Poor Trufan’s Almanack:
1978 FAAn Awards

This post inaugurates a new category, “Poor Trufan’s Almanack.” These fanhistorical articles will bring to the net information I’ve found that fills in gaps in the electronically-available research.

Commonly, this will be data I happen upon in paper fanzines that simply never made it to the web. I will park the data here and extend an open invitation for fans to copy it to the appropriate long lists. Less commonly, I will examine a controversial bit of fanhistory and make my case for interpreting it a certain way.

The initial posts in this category are the noncontroversial kind.

I noticed some time ago that Corflu’s FAAn Awards history page lacks entries for the 1978 winners of the two artist categories. The awards were given out at Autoclave 3, held from July 21-23, 1978 in Southfield, MI. The complete data was published in various issues of the old newzine DNQ, edited by Victoria Vayne and Taral, which I recently reread.

The data appears following the jump.

The nominees for the 1978 Fanzine Activity Achievement Awards listed in DNQ #1 were:

Best Single Issue
Maya 14
Spanish Inquisition 10
Simulacrum 7
Fanthology 76
Delta Psi 1

Best Fan Editor
Donn Brazier
Don D’Ammassa
Mike Glyer
Terry Hughes
Rob Jackson
Victoria Vayne

Best Fan Writer
Don D’Ammassa
Mike Glicksohn
Bob Shaw
Don Thompson
Susan Wood

Best Artist (Serious)
Jim McLeod
Jim Odbert
James Shull
Mike Streff
Al Sirois
Taral

Best Artist (Humorous)
Harry Bell
Grant Canfield
Derek Carter
Alexis Gilliland
Bill Rotsler
Dan Steffan

Best LoC Writer
Avedon Carol
Don D’Ammassa
Mike Glicksohn
Jessica Salmonson
Harry Warner Jr.

Nominating ballots cast: 33 (8 from Toronto fans.)

Final ballots cast: 76 (4 from Australia fans and 3 from UK fans)

1978 FAAn Award Winners

Best Single Issue: Maya 14
Best Fan Editor: Rob Jackson
Best Fan Writer: Bob Shaw
Best Artist (Serious): Jim Shull
Best Artist (Humorous): Alexis Gilliland
Best LoC Writer: Mike Glicksohn

This list of the 1978 winners was taken from a paper copy of DNQ, and it’s also available online in Checkpoint 91.

Ranking of the Finalists

DNQ also announced how the nominees ranked in the final voting. But Victoria and Taral did not release the voting statistics. However, total final round votes (76 ballots, including 4 from Australia and 3 from the UK), and first and second place runoff totals were recorded in File 770 #6 from August 1978.

Best Single Issue:
(1) Maya 14 (34 votes)
(2) Simulacrum 7 (24 votes)
(3) Delta Psi 1
(4 – tie) Spanish Inquisition 10, Fanthology 76

Best Fan Editor:
(1) Rob Jackson (35 votes)
(2) Don D’Ammassa (28 votes)
(3) Terry Hughes
(4) Victoria Vayne
(5) Mike Glyer
(6) Donn Brazier

Best Fan Writer:
(1) Bob Shaw (42 votes)
(2) Don D’Ammassa (23 votes)
(3) Susan Wood
(4 – tie) Mike Glicksohn, Don Thomson

Best Artist (Serious):
(1) Jim Shull (28 votes)
(2) Taral (22 votes)
(3) Jim McLeod
(4) Jim Odbert
(5) Mike Streff
(6) Al Sirois

Best Artist (Humorous):
(1) Alexis Gilliland (40 votes)
(2) Derek Carter (27 votes)
(3) Harry Bell
(4) Grant Canfield
(5) Bill Rotsler
(6) Dan Steffan

Best LoC Writer:
(1) Mike Glicksohn (44 votes)
(2) Avedon Carol (20 votes)
(3) Harry Warner Jr.
(4) Don D’Ammassa
(5) No Award
(6) Jessica Amanda Salmonson

4 thoughts on “Poor Trufan’s Almanack:
1978 FAAn Awards

  1. Mike, are you forwarding this information to Tracy Benton to make sure she sees it? She maintains the corflu.org site, as you probably know.

    Look forward to seeing what else you dig up.

  2. Hmm, I’m reminded that I unintentionally killed the original awards in 1981 by taking over the task of counting the ballots after the original administrators felt unable to carry on, and I ended up counting them and never publishing the results, since I felt that the number of voters was so small, and the degree to which I could change the results by different interpretations of how people wrote in their ballots (multiple entries, the same nominee nominated in different categories, etc)., made the results pretty much arbitrary and meaningless, since essentially I’d be personally deciding who won depending on how I decided to count the ambiguous votes.

    That, plus my Major Clinical Depression was in the early years of first manifesting, and I didn’t know it.

    In case you or anyone ever wondered.

  3. Thanks for filling in the final chapter in Volume One of the FAAn Awards. Taral mentioned to me you were the last administrator, and that was about all I knew til now.

  4. If my memory isn’t confused, it was Mike Glicksohn who was the actual chosen administrator who couldn’t continue; I volunteered to do it when he couldn’t.

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