I had fun on the first day of Westercon 63. A lot of creative fans helped to insure that.

For example, set in the midst of the fan table area like a jewel was the big graphic appealing for people to support the Tonopah in 2012 Westercon bid : a poster of brilliant blue, with a sky-high mushroom cloud streaming heavenward, Kuma Bear beside a cactus in the foreground. It looks like the place Indiana Jones’ refrigerator rolled to a stop. (Of course, doesn’t most of Nevada?)

A second poster declared the Tonopah bid is NOT A HOAX. It just happens to be a bid that didn’t file (wasn’t eligible to file, as Kevin Standlee explains). Now the only way it can win is through a series of events beginning with the filed Seattle in 2012 bid failing to outpoll write-ins for Tonopah or None of the Above. (But that’s more than I need to know — I like the Tonopah bid material, not the idea of voting it in preference to Seattle.)

Later in the afternoon I answered the siren call to attend “The Modern Fanzine” panel. How often are fanzines explained with the contagious sense of fun that Kevin Roche, España Sheriff and Jason Schachat, the Yipe! editorial staff, bring to the subject? While they expanded my horizons about editing a digital fanzine on multiple platforms, they also fired me up to get back to work on my next ish.