Rotsler Award to Ulrika O’Brien

Exhibit of 2022 Rotsler Award winner Ulrika O’Brien’s art at Loscon.

By John Hertz: The Rotsler Award for 2022 has been given to Ulrika O’Brien of Kent, Washington.

The annual Award, begun in 1998 after the death of Bill Rotsler and in his memory, is for long-time wonder-working with graphic art in amateur publications of the science fiction community.  It is decided by a three-judge panel and carries an honorarium of US$300.  Rotsler was, among much else, one of the great fanartists.

O’Brien might be called a triple-threat player among us.  She’s an important fanwriter; she’s published her own fanzine Widening Gyre, and currently co-edits Beam with Nic Farey; she was the 1998 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) delegate, attending, among much else, the 42nd Eastercon (United Kingdom national convention, held annually over Easter weekend) —I guess that and her fanart make her quadruple.

“Fanzine” was coined by Russell Chauvenet in the 1940s for the periodicals by and for fans that are so characteristic of fandom.  We long took for granted that they’d be on paper, although tales mention slices of bologna, or worse; today there are electronic media too, as well as fannish conventions’ fliers, program and souvenir books, and other such companions.

You can see some current fanzines electronically here.  Some, not all, of course — did you expect we’d all march to the same drummer?

O’Brien arrived after the age of the mimeograph stylus and correction fluid.  By then, fanzines were mostly produced with photocopiers; after that, scanners and computer printers.  Lately some fanzines have been able to use color.  O’Brien has done that too.

The Rotsler Award is announced at Loscon, the long-running Los Angeles convention held on the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend.  The Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, Inc.  The current judges are Suzanne TompkinsJohn Hertz, and Sue Mason.

Here are some photos of this year’s Rotsler Award exhibit at Loscon XLVIII, showing fanart by O’Brien and by previous winners.

PHOTOS BY KENN BATES.

Pixel Scroll 11/19/22 Scroll And Deliver, Your Pixels Or Your Life!

(1) GREG BEAR MEDICAL UPDATE. File 770 has been receiving copies of Astrid Bear’s FB friends-locked updates about Greg Bear’s decline during the past week, the kind of thing I ordinarily run only with permission of the author. However, today a great many writers publicly shared his latest status, and I will too.

To catch everyone up, here is Robert J. Sawyer’s concise explanation of what has happened:

“Greg Bear had heart surgery eleven days ago on November 8, to redo his aortic arch replacement and repair the proximal descending thoracic aorta work done in a previous heart surgery in 2014. The current operation seemed to go well.

“As of eight days ago, on November 11, he still hadn’t woken up from the anesthetic. A CT scan showed multiple strokes, caused by clots that had been hiding in a false lumen of the anterior artery to the brain ever since Greg’s original surgery eight years ago.”

Today it was announced Bear will soon be taken off life support. This screencap is being shared by many, including Charles Stross, and obviously with the greatest sympathy and regard.

(2) CORFLU FIFTY WINNERS FOR 2023. [Item by Rob Jackson] Rich Coad and I, as US (including Canada) and UK (including Europe) Administrators for the Corflu Fifty fan fund, are delighted to announce that we have picked, and got enthusiastic acceptances from, two Corflu Fifty winners for Corflu Craic, the 40th Corflu which is being held at the end of March in Belfast: Sue Mason (fan artist from London), and Pascal Thomas (fan editor from Toulouse).

(3) SUPERSTAR CHEN. Tordotcom editor Ruoxi Chen carried away the prize at Publisher Weekly’s Star Watch event. “PW Star Watch Finalist Ruoxi Chen Named ‘Superstar’ Winner”  — Publishers Weekly has details, including a list of all the other finalists.

More than 100 people came out on November 15 to celebrate some of the best and brightest names in publishing at PW’s annual Star Watch event, held this year at the Monarch Rooftop in New York City.

In an evening punctuated by food and fanfare, Tordotcom Publishing editor Rouxi Chen became the toast of the town when she took away the $2,500 Superstar prize and used her moment to call attention to the ongoing HarperCollins union strike.

In a short speech, the room erupted into applause as Chen dedicated her win to her family and her “colleagues at HarperCollins who are fighting for workers rights.”

“This industry is sometimes not the easiest one to be in, but it wouldn’t be possible without all of you,” she said. “To my incredible authors, an editor isn’t anything without the books. And I am so grateful that I get to work on editing your stuff.”…

(4) ANOTHER GIANT SHRINKS STAFF. “Amazon Announces Layoffs in Books, Devices” reports Publishers Lunch.

Amazon ceo Andy Jassy told employees on Thursday that the company would “eliminate a number of positions” in the Devices and Books divisions. In a memo to staff, he said that this year’s operating planning review “is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we’ve hired rapidly the last several years.”

They have not yet announced which roles have been cut or how many, or how the changes will affect the functioning of the Books division. (Unlike Books, Devices has been a drag on the company, reportedly losing over $5 billion a year.)

… Other divisions will be given the option of taking voluntary buyouts, and additional reductions are planned for early 2023.

(5) WOOSTER MOURNED. National Review columnist John Miller has written a tribute to his friend: “Martin Morse Wooster, R.I.P.”

Martin Morse Wooster started a peculiar tradition years ago: Whenever he spotted a “John Miller” in the news, he let me know. Early on, he sent clips by regular mail, cut from the pages of his prodigious reading. At some point, the emails outnumbered the stamped envelopes. Along the way, I learned about hordes of people with whom I share a name. They included loads of criminals and at least one person who attended a Star Trek convention as a Klingon.

I’m sorry to say that I’ll never again receive one of these notices: Martin died on November 12, killed in a hit-and-run accident in Virginia….

(6) MEMORY LANE.

1967 [By Cat Eldridge.] Casino Royale 

Ahhhh spoofs. A long tradition they’ve had in all forms of entertainment and it’s no surprise that the Bond films got a delightful one in the Casino Royale film. It premiered fifty-five years ago, the same year as You Only Live Twice, the fifth Sean Connery Bond film.

So why so? 

Well, it turns out that Casino Royale was the only Ian Fleming book not sold to producers Saltzman and Broccoli for the official James Bond series. Because of the popularity of Sean Connery’s Bond, and because of Connery’s considered expensive million dollars per film price, Charles Feldman decided to make the film a spoof. After production troubles and budget overruns that I’ll detail below, Feldman later told Connery it would have been considerably cheaper to pay him his salary.

It was very, very loosely based upon the 1953 novel of the same name.

TIME TO GO GET A COCKTAIL OR TWO AS FILM SECRETS FOLLOW.

The film stars David Niven as the “original” Bond, Sir James Bond 007, forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of a number of spies. In doing so, he soon is matching wits with Dr. Noah of the not very evil SMERSH. Remember this is a parody. 

Now we come to the really fun part of the film, the matter of multiple, might-be Bonds.

Remember the film’s tagline: Casino Royale is too much… for one James Bond!

Bond’s plan is to mislead SMERSH by having six other agents be him  — baccarat master Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers); Bond’s daughter with Mata Hari, Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet); Bond’s secretary Miss Moneypenny (Barbara Bouchet); British agents Coop (Terence Cooper) and The Detainer (Daliah Lavi); and even a millionaire spy Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress).

Need I say that Bond’s plan, and the film, really did go awry. I’ll discuss that below.

NO MORE SECRETS ALAS WILL BE REVEALED.

The film was a horrid affair with nearly everyone hating being involved as the ensemble cast thought each other was getting more lines than they were, everyone thought each other was getting a better salary and everyone grumbled bitterly about their accommodations. 

Sellers it is said took the role of Bond to heart, and was quite annoyed at the decision to make Casino Royale a comedy, as he wanted to play Bond straight. 

It had five directors, three writers (credited, though it is said legions would work on it) and five producers. It was constantly being rewritten and reshot. The studio never like what they saw in the dailies and demanded constant changes. 

Despite all of that and the critics wanting to drive a stake through its heart, it made forty-seven million against a budget of twelve million, twice what the studio originally budgeted. Time has been kind to it — current critics like it a lot better. 

The success of the film in part was attributed to a marketing strategy that featured a naked tattooed woman on the film’s posters and print ads. You can see that poster below. I personally think calling her naked is really, ready a stretch, isn’t it? 

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born November 19, 1887 Boris Karloff. Where do I start? Well, consider the Thirties. He portrayed Frankenstein’s monster in FrankensteinBride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein, and Imhotep in The Mummy. And he played a great pulp character in Dr. Fu Manchu in The Mask of Fu Manchu too! Now let’s jump forward to the Sixties and the matter of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! which featured him as both the voice of The Grinch and the narrator of the story. I know I’ve skipped four decades — that means not a word about such as Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where he was the latter. (Died 1969.)
  • Born November 19, 1914 Wilson Tucker. Author and very well-known member of fandom. I’m going to just direct you here to “A Century of Tucker”  by Mike as I couldn’t say anything about him that was this good. (Died 2006.)
  • Born November 19, 1916 Michael Gough. Best known for his roles in the Hammer Horror Films from the late Fifities and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four films of the Tim Burton / Joel Schumacher Batman series. His Hammer Horror Films saw him cast usually as the evil, and I mean EVIL! not to mention SLIMY, villain in such films as Horrors of the Black MuseumThe Phantom of the OperaThe Corpse and Horror Hospital, not to overlook Satan’s Slave. Speaking of Doctor Who, Gough appeared there, as the villain in “The Celestial Toymaker” (1966) and then again as Councilor Hedin in “Arc of Infinity” (1983). He also played Dr. Armstrong in “The Cybernauts” in The Avengers (1965) returning the very next season as the Russian spymaster Nutski in “The Correct Way to Kill”. Gough worked for Burton again in 1999’s Sleepy Hollow and later voice Elder Gutknecht in Corpse Bride. He would mostly retire that year from performing though he would voice later that Corpse Bride role and the Dodo in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. (Died 2011.)
  • Born November 19, 1955 Steven Brust, 67. Of Hungarian descendant, something that figures into his fiction which he says is neither fantasy nor SF. He is perhaps best known for his novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a scorned group of humans living on a world called Dragaera. All are great reads. His recent novels also include The Incrementalists and its sequel The Skill of Our Hands, with co-author Skyler White. Both are superb. His finest novel? Brokedown Palace. Oh, just go read it. It’s amazing. And no, I don’t love everything he’s done. I wrote a scathing reviewing of Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grille and he told us at Green Man that he might be the only person who liked the novel. Freedom & Necessity with Emma Bull is decidedly different but good none the less and his Firefly novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, is stays true to that series. He’s quite the musician too with two albums with Cats Laughing, a band that includes Emma Bull, Jane Yolen (lyrics) and others. The band in turn shows up in Marvel comics. A Rose For Iconoclastes is his solo album and “The title, for those who don’t know, is a play off the brilliant story by Roger Zelazny, “A Rose For Ecclesiastes,” which you should read if you haven’t yet.” Quoting him again, “’Songs From The Gypsy’ is the recording of a cycle of songs I wrote with ex-Boiled-in-Lead guitarist Adam Stemple, which cycle turned into a novel I wrote with Megan Lindholm, one of my favorite writers.” The album and book are quite amazing! And yes, he is on my chocolate gifting list. He’s another dark chocolate lover. 
  • Born November 19, 1967 Salli Richardson-Whitfield, 55. Best known genre role is as Dr. Allison Blake on Eureka which can be seen on Peacock as can Warehouse 13. I’m reasonably sure her first genre role was as Fenna / Nidell in the “Second Sight” of Deep Space Nine but she charmingly voiced Eliza Mazda, the main human character, on the Gargoyles series!  She shows up as the character named Dray’auc in “Bloodlines” on Stargate Sg-1 and had a role on a series called Secret Agent Man that may or may have existed. She was Maggie Baptiste in Stitchers, a series that lasted longer than I expected it would. 
  • Born November 19, 1970 Oded Fehr, 52. Actor from Israel whose most well-known genre roles are as the mysterious warrior Ardeth Bay in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and as Carlos Oliveira (or his clone) in three of the Resident Evil films: ApocalypseExtinction, and Retribution. (His Mummy roles no doubt led to his casting in voice roles in Scooby-Doo in Where’s My Mummy? and as The Living Mummy in the animated Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.) On Charmed, he played the demon Zankou, the main villain of the show’s seventh season. He’s had an impressively long list of appearances on TV series, including recurring roles on Once Upon A Time, StitchersV, and The First, a series about the first mission to Mars. He has also voiced characters on numerous other animated features and series. He appeared in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery as Fleet Admiral Charles Vance.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Tom Gauld did a cartoon about the great Twitter exodus for the Guardian.

(9) GUNN Q&A. Deadline profiles “James Gunn On Leaving Marvel, DC Plans, & ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special’”.

James Gunn revealed on Twitter today in response to a fan’s question that he and new DC Studios co-head Peter Safran are planning to reveal their new DC plan to the Warner Discovery team in the next two months.

“Yes, that is true (revealing it to the WBD team)” wrote Gunn on Twitter.

Safran and Gunn were appointed the heads of DC Studios, a separate silo that Warner Discovery Boss David Zaslav wanted under the studio’s motion picture umbrella, on Oct. 25. Gunn going forward remains exclusive to WarnerDiscovery and can’t do any Marvel projects, his last ones for the Disney studio being The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special which drops on Black Friday, Nov. 25, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 which hits theaters on May 5, 2023.

When asked by Deadline recently how he felt about leaving the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy sandbox behind for DC, Gunn responded “I feel really comfortable. I feel really good. We did this. I think this is a bit of goofy fun that the Guardians needed as an aperitif for Volume 3, which is an enormous film. I had a plan from the beginning.”

“The reason why I needed to finish this is because I love the character of Rocket more than any character I’ve ever dealt with before, and I needed to finish his story and that is what Volume 3 is about. I absolutely needed to do it, and I think we’ve done it in a spectacular way that I can’t wait for people to see.”

(10) PEEKING DISCOURAGED. The owner of the subject Area 51 website/blog currently has their tail in a wringer: “Air Force, FBI raid Nevada homes in probe of Area 51 website” reports Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Agents from the U.S. Air Force and FBI recently raided homes in Clark and Lincoln counties in an investigation of a man who operates a website about the top-secret military base known as Area 51, a spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and FBI entered homes owned by Joerg Arnu in Las Vegas and the tiny town of Rachel on Nov. 3 and seized potential evidence for an undisclosed joint agency probe, according to Lt. Col. Bryon McGarry, spokesman for Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

“This is an open and ongoing law enforcement investigation between the Las Vegas FBI and Air Force OSI,” McGarry said in a statement.

He declined to elaborate on the basis for the investigation, but Arnu, of Las Vegas, is the webmaster of a site titled Dreamland Resort, focusing on Area 51, an Air Force base in Lincoln County about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas where testing is conducted on new and classified U.S. military aircraft.

Dreamland Resort, at dreamlandresort.com, started by Arnu in 1999, features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base, a discussion forum with posts on the topic, articles on test flights, “black projects” and UFOs, and what it says are photos of new vehicles such as the so-called “super secret” Northrop Grumman RQ-180 unmanned stealth aircraft shown flying in 2021.

Arnu, reached by email Wednesday, declined comment until he can speak to his attorney. But he forwarded a news release posted on his web page last week telling his side of the story….

As an example of what you find at Dreamland Resort, this 2006 post is old but might be news to you, about an innovative aircraft named for a spaceship from Star Trek: “Bird of Prey – An Innovative Technology Demonstration”.

(11) BE ON THE LOOKOUT. The Onion informs us “Facebook HQ On Lockdown After Mark Zuckerberg’s Avatar Breaks Out Of Metaverse”.

Amid grim reports that several engineers working in the virtual reality server room had been violently dismembered, Facebook’s headquarters were on lockdown Friday after Mark Zuckerberg’s avatar reportedly broke out of the metaverse….

(12) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. “Space Cowboy Books Presents: Simultaneous Times podcast Ep.57 – Jeff C. Carter & Noah Lloyd”.

Stories featured in this episode:
Hive Songs – by Jeff C. Carter (with music by Phog Masheeen)
In September – Noah Lloyd (with music by Johnny O’Donnell)

(13) TRIVIAL TRIVIA. [Compiled by John King Tarpinian.] L. Frank Baum and his wife purchased a lot one block in Hollywood north of Hollywood Boulevard on the corner of Cherokee and Yucca, which today is the block behind the restaurant Musso & Frank’s. There in 1910 they built Ozcot, a two-story frame home featuring a large library, an attic where Baum stored his manuscripts and props from various plays, and a solarium. The dining room is described as having “light fixtures of cut copper sheets and thick pieces of emerald glass” casting “intricate patterns of green light” in the evenings – his own personal emerald city.

Ozcot

Ozcot’s grounds were as impressive as the house. A large Aviary housed a collection of exotic birds, and a chicken yard was home to a flock of Rhode Island Reds. Baum spent hours in his garden, where the southern California climate allowed him to grow numerous blooms, especially dahlias and chrysanthemums. A goldfish pond was also located in the garden. 

Baum felt right at home in Hollywood – he won many awards for his flowers at the Hollywood Woman’s Club shows and was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s exclusive Uplifters. He also spent the last nine years of his life writing children’s books under six different pen names and he founded the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful Oz Film Manufacturing Company.

L. Frank Baum passed away at Ozcot in 1919. His widow Maud lived long enough to witness the success of The Wizard of Oz, which premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, just down the street from Ozcot.

Ozcot was demolished in 1953 and today a plain two-story apartment stands, and is slated to be demolished for a larger complex. There is nothing about the site that would suggest its association with one of America’s most beloved writers.

The story continues that after he passed away his widow started to burn his papers, since his books were already on the book shelf.  A nephew came over one day and stopped her.   Back in those days it was not uncommon for a house to have an incinerator in the backyard to burn your garbage.  My parents’ home had one.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Danny Sichel, Jeffrey Jones, Rob Jackson, JJ, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]

Rotsler Award to Alison Scott

By John Hertz: Alison Scott has received the 2019 Rotsler Award for long-time wonder-working with graphic art in amateur publications of the science fiction community.

The Award, established at the death of Bill Rotsler, has been given since 1998.  It carries an honorarium of US$300.

Rotsler did everything and knew everyone.  He sculpted with stainless-steel rods and went house-hunting with Marilyn Monroe.  He drew on paper, mimeograph stencils, food, body parts.

The SF community’s highest achievement award is the Hugo Award, named for SF pioneer Hugo Gernsback, voted annually in several categories by members of the World Science Fiction Convention.

Rotsler won the Best-Fanartist Hugo five times, in 1975 and 1979, 1996 (when he also won a Retrospective Hugo for 1946) and 1997, a remarkable span.  His cartoons were deft, his serious drawing fine, his fluency downright breathtaking.

Scott gained renown as layout wizard and cover artist for the much-loved – no, it’s British, better not say that – highly-regarded fanzine PLOKTA, “the journal of superfluous technology”, PLOKTA being an acronym for Press Lots Of Keys To Abort.

PLOKTA won the Best-Fanzine Hugo in 2005 and 2006.  Scott won the United Kingdom’s Nova Award as Best Fanartist in ’05, ’07, and ’08.  The Plokta cabal attended the 67th Worldcon (“Anticipation”, Montreal) and produced its newsletter Voyageur.

Scott chaired her national convention the Eastercon (held Easter weekend) in 1995 (“Confabulation”, 46th Eastercon, London) and 2018 (“Follycon”, 69th Eastercon, Harrogate).  She will be Fan Guest of Honour in 2020 (“Concentric”, 71st Eastercon, Birmingham).

These admirable distinctions are only mentioned as noteworthy.  They do not of course qualify or disqualify her for the Rotsler Award, which is a cat that walks by itself.

Here are front and back covers Scott did for an issue of Beam (then by Nic Farey and Jim Trash, currently by Farey and Ulrika O’Brien), 

and a front cover for PLOKTA.

The Concentric materials so far released say she is irrepressible.  Brits are understated.

The Rotsler winner is announced each year at Loscon, held at Los Angeles during the United States Thanksgiving-holiday weekend.  Loscon XLVI, 29 November – 1 December 2019, will have a display of Scott’s work in the Art Show, and elsewhere of all Rotsler winners to date.  A display of all Rotsler winners can usually be seen at the Worldcon; for “Dublin 2019”, the 77th Worldcon, look here.

Loscon is sponsored by the non-profit L.A. Science Fantasy Society, oldest SF club in the world.  The Rotsler is sponsored by the non-profit Southern California Institute for Fan Interests.  The current Rotsler judges are Mike Glyer, John Hertz (since 2003), and Sue Mason (since 2015).

More examples of Alison Scott’s artwork follow the jump.

Continue reading

Ken Fletcher Wins 2018 Rotsler Award


The 2018 Rotsler Award has been given to Ken Fletcher.

The award, established in 1998 and named for the talented, prolific artist Bill Rotsler (1926-1997), is for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community.  The winner receives a plaque and an honorarium of US$300.

Fletcher’s drawings have been part of Rune and many other amateur publications for decades.  By 1976, when he co-founded Vootie, “the Fanzine of the Funny-Animal Liberation Front,” he had long been known particularly for anthropomorphic cartoons.

He has drawn on spirit-duplicator masters, mimeograph stencils, and in today’s digital media, sometimes with fantastic settings, or remarkable because the setting is all that is not fantastic, like his invented Spontoon Island where it always seems to be 1937.

In 1966, Fletcher co-founded the Minnesota Science Fiction Society (Minn-StF). In 1979 Fletcher and his wife Linda Lounsbury were the Down Under Fan Fund delegates.  They attended the Australia national SF convention, held that year in Sydney.  Upon their return they presented a slide-show at cons in North America.

Science Fiction Five-Yearly, a fanzine published on time for sixty years, carried the long-running serial !Nissassa by Nalrah Nosille (backward only in that sense), with recent chapters illustrated by Fletcher.

Some of Fletcher’s work can now be seen in a gallery at DeviantArt

The Rotsler winner is announced each year at Loscon, held during the United States Thanksgiving-holiday weekend.  Loscon XLV, 23-25 November 2018 at the Los Angeles International Airport Marriott Hotel, had a display in the Art Show of work by every Rotsler winner.

Loscon is sponsored by the non-profit L.A. Science Fantasy Society, oldest SF club in the world.  The Rotsler is sponsored by the non-profit Southern California Institute for Fan Interests.  The current Rotsler judges are Mike Glyer, John Hertz (since 2003), and Sue Mason (since 2015).


Rotsler Award Exhibit at Loscon 45 — Photos by Kenn Bates


Art by Ken Fletcher.

Art by Ken Fletcher.

Art by Ken Fletcher.

Rotsler Award Exhibit at Worldcon 76

By John Hertz: Andrew Porter shot these fine photos of the Rotsler Award exhibit at the 76th World Science Fiction Convention.

Some Worldcons have nicknames.  This year’s Worldcon was just “Worldcon 76” .

In fact I know people whose nickname is “Nick”.  Maybe you do too.

I digress.

The Rotsler is for long-time wonder-working with graphic art in amateur publications of the science fiction community.  The current judges are Sue Mason, Mike Glyer, and me.  It’s named for Bill Rotsler (1926-1997), a long-time wonder-worker.  It’s ordinarily announced at Loscon.

We try to put up an exhibit at the Worldcon showing sample work by all the winners to date.  The exhibits have been curated by me, recently with first-rate layout and electronics help from Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink.

In building the exhibit I try to choose images that are both representative of the artist, and visually interesting for themselves.  If you happen to know the context, or some of the in-jokes, that might be more fun, but (if I do it right) you needn’t.  The exhibit is designed (I hope) so you can look at it as you go by, or stop and study.

You’ll see from Brother Porter’s photos that winners each have a section, with their name and year at the top.  Also there’s a section about fanzines, and one about Brother Rotsler and the Award.  Many of the images appeared in fanzines.  There are a few other things, like cards from Bruce Pelz’ Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck.

The Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a California non-profit corporation (yes, its initials spell SCIFI – pronounced “skiffy”) – and, because this is fandom, where every day is Anything Can Happen Day, SCIFI the sponsor of the Award is not the sponsor of Loscon where it’s announced.  We are large, we contain multitudes.

Some but by no means all fanart (which, like “fanwriting”, I make one word; a loudspeaker is not the same as a speaker who is loud, a boyfriend or girlfriend is not the same as a boy or girl who is a friend) can be found in Electronicland; if you live there, Bill Burns’ Website eFanzines.com is worth a look.  As to the rest, seek and ye shall find.  If you have nothing better to do (and if you have, do that), you can always write to me, 236 S. Coronado St., No. 409, Los Angeles, CA 90057, U.S.A.

Photos taken by and (c) Andrew Porter. Click for larger view.

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!

Pratchett’s Tuckerizations

The late Terry Pratchett enjoyed a great reputation as a fan-friendly pro who sometimes drew inspiration from those he talked to at cons, while Tuckerizing others for charity.

Tuckerization — using a person’s real name in a science fiction story as an in-joke – is derived from Wilson Tucker, the author who made the practice famous.

Tom Meserole recalls, “My wife was Tuckerized in the novel Night Watch as ‘Lady Roberta Meserole, international woman of mystery, but her friends call her Bobbi.’ I also got a passing mention in the same novel.” Tom’s name was given to her cat.

Tom won the Tuckerization rights at a charity auction during a St. Louis convention where Pratchett was a guest of honor. People like to joke that the auction was for one Tuckerization but Terry threw in the cat for free….

Pratchett fans have spotted these other Tuckerizations:

Follett paid £2,200 to charity for his Discworld appearance in Night Watch, although as Dave Langford writes in Starcombing

He publicly expressed hopes that he’d appear as a giant. Instead, Terry Pratchett introduced the sinister Doctor Follett, past head of the Assassins’ Guild (‘Is that his own hair?’). Type-casting, no doubt.

Other fans are certain (with good reason) they made anonymous appearances in Pratchett’s work.

Perdita Nit

Perdita Nit

Magrat Garlick wears my jewelry,” says Sue Mason. “Terry was impressed at breakfast at some convention when I turned up with full silver jewelry, no makeup, no hair do, but full jewelry and he dragged me the length of an Eastercon dealer room to show me the Clarecraft Perdita Nit, as apparently he had described me to the sculptor and they had done a splendid job.”

“Some of the antics by the post grads in the high energy magic department are apparently based on a late night slightly alcohol fueled discussion Terry, I and a couple if others had about games we played with radars, missile systems and other electronics,” says Mike Rennie. “Terry used to make toast on resistor arrays for example.”

Rotsler Award Display at Loscon

Rotsler Award display at Loscon 41 -- past winners. Photo by Kenn Bates.

Rotsler Award display at Loscon 41 — past winners. Photo by Kenn Bates.

At Loscon 41 over Thanksgiving Weekend in November there was a display in the Art Show of cartoons and illos by Rotsler Award winners. One of the panels was devoted to the award’s history, and the other to work by its 2014 winner Sue Mason.

The display was curated by John Hertz. Thanks to Kenn Bates for these photographs.

Sue Mason Wins 2014 Rotsler Award

Illustration by Sue Mason. Published in File 770 #139 and elsewhere.

Illustration by Sue Mason. Published in File 770 #139 and elsewhere.

Sue Mason from the United Kingdom has won the 2014 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.

Mason is a widely-published pen-and-ink artist who is particularly well-known for her activity in the British fanzine Plokta. Her illustrations are whimsical, humorous and richly-detailed.

Some of her best artwork can be seen in the chapbook I Want to Be a Celtic Death Goddess When I Grow Up [PDF file].

She is also accomplished at pyrography, the process of producing designs by burning them onto a surface, generally wood, leather or paper.

Mason is a two-time winner of the Best Fan Artist Hugo. She has won the Nova Award for Best Fan Artist seven times.

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation, hosts of the 2006 Worldcon. The award is named for the late Bill Rotsler, the talented and prolific fanartist. Claire Brialey, Mike Glyer, and John Hertz served as this year’s judges.

The award was formally announced on Saturday, November 29, 2014 at Loscon 41. An exhibit honoring Mason’s work was displayed in the Art Show.

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