A Salute to Tim Kirk

How good a fanartist is Tim Kirk? So good that in the 1970s he won five Hugos during the greatest era in the history of fan art, running against a field including George Barr, Alicia Austin, Steven Fabian, Bill Rotsler, Grant Canfield, Steve Stiles, ATom and others.

Tim drew the signature Geis-and-Alter-Ego logo that ran above the editorials in Science Fiction Review, the dominant fanzine of the late 60s/early 70s. He did lots of terrific fanzine covers. With paint and canvas he brought vividly to life all kinds of rumpled gnomes and alien creatures, including  “Mugg from Thugg.”

Tim made a huge splash at the 1972 Westercon art show with a display of 26 Tolkien-themed paintings he’d done for his thesis project while earning a Master’s degree in Illustration from California State University, Long Beach. Thirteen of the paintings were selected for publication by Ballantine Books as the 1975 Tolkien Calendar.

Tim’s stunning entries in other art shows included vast pen-and-ink drawings that were busier than any scene by Hieronymous Bosch and infinitely more entertaining. Whenever they could, the Nivens would top all bidders at auction and take these drawings home to make them centerpieces on the living room walls. This was lucky for visitors to the Nivens’ after-LASFS poker games, like me. Once I gambled away my $5 limit I had plenty of time to study in detail all the lore Tim stuffed in every corner of Merlin’s workshop and other pictures til my ride was ready to leave.

Fandom still had a bit of an inferiority complex in those days about the mainstream’s disrespect of anyone with an interest in sf and fantasy, so when Hallmark Cards hired Tim some of us felt a little bit vindicated to see a talented artist rise from our midst and apply his abilities to products everyone in America used. Tim was with Hallmark from 1973 to 1980, doing progressively more professional art and, as seemed logical at the time, fading out of the fanzine scene altogether.

As it happened, Tim soon leaped from one pinnacle of success to another. From 1980 to 2001 he was employed as a designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, and was instrumental in the conception and realization of several major theme park projects, including the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, and Tokyo DisneySea, which debuted in September 2001. In 2002 he, along with his brother and sister-in-law (also Disney veterans) founded Kirk Design Incorporated, specializing in museum, restaurant, retail and theme park work.

Their firm was responsible for the conceptual design of Seattle’s new  Science Fiction Museum, exhibiting some of Paul Allen’s vast collection, which opened in 2004. Tim also serves on the Science Fiction Museum Advisory Board.

Tim’s work on SFM led to renewed visibility in fannish circles. He was at the 2003 Westercon during Greg Bear’s SFM presentation making illustrated notes on an easel. In 2004, he contributed a highly interesting autobiographical essay to Guy Lillian’s Challenger, accompanied by a beautiful portfolio of his classic pen-and-ink drawings.

Since then Tim has been guest of honor at ConDor XIV (2007), the local San Diego convention, where Jerry Shaw photographed him at the masquerade showing off the souvenir tile they gave him.

It’s a great thing when a fannish giant proves you can come home again!

The League of Extraordinarily Selfless Fan Artists

Frank Wu has preemptively announced that he will decline if nominated for Best Fan Artist in 2008.

“This essay is incredibly hard to write. I don’t want to be misunderstood, to come across as churlish, arrogant, calculating or ungrateful…. Having won three Hugo Awards for Best Fan Artist, in three of the last four years, I have decided that – should I be nominated – I will decline the nomination [in 2008],” wrote Frank in an editorial published in Abyss and Apex issue 24, dated the fourth quarter or 2007.

I learned about Frank’s decision when his editorial popped up in response to a Google search about another fan artist. Such news must have been reported and discussed long since (though not anywhere Google could show me). Such a remarkable example of selflessness is worth retelling, in any case.

Frank thoughtfully explains that his decision has been made for the sake of the vitality of the Best Fan Artist Hugo category. He wants to “break the logjam” for other fan artists like Alan F. Beck, Taral Wayne, Dan Steffan, Marc Schirmeister, Alexis Gilliland, and Stu Shiffman. (Though Frank surely must know Gilliland and Shiffman have won before.)

To help show that withdrawing is not an ungrateful response to his popularity, Frank lists many other people who withdrew from past Hugo races. He might have added the two most important examples from the Best Fan Artist category itself. There’s not another category where serial winners have been so conscientious about sharing the limelight.

Phil Foglio won the Best Fan Artist Hugo in 1977 and 1978. During his last acceptance speech, Foglio withdrew from future fanartist Hugo consideration saying, “I know how hard it is to get on the list, and once you do it’s even harder to get off.” Victoria Poyser won the category in 1981 and 1982, then announced she would not accept future nominations. Foglio and Poyser both went on to professional success.

Frank does tell how Teddy Harvia and Brad Foster declined their nominations in 1997. He speculates, “Apparently they were trying to clear the path for fellow nominee Bill Rotsler, who would pick up his Hugo and then pass away a month later.” Well, no. Just the previous year (1996) Rotsler had won the Best Fan Artist Hugo, a Retro Hugo, and a Special Committee Award. He’d already cleared his own path.  The reason Harvia and Foster gave in 1997 is that they had a self-perceived conflict of interest created by their close involvement with the San Antonio Worldcon. Foster had drawn the covers for all the Progress Reports, and Harvia contributed other art. They made a highly-principled decision. A past progress report artist had been criticized for having an unfair advantage over competitors for the Hugo — that’s fandom for you, where someone demands that our top talents forego Hugo nominations as a condition of being allowed to provide art for free!