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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 10, Spring 1946
Page 266
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266 FANTASY COMMENTATOR The Bulletin is now a magazine in which all science fiction fans will be intensely interested. The April issue contains vital information about the failure of Wonder Stories to pay its authors. Fans should welcome this magazine which gives them honest and accurate information. Nor do we discourage fans from joining The International Cosmos Science Club or subscribing to its official publication, The International Observer. This magazine has shown consistent improvement with each issue. Under the guidance of William S. Sykora and Donald Wollheim it should make even greater strides in the future. Arthur ("Bob") Tucker will be remembered as a contributor to the pages of The Fantasy Fan and Fantasy Magazine, both serious efforts and humorous ones coming from his pen. Of the latter (many of which bore the byline of his alter ego, "Hoy Ping Pong") such extrapolations on science-fiction as his account of a future fan convention held on the planet Pluto proved most popular. His clowning spread to the magazines' reader-columns, where, hitting upon the notion of parodying readers' requests, it reached its acme of notoriety. Readers from time immemorial had complained about paper-quality, type-size, rough edges, quality of illustrations, the magazines' sizes, and so on. Tucker decided to show them how ridiculous and picayune all this was, and with characteristic mock seriousness wrote to the editor of Astounding Stories, demanding that the wire staples which bound the magazine together be removed, as they disgraced the field by indicating its originality. Flavored chewing-gum, he hinted, would be preferable; and for true dignity nothing could surpass the platinum fastener. To carry out his plan, Tucker appointed himself dictator of the Society for the Prevention of Wire Staples in Scientifiction Magazines---or the SPWSSTFM for short. The very absurdity of the movement caught the fickle juvenile fancy of the fans. A flood of letters pro and con poured in, the mock controversy giving rise to dozens of similar organizations, each and every one of which designated itself by a long set of initials. The primary opposing group was headed by High Cocolorum Donald A. Wollheim; it called itself the IAOPUMUMFSTFPUSA, which stood for International and Allied Organization for the Purpose of Upholding and Maintaining the Use of Metallic Fasteners in Science Fiction Publications of the United States of America. Uncomplimentary remarks were exchanged between the rival groups in their official publications---these being Tucker's renowned D'Journal, whose membership list allegedly included many leading authors and editors, and Wollheim's Polymorphanucleated Leucocyte. The final rounds of the battle were unquestionably Wollheim's, for it was shown that D'Journal had, contrary to its ethical stand, used staples for binding. Reader-reaction soon turned against the alphabetical societies as the more mature faction of the audience began to assert itself, however. But the horseplay was not destined to peter out ignominiously, being brought to an abrupt and dramatic conclusion by two letters printed in the January, 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. The first was a letter from one Anne Smidley, notifying the magazine's readers of the death of Bob Tucker, who was operated upon, and "never recovered consciousness". The second was from Tucker himself, ostensibly written before the operation, in which he requested all the alphabetical societies to combine into two opposing groups. Editor Tremaine in a footnote asked readers to "accept his challenge and work for unity." The entire affair was so preposterous---imagine taking the organization of such groups seriously!---that readers did not know what to believe. Tucker, the perfect fan fool, dead? It was inconceivable. Some New York skeptics tele-
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266 FANTASY COMMENTATOR The Bulletin is now a magazine in which all science fiction fans will be intensely interested. The April issue contains vital information about the failure of Wonder Stories to pay its authors. Fans should welcome this magazine which gives them honest and accurate information. Nor do we discourage fans from joining The International Cosmos Science Club or subscribing to its official publication, The International Observer. This magazine has shown consistent improvement with each issue. Under the guidance of William S. Sykora and Donald Wollheim it should make even greater strides in the future. Arthur ("Bob") Tucker will be remembered as a contributor to the pages of The Fantasy Fan and Fantasy Magazine, both serious efforts and humorous ones coming from his pen. Of the latter (many of which bore the byline of his alter ego, "Hoy Ping Pong") such extrapolations on science-fiction as his account of a future fan convention held on the planet Pluto proved most popular. His clowning spread to the magazines' reader-columns, where, hitting upon the notion of parodying readers' requests, it reached its acme of notoriety. Readers from time immemorial had complained about paper-quality, type-size, rough edges, quality of illustrations, the magazines' sizes, and so on. Tucker decided to show them how ridiculous and picayune all this was, and with characteristic mock seriousness wrote to the editor of Astounding Stories, demanding that the wire staples which bound the magazine together be removed, as they disgraced the field by indicating its originality. Flavored chewing-gum, he hinted, would be preferable; and for true dignity nothing could surpass the platinum fastener. To carry out his plan, Tucker appointed himself dictator of the Society for the Prevention of Wire Staples in Scientifiction Magazines---or the SPWSSTFM for short. The very absurdity of the movement caught the fickle juvenile fancy of the fans. A flood of letters pro and con poured in, the mock controversy giving rise to dozens of similar organizations, each and every one of which designated itself by a long set of initials. The primary opposing group was headed by High Cocolorum Donald A. Wollheim; it called itself the IAOPUMUMFSTFPUSA, which stood for International and Allied Organization for the Purpose of Upholding and Maintaining the Use of Metallic Fasteners in Science Fiction Publications of the United States of America. Uncomplimentary remarks were exchanged between the rival groups in their official publications---these being Tucker's renowned D'Journal, whose membership list allegedly included many leading authors and editors, and Wollheim's Polymorphanucleated Leucocyte. The final rounds of the battle were unquestionably Wollheim's, for it was shown that D'Journal had, contrary to its ethical stand, used staples for binding. Reader-reaction soon turned against the alphabetical societies as the more mature faction of the audience began to assert itself, however. But the horseplay was not destined to peter out ignominiously, being brought to an abrupt and dramatic conclusion by two letters printed in the January, 1936 issue of Astounding Stories. The first was a letter from one Anne Smidley, notifying the magazine's readers of the death of Bob Tucker, who was operated upon, and "never recovered consciousness". The second was from Tucker himself, ostensibly written before the operation, in which he requested all the alphabetical societies to combine into two opposing groups. Editor Tremaine in a footnote asked readers to "accept his challenge and work for unity." The entire affair was so preposterous---imagine taking the organization of such groups seriously!---that readers did not know what to believe. Tucker, the perfect fan fool, dead? It was inconceivable. Some New York skeptics tele-
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