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Le Zombie, whole no. 53, May-June 1943
Page 10
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American's age, have gone higher in the last decade, which makes Widner's case for fans being Methuselah's grandchildren look even worse. With customary bashfulness, I'd like to point out that the current decline of the prozine empire, and its imminent fall, would not have surprised any of you, had you believed me when I predicted in nearly 2 years ago, in a column in Fanfare. I said then that the end of 1943 would see no more than three or four prozines extant, and I think we're well on the way toward seeing that realized. The situation as I type is muddled, but it seems certain that there are not more than ten of the things left now, almost all of which have shown retrenchment recently in frequency of publication or number of pages; and there are still six months for my prophecy to be completely fulfilled. I feel it my graven duty to toss out three compliments. The first of these goes to a practically new comic strip, "Barnaby", which began I think in that very undesirable paper, PM, and has since been syndicated to any number of other news papers over the country. It's the ultimate in quiet fantasy, I'm inclined to think, altho you wont agree with me if you don't take the trouble to follow it for about two weeks regularly, and really get the atmosphere. Our second hero is Sir William Evans, who does huge amounts of work for fandom and gets practically no notoriety in return. His latest project, which should be completed soon, is a new kind of catalog which is so obvious that no one seems to have thot of it before, despite the grandiose plans for indexing fanzines, compiling fancyclopedias, and so forth. It will be simply a listing of all stf prozines that have ever appeared-- the date, volume and number of each issue, and a few other pertinent facts. If this seems unnecessary, stop and consider for a moment the position of the new fan. Where can he go to find out, for instance, how many issues of the Comet appeared, what was the date of the comic book issue of Stirring Science, or when the last of the old Amazing Quarterlies came out? The information isn't down in print anywhere; he has to ask questions and dig up the dope in a variety of places, and may have to inquire in a half dozen places before he can find out something of that sort he wants to know, decent collections being so scarce these days, and so many of the old collectors having left the field. Finally, a few nice words for the PocketBook of Science-Fiction , which I saw yesterday for the first time. While there will be no one completely satisfied with the stories included, and everyone will think a very great tale was stupidly omitted, Wollheim did an excellent job in assembling examples from the entire field, seeing to it that a decent cover format was set up, and somehow getting rid of the original title of "PocketBook of Scientific Romances", which gave me the worst of nightmares. And now let us observe a moment of silence in respect for a bereaved fan. W.B. McQueen, the famed Panurge, lost in a fire his complete collection of all the old Munsey publications, many other magazines, and books he valued at two thousand dollars. It has been arranged that two columns will occupy this space in alternate, if erratic, arrangement. Next issue contains Donna Belle Thompson's "As The Wind Listeth...."; then, Harry's column for two consecutive issues, followed again by one of Thompsons, and so on.
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American's age, have gone higher in the last decade, which makes Widner's case for fans being Methuselah's grandchildren look even worse. With customary bashfulness, I'd like to point out that the current decline of the prozine empire, and its imminent fall, would not have surprised any of you, had you believed me when I predicted in nearly 2 years ago, in a column in Fanfare. I said then that the end of 1943 would see no more than three or four prozines extant, and I think we're well on the way toward seeing that realized. The situation as I type is muddled, but it seems certain that there are not more than ten of the things left now, almost all of which have shown retrenchment recently in frequency of publication or number of pages; and there are still six months for my prophecy to be completely fulfilled. I feel it my graven duty to toss out three compliments. The first of these goes to a practically new comic strip, "Barnaby", which began I think in that very undesirable paper, PM, and has since been syndicated to any number of other news papers over the country. It's the ultimate in quiet fantasy, I'm inclined to think, altho you wont agree with me if you don't take the trouble to follow it for about two weeks regularly, and really get the atmosphere. Our second hero is Sir William Evans, who does huge amounts of work for fandom and gets practically no notoriety in return. His latest project, which should be completed soon, is a new kind of catalog which is so obvious that no one seems to have thot of it before, despite the grandiose plans for indexing fanzines, compiling fancyclopedias, and so forth. It will be simply a listing of all stf prozines that have ever appeared-- the date, volume and number of each issue, and a few other pertinent facts. If this seems unnecessary, stop and consider for a moment the position of the new fan. Where can he go to find out, for instance, how many issues of the Comet appeared, what was the date of the comic book issue of Stirring Science, or when the last of the old Amazing Quarterlies came out? The information isn't down in print anywhere; he has to ask questions and dig up the dope in a variety of places, and may have to inquire in a half dozen places before he can find out something of that sort he wants to know, decent collections being so scarce these days, and so many of the old collectors having left the field. Finally, a few nice words for the PocketBook of Science-Fiction , which I saw yesterday for the first time. While there will be no one completely satisfied with the stories included, and everyone will think a very great tale was stupidly omitted, Wollheim did an excellent job in assembling examples from the entire field, seeing to it that a decent cover format was set up, and somehow getting rid of the original title of "PocketBook of Scientific Romances", which gave me the worst of nightmares. And now let us observe a moment of silence in respect for a bereaved fan. W.B. McQueen, the famed Panurge, lost in a fire his complete collection of all the old Munsey publications, many other magazines, and books he valued at two thousand dollars. It has been arranged that two columns will occupy this space in alternate, if erratic, arrangement. Next issue contains Donna Belle Thompson's "As The Wind Listeth...."; then, Harry's column for two consecutive issues, followed again by one of Thompsons, and so on.
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