Speed Week webpages starting 24 August 2017
contact Ken Fletcher
kenfletch'at)comcast.net
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Request
for
Contributions:
1930s "Speed Week" theme. BASIC BACKGROUND:
The website "Spontoon Island" will publish additions to a set of special webpages (beginning 24 August, 2017) about an island celebration, "Speed Week": http://spontoon.rootoon.com/SPwRacCn.html Additional contributions to the future pages for 2017 are very welcome! This is a link to the entrance of the general Spontoon Island pages. http://spontoon.rootoon.com/ The setting is a semi-tropical island in the North Pacific in the 1930s, with a population of anthropomorphs ('furry' humanoids). There are some 1930s modern built-up areas on the island that include resorts and hotels for upper-income travelers and tourists. Beginning in the early 1920s, during the last week of August, the native government sponsors races ("Speed Week") that attract extra visitors and have extensive international radio, newspaper & newsreel coverage. (Speed Week is always the 24th through 31st of August, every year.) The earliest "Speed Weeks" had mostly local entries, but within a few years, the publicity (and the Pacific island location) attracted international teams for aircraft (and other vehicles). Individuals, private teams, and teams sponsored by many nations participate. The races include courses for seaplanes (of various styles and sizes), land aircraft, race-cars, racing motorcycles, and powerboats. Since 1935, a version of the Schneider Trophy international seaplane races have also taken place at Spontoon Island during Speed Week. (In our world, the international Schneider Trophy series of races was won by the British in 1931. In the Spontoon setting, the races continued through 1939 and had been moved to the Spontoon Islands in 1935.) (There is is a page about the Spontoon Island Racing Association (SIRA) that has some earlier information on Speed Week & the Schneider Trophy.) CONTRIBUTION LIMITS AND PREFERRED SIZES: Contributors are invited to send in art or short text anecdotes related to the theme of "Speed Week" on the Spontoon Islands. The contributions may be about racing on these islands for any year, approximately 1915 through 1950 (1930s preferred). The web page is organized more like a scrapbook, rather than covering one specific race or year. Reposts of your previously posted art of racing vehicles or racing scenes are welcome, although any pilots or mechanics seen should be 'anthropomorphs' (or 'funny animals') to fit with the style of the setting. Characters should be your own creations, or posted with permission. I also like to see original design vehicles, but historical vehicles are fine. I regret that I can't pay for contributions. You will be credited (and, if you request, given a links to your other websites). Contributors retain their copyrights and can post their own created material in other locations. Display art (on the webpages) will usually be limited to within 600 pixels wide and under 1 MegaBytes of storage. Art files can be larger (and wider), but they are then likely be viewed from a text-link, or from a thumbnail-link of under 150 x 150 pixels. (Ask if you would wish to have an exception.) Text contributions (recreated news stories, character studies, short fiction) should be submitted in plain text (.txt) or rich text files (.rtf). Email, please, before writing stories much over 1000 words. The website is for grown-ups, yet most of the material on the website you will find to be G-rated. A "General-audience" rating for images is what is preferred for contributions to "Speed Week". Some "Mature" situations in images and some "1930s-style mature art" may be allowed. MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR ART: The setting and its population can range from serious-anthropomorphic to funny-animal in style. It is a 1930s semi-tropical island. The clothing (or lack of clothing) should reflect that setting. There are some clothing references on the website, but the clothing costume of 1930s pulp & adventure movies are acceptable clothing models: King Kong, the early Indiana Jones movies, etc. In the Spontoon Island stories, the local natives control the government and administration. Many of the locals are skilled pilots and mechanics. They are a mixture of cultures & species, and they are modern and Polynesian in attitude. The very independent natives enjoy role-playing and/or acting to the visitors' expectations and sometimes may choose to act & dress unsophisticated. The visitors for Speed Week include many locals from other regional islands, and a small number of relatively rich visitors from large nations around the Pacific Ocean. The main urban areas of the island (Casino Island, South Island, Eastern Island) may get crowds at the best viewing spots for the races. The racing vehicles should be based on 1930s models, with some allowance for cartoon caricature & adventure-magazine science. Drawings of racing vehicle drivers with typical tropical accessories or background scenes would be very acceptable. (Re-posted art: If you have illustrations that show only an aircraft image, that would be acceptable for this theme and setting. I also admit that if a pilot was visible & dressed in flying suit, helmet & goggles, the only ways one might be able tell that it was a 'funny animal' flying the aircraft would be ears & muzzle... and those might be covered by the helmet & flying scarf. 8) ) (For picture references, the actual series of Schneider Trophy racing-seaplane designs ended in 1931, but there continued to be prototype high-speed seaplanes built, such as in Italy. For 1930s designs for racing seaplanes, artists could consider the styling of land-based racing aircraft (retro-equipped with floats), and the prototypes for various military high-performance seaplanes (fighter seaplanes) in the late 1930s. 'Pulp' adventure magazines and popular science magazines from that time would often have illustrations of imagined near-future high-speed 'air mail', racing, or fighter aircraft.) RELATED ART SUBJECTS: Additional images that would be very welcome: Pilots & mechanics, on and off-duty. (Cartooned as funny animals, or illustrated as anthropomorphs -- as in the comic strip "BlackSad".) Eating lunch, drinking, telling stories - outdoors in the exotic tropics, or working in a hangar or garage. Housing for visitors: Fancy tropical traveler hotels, cheap tourist hotels, private Homes of Good Repute, tropical huts, tents in a local family's back yard, Accommodation ships (bunk-boats), house-boats, freighter ships and Seaplane-tender ships of foreign navies (These would be the support ships that some seaplanes would be shipped on to cross the Pacific Ocean). Scenes from Spontoon Island, showing island life during the Speed Week races: International reporters at work (newsreel film, radio, newspaper), food vendors & restaurant workers, natives selling souvenirs, hotel workers, small buses, water-taxis, crowds of prosperous tourists, gambling operations, and similar subjects. LINKS: There are reference links at the Spontoon website. Here are a couple of very good websites (via R. J. Bartrop) related to 1930s aircraft and seaplane racing: General info & images, air racing, circa 1920-1950: http://www.air-racing-history.com/ * The Society of Air Racing Historians * http://www.airrace.com/ Schneider Trophy (unlimited seaplane) racing (plus links to European seaplane images): http://www.hydroretro.net/indexen.html Another excellent reference site (via Bob Martin), with extensive links: http://www.schneider-cup.com/ (Thanks are due to R.J.Bartrop for coming up with the ideas of the Spontoon Island Racing Association and a "Spontoon Island Speed Week"!) Questions are welcome- Thank you, Ken Fletcher kenfletch'at)comcast.net [ You know what to substitute for the 'at) ]  A photo finish - Art by M.
Mitchell Marmel
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