The Zine Artists Online Museum

saarahonourrole36Many notable fanzine artists have banded together to present exhibits of their finest work at The Zine Artists, where they hope others soon will join them.

Here are high-resolution scans of great cover art unimpaired by cheap paper repro, faneds’ peculiar choices of colored paper, or massive blots of zine title typography. Pristine! At last, no barriers between the artist and the audience.

Already available are dozens and dozens of examples of the funny and beautiful work by —

Taral Wayne forestalls the obvious question —

The first thing you will notice is how terribly incomplete the list of artists is. “Where are Jeanne Gomoll,” you may ask, or “Jack Wiedenbeck, Randy Bathurst, or David Vereschagin?” The answer is that it will take time to track these artists down and contact them.

Taral has also penned a detailed history of the evolution of fanzine art – including his lament about the current state of affairs:

Then, of course, came the digital age, which changed everything.  No longer was it necessary to print anything at all to publish a fanzine.  Fan editors could  manipulate words and images directly on the screen, and distribute them in whatever file format was convenient.  It was no longer necessary to limit illustrations in any way.  Colour became almost mandatory.   Photographs were a breeze.  Any image that was already digitized was fair game to import into your document.  You could search the entire globe, through the Internet, for the exact image you wanted.  In effect, fanartists became redundant.

The golden age of fanzine art represented here never really seems to have been accompanied by a golden age of appreciation for the artists. In every era there have been justifiable complaints that the artists did not receive enough egoboo to “sustain life as we know it.” So take advantage of this chance to leave an appreciative comment in The Zine Artists chat section!

2013 Nova Awards

The Nova Awards celebrate achievement in British and Irish science fiction fanzines. The 2013 winners were announced this weekend at Novacon 43 in Nottingham, UK.

Best Fanzine
Banana Wings

Best Fanwriter
Mike Meara

Best Fan Artist
D. West

This is Meara’s first win.

Banana Wings has won 8 Nova Awards, its first in 1996.

D. West has won 11 Nova Awards going back to 1984 – including one as Best Fanwriter.

D. West Wins 2011 Rotsler Award

D. West of Embsay, Skipton in the United Kingdom has won the 2011 Rotsler Award, given for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community. Established in 1998, the award carries an honorarium of US$300.

West is known for a satirical eye and a sour wit, which he directs as freely upon himself as others.  He is in fact more versatile, which he sometimes reveals. West famously wrote an overview of fan artists for Simon Ounsley’s Lagoon, each entry accompanied by a sample of the artist’s work – every one a virtually undetectable fake produced by West’s own hand.

West is a three-time winner of the Fanzine Activity Achievement Award (FAAn) as Best Fan Artist (1995, 1998, 2000) and a three-time nominee for the Best Fan Artist Hugo Award (1979, 1987, 1999).

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation, which in 2006 hosted the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention.  The award is named for the late Bill Rotsler, a talented and prolific artist over many years.  Claire Brialey, Mike Glyer, and John Hertz served as this year’s judges.

The award was formally announced on Saturday, November 27, 2011 at Loscon 38. An exhibit honoring West’s work was displayed in the Art Show.

For more about the Rotsler Award, visit www.scifiinc.org/rotsler/. Samples of West’s work will be posted shortly.

Corflu Zed Posts PR #2 Online

Corflu Zed logo

Randy Byers writes: “The second issue of the Corflu Zed progress report, AmaZed and CorfluZed, is now available at <http://efanzines.com/Corflu26/index.htm>. Corflu Zed, the 26th Corflu, will be held the weekend of 13-15 March 2009 in Seattle.

“This edition of the progress report contains plenty of news and information about the convention, and it also includes reminiscences, Dickian dreams, and faan fiction by Earl Kemp, Jerry Kaufman, Terry Floyd, Lucy Huntzinger, and Otto Pfeifer, plus cartoons by Steve Stiles, Brad Foster, and D West. We also have a lettercol this time, and we hope you’ll write us with your comments and questions for the third and final issue, which we’ll publish in February. Send letters to [email protected].”

Update 12/11/2008: Added Jerry Kaufman to credits.