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Le Zombie, v. 5, issue 4, whole no. 51, January 1943
Page b 6
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b6 EMERGENCY FLARE a column by Harry Warner, Jr. Very often a thing meant to make one appearance only turns out to become something regular. Here is an instance, perchance. In other words, this column title first appeared in Spaceways when a column by another guy didn't arrive when scheduled. I'm asked to do something for this issue of Le Zombie , and certainly don't want to take time thinking up a brand new column title. If you bombard the Lord High Father of this here magazine with sufficient telegrams, cables, and special-delivery letters, this might be inflicted for a third, fourth, or indefinite number of times in Le Zombie. If not, it'll undoubtedly turn up in some other fanzine within the decade. One correction, first of all; in Milestones in Fan History Dept , which led off the last Le Zombie, it was stated that my mother wrote poetry for Spaceways, which appeared under pseudonyms. 'Twasn't so. I'm the only member of the family who did that trick; apparently someone got Warner & Spaceways confused with Beling and Fan-Atic. While on the subject of Spaceways: the letters of comment, which would have appeared in that never-published 31st issue, are to be published by Larry Farsaci, in a new issue of Golden Atom. Possibly they'll be out by the time this sees print; if not, expect them. You see, Larry has the magazine all mimeod, but the army called him before he was able to get it assembled and mailed out. He'll have to wait for a furlough to finish it up. ((See Farsaci advertisement in attached Advertiser -BT )) A number of viewers-with-alarm have been bewailing the lack of interest in fandom these days. They have enough to complain about: fans aren't writing letters, reading fanzines or prozines, publishing fanzines, or doing things that every good fan should do. But I've noticed something else. The fans now in the armed forces seem to be more active now, generally speaking, than they were in civilian life, considering the free time they may reasonable be expected to have now. I'm in correspondence with a dozen or more fans in the army and navy. Without exception, they're answering my letters more promptly than they did before enlistment or induction. More important, their letters are more intelligent, better thought out and organized, more clearly written than ever. The few who are in a position to do some publishing while in service, like Lynn Bridges, are putting out more entertaining fanzines. Just what causes this, I wonder? Certainly the army and navy don't let enlisted men sit around all day drafting letters dealing with stf. It may be that the duties of service life , the discipline, work to produce a greater mental clearness; or possibly the servicemen can get up more enthusiasm and turn out better stuff when he has so little time to spend on his hobby. Regardless, there is definitely a slackening-off interest in the fan field as a whole. One small incident demonstrates this very well. Quite some time ago, Astounding published a short story by Webster Craig, entitled "Homo Saps". I thought it a very fine, very funny yarn. More important, it had certain mysterious features to it which five years ago fans would have filled many fanzine pages discussing and wondering over. What happened? I don't remember seeing a mention of it, anywhere. All I could do was ask certain correspondents about it. (I got some rather surprising information from England on who really wrote it--but am pledged not to repeat anything!)
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b6 EMERGENCY FLARE a column by Harry Warner, Jr. Very often a thing meant to make one appearance only turns out to become something regular. Here is an instance, perchance. In other words, this column title first appeared in Spaceways when a column by another guy didn't arrive when scheduled. I'm asked to do something for this issue of Le Zombie , and certainly don't want to take time thinking up a brand new column title. If you bombard the Lord High Father of this here magazine with sufficient telegrams, cables, and special-delivery letters, this might be inflicted for a third, fourth, or indefinite number of times in Le Zombie. If not, it'll undoubtedly turn up in some other fanzine within the decade. One correction, first of all; in Milestones in Fan History Dept , which led off the last Le Zombie, it was stated that my mother wrote poetry for Spaceways, which appeared under pseudonyms. 'Twasn't so. I'm the only member of the family who did that trick; apparently someone got Warner & Spaceways confused with Beling and Fan-Atic. While on the subject of Spaceways: the letters of comment, which would have appeared in that never-published 31st issue, are to be published by Larry Farsaci, in a new issue of Golden Atom. Possibly they'll be out by the time this sees print; if not, expect them. You see, Larry has the magazine all mimeod, but the army called him before he was able to get it assembled and mailed out. He'll have to wait for a furlough to finish it up. ((See Farsaci advertisement in attached Advertiser -BT )) A number of viewers-with-alarm have been bewailing the lack of interest in fandom these days. They have enough to complain about: fans aren't writing letters, reading fanzines or prozines, publishing fanzines, or doing things that every good fan should do. But I've noticed something else. The fans now in the armed forces seem to be more active now, generally speaking, than they were in civilian life, considering the free time they may reasonable be expected to have now. I'm in correspondence with a dozen or more fans in the army and navy. Without exception, they're answering my letters more promptly than they did before enlistment or induction. More important, their letters are more intelligent, better thought out and organized, more clearly written than ever. The few who are in a position to do some publishing while in service, like Lynn Bridges, are putting out more entertaining fanzines. Just what causes this, I wonder? Certainly the army and navy don't let enlisted men sit around all day drafting letters dealing with stf. It may be that the duties of service life , the discipline, work to produce a greater mental clearness; or possibly the servicemen can get up more enthusiasm and turn out better stuff when he has so little time to spend on his hobby. Regardless, there is definitely a slackening-off interest in the fan field as a whole. One small incident demonstrates this very well. Quite some time ago, Astounding published a short story by Webster Craig, entitled "Homo Saps". I thought it a very fine, very funny yarn. More important, it had certain mysterious features to it which five years ago fans would have filled many fanzine pages discussing and wondering over. What happened? I don't remember seeing a mention of it, anywhere. All I could do was ask certain correspondents about it. (I got some rather surprising information from England on who really wrote it--but am pledged not to repeat anything!)
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