Alan White Is 2020 Rotsler
Award Winner

By John Hertz: The Rotsler Award for 2020 has been given to Alan White of Las Vegas.

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.

Alan White has contributed to these publications since the 1970s – mainly the periodicals by and for fans that fans call fanzines (coined by Russell Chauvenet in the 1940s), also fannish conventions’ fliers, program and souvenir books, and other such companions.

When this drawing

was used to decorate Matters Passed On to This Year’s Business Meeting in the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention (“L.A.con II”) Program Book, White was already well known.

This one

appeared earlier in Scientifriction 9 (1977).

As other media became available, he used them.  Here is his cover for File 770 138 (2001).

Caricatured at left are (top to bottom) Mike Glyer, Bruce Pelz, Larry Niven.

Here is another drawing of about the same date which appeared some years later – as happens in Fanzineland – in Vanamonde 1403 (weekly; 2020).

Here is an even more elaborate cover for File 770 155 (2009).

Here is a recent image from This Here 35 (2020).

Fanart comes in many forms.  Good artists choose what will best suit what they wish to do – line drawings or computer-aided compositions, monochrome or color.  White is very good.

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, Inc., a nonprofit California corporation (yes, that’s what the initials spell, in this case pronounced “skiffy”).  The current judges are Mike Glyer, John Hertz, and Sue Mason.

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Award Winner

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