep working on getting other stuff set up. Yes? No?
I just wanna pause here and say that setting up this particular chat wouldn't have been possible without the wonderful help of Cleya. She is a huge (yes ... HUGE) Arnaud fan and as a result, she was instrumental in helping me get the ball rolling on this one. So Cleya, {{BIG HUGS}} from me girl!
So, what I want to know from you guys is .... is a chat with "Arnaud" something you would attend and be interested in? Just drop me an email and let me know. The sooner I find out the consensus, the sooner I can get a schedule going with Joel.
First impression: he seems like a really down to earth, sweet, funny guy. Not at *all* like his counterpart. I wonder if this is a good thing? *g*

*A Plea for Calm*

Okay gang, here is the detail I told you I'd come back to. I'm coming to you now as a fellow fan of The Invisible Man. You may have noticed that I've been strangely absent from the bboard as of late. This has absolutely nothing to do with real life or my job or anything. It has to do with the hostility I'm seeing there. It's not pleasant and I'm staying away. Guys, the board has changed, and not entirely for the better. There is sniping and hostility of the like I'm not used to seeing on our board. Remember when it was *fun* to show up there and discuss I-Man?
I know that a lot of you feel very strongly about the emergence of this new agent onto our show. Guys, let's not let this get the better of us, okay? It's just a character, and although I am of the "don't really care for her" crowd, I'm not going to waste my energy ripping her apart. I've said my piece, had my say and now I'm moving on. What's the point of flogging this dead horse, going on and on about how much you "can't stand" Alex and wish she were gone or at the most extreme end .. wish she were dead. Where's the love?
If you really want to make a difference, write David Levinson or even Jonathan Glassner over at Stu's. They are producers and will listen to what you, the fans, have to say. They brought Brandy Ledford in for a reason, if that goal is not being achieved then steps should (conceivably) be taken. Yes, you've ranted on the bboard and I've seen quite a few verbal arguments result because of it, now if you want to put all that energy to good use ... write a letter! I'm sure you've gotten the attention of TPTB.
All I'm trying to say is, we were fans of the show before Alex came along ... why are you letting this one character ruin the good time you're having? We watch it for the interplay between Darien and Hobbes, that's still going to be there. We watch it for the action and for the cool S/FX, those are still going to be there. I've heard it said that some of you are considering tuning I-Man out because of Alex Monroe. Why? Why let this one character take away from your love of the show? I'm gonna still be here when she's gone. If you think that her character can make me stop watching, then you don't know me very well. I can't understand how some people could say they would stop watching just because of one character! It was a great show when it started and it will continue to be a great show. This is one speed bump on the Autobahn that is I-Man. And you can quote me on that!
I love all of you, you know that, and I love this show. Think of it as a fussy Two-Year old, it's just a phase right now and then this too shall pass. Ride it out, see it through. You'll be happy you did, and let's move on to less hostile topics .. like the fact that Mike has his own eppy this week! C'mon guys, this show has so much to offer. Let's look forward and not backward, whaddaya say? Okay, end of sermon.

Stacey

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SPECIAL EVENTS UPDATE
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Hey all!

Wanted to let everyone know that the fan club birthday cards for Vince Ventresca came out GREAT! We had responses from 126 I-maniacs from 33 States plus New Zealand! YAY! I ended up completing 21 cards. I've taken digital pictures of them (*KatS crosses her fingers that the pics come out*) and after Vince's birthday this Sunday, we'll try to have them posted on the fan club web site. I'm sure Vince will love that we remembered him on his birthday. Thanks to everyone who participated!

As far as I-Maniacs at Comic Con 2001 goes, we're adding more locations to our "location crawl" planned during the con. Big thanks to TheMalteseHobbes for her reconnaissance work on this. *g* For information regarding Comic Con in San Diego this July 19-22, visit the official site: http://www.comic-con.org. For information regarding events planned for the I-maniacs, visit the fan club site at http://www.geocities.com/imanfanclub/main.htm or email me directly. If you think you might be interested in attending the con or I-maniacs events during the con, please email me at katryn7@nycap.rr.com.

Thanks!

KatrynSedai
Special Events Director

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SPOTLIGHT ON:
THE UNOFFICIAL FAN CLUB BBOARD
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We all know and love Sci fi's bboard (well, it's a bit hostile as of late, but it'll go back to being warm and fuzzy soon, I'm sure :) But have you ever seen a response to a post and wished you could respond to that response? The only way to do that on Sci fi's bboard is to respond to the original post and hope the person notices or post a new topic and hope everyone else doesn't get upset and accuse you of cluttering up the board.

This is where the Unofficial Fan Club BBoard at http://members2.boardhost.com/InvisibleMan/ beats Sci fi's bboard hands down. It actually creates threads so that you can respond directly to whatever post you'd like, be it a top level post or a response to a post or a response to a response to a post or a… I think this is where the Official would tell Eberts to shut up as the point has been made :)

Another perk with this bboard is its lack of trolls. As this bboard isn't connected to Sci fi in any way and, therefore, isn't publicized by them, the trolls have not found it! So you can feel safe knowing that you won't be the victim of unprovoked attacks by the pesky critters.

Finally, if you like to jazz up your posts with color or other text formatting, you'll love the fact that you can use htm on this bboard!

Got a great Invisible Man web site or know of one? Tell us about it. Send an e-mail with the site's address to imannewsletter@yahoo.com

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SOUND OFF!
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In this section of the newsletter we offer all of you the opportunity to give us your opinion on various Invisible Man subjects.

Before we get into the new topic, let's check out the results of the last "Sound Off". If you remember, I asked you to choose your favorite game played in "The Invisible Man"; Chess, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Ping Pong, or Craps.

Although each game had its proponents, the one that was preferred by most was Hungry Hungry Hippos. Hmm, I wonder what that says about us as a group? I know… it shows that we I-Maniacs know how to get in touch with our inner child and have fun! Right?

As R2 put it, "What better way to spend a rainy day than playing this classic game with your invisible best friend?"

New Topic (suggested by Pensive):
What is your favorite pop culture reference made in "The Invisible Man"? Is it the comparison of Arnaud to Doogie Howser? Or do you like the use of a Greatful Dead song in Catevari? Perhaps you prefer the discussion about Bert and Ernie's sexual orientation? Or are you partial to the chat regarding Britney Spears and to whom she might be married? Maybe you favor the debate as to the country of origin of Abba?

You can Sound Off by sending your choice (as difficult as it may be, please choose only one) to imannewsletter@yahoo.com by May 7th and be sure to put the words "Sound Off" in the subject of your email.

To continue to Part 2, click here.

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