The other day when I was skimming through this page about some of the panel discussions and talks that are going to take place at the CE, there were two things that caught my attention.

Firstly, the headline of one of the talks - namely, "Danish Star Wars Collectibles" - caught my attention, because, while not really a collector, I am a Star Wars fan and I live in Denmark. So, obviously that talk seemed interesting to me. I quote the entire synopsis here:

"This talk will cover a range of Star Wars collectibles from Denmark including the Danish translations of Marvel Comics, The Read-Along-and-Listen books and tapes/records (reportedly hilarious in Danish), Poster Magazine, and the 1985 Toy Catalog with pictures of very interesting Danish Star Wars toys. The presentation will also examine food products like the Pepsi contest from 1997, and an interesting commercial promoting the contest. Also explore the challenges inherent in amassing a Star Wars collection while living in a small country."

This talk should be interesting to a wide range of persons:
--Firstly, it's interesting to people like me who grew up reading the Danish Star Wars Marvel Comics, which were not always that child-friendly even though they were primarily directed at older children and adolescents, and listening to the Danish Star Wars audiotapes.
--But the talk should also be interesting at a more meta-fan-community level. Today, the audiotapes and Marvel Comics have reached a cult status of sorts, mainly because they now qualify as kitsch items, and it is undoubtedly always interesting to get a glimpse into what causes certain communities to praise certain items as cult items.
--There are also some interesting aspects to the early Danish Star Wars collectibles themselves. The audiotapes are simply plain hilarious with their many mispronunciations and strange translations. For instance, A New Hope doesn't take place in a galaxy, but rather in a nebula according to the audiotapes, and Darth Vader's name is apparently "Dart Weiduh" in this nebula.
--Finally, the talk should appeal to collectors everywhere. Denmark being such a small country (and being pretty backwards back in the 1980s), many of the Danish Star Wars collectibles were produced in small numbers and should now be rarities. The audiotapes, for instance are almost impossible to come by, many of them having deterioated naturally over time, and others being kept in safety by very protective and nostalgic first generation fans. Who knows which items from the 1985 catalog are still out there? And the Danish Marvel Star Wars issues? Well, some of them may be lying around in some second hand bookstores somewhere... if you're lucky.

The next thing that caught my attention was the name of the speaker, which turned out as a bit of a positive surprise to me, since it's actually one of my good friends. Henrik Wulff Rasmussen, who has also sponsored one of the CE medallions (the one with the Jawa on it), has been part of the Danish Star Wars fan community basically ever since A New Hope came out, and he's been a collector of Star Wars items for probably just as long. It is my impression that he really knows a lot about both collecting and about the history and development of the Danish Star Wars fan community, as well as the conditions it has developed in. So, I think, he's probably the most qualified person in the galaxy (or the nebula, I guess) to explore the challenges of amassing a Star Wars collection in a small country in which many non-standard activities, such as sci-fi fandom, RPGing and so on, have been frowned upon by the main stream population.

Knowing Wulff, as we call him, I am absolutely sure that this particular talk will be a very interesting and enlightening experience for fellow collectors and fellow fans. And, the entire collectors' discussion panel seems very interesting dealing with a lot of interesting aspects of collecting from Star Wars tattoos over the fantastic Japanese collectibles and unproduced Star Wars toys to collecting in Sweden and Denmark.