Joan Hanke-Woods. Copyright © 2013 Andrew I. Porter; all rights reserved.
Award-winning artist Joan Hanke-Woods, also known as Delphyne Woods, died of unknown causes in early September reports SF Site News. She was 67.
“In 1949 my paternal grandfather taught me to read using his son’s science fiction pulp magazines stored in the attic of the family bungalow in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood,” she said in her artist’s bio for Chicon 7.
She discovered sf fandom at Windycon in 1978 and soon became one of the leading fanartists, sending portfolios of her photocopied work to several editors at a time. File 770 ran quite a few of her full-page illustrations as covers. She created the centerpiece/centerfold and other art for Bill Bowers’ live performance Outworlds 50 in 1987.
Hanke-Woods won the Fanzine Activity Achievement Awards (FAAns) Best Serious Artist category in 1979 and 1980. After being nominated six times for the Best Fan Artist Hugo, she finally won in 1986, her last year on the ballot. Then she gafiated. But just recently she became active in fandom again.
While providing art for fanzines, she was also making sales to prozines and book publishers. Her art appeared in Galaxy, Fantastic Films, and The Comics Journal and in books by R.A. Lafferty and Joan D. Vinge.
She was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1984 WindyCon in Chicago.
Delphyne Woods. From Chicon 7 website.
[Thanks to Steven H Silver and Andrew Porter for the story.]
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I will miss her. I had the honor of publishing a couple of her covers.
Of all the many losses of late, hers hurts as much as Vanessa Schnatmeier’s. She was my friend, and I will miss her in the same painful, I-wish-I-could-have-been-a-better-friend-in-return way in which I miss Vanessa and Marjii Ellers.
Larry Niven was right: There Ain’t No Justice.
I only met her a couple of times, but she was so kind to me.
I’m doing a tribute to Delphyne next week. If anyone wants to submit anything for it, send it my way (garcia at computerhistory dot org) by the 28th.
She is terribly missed. I had the pleasure of meeting her at conventions and publishing her artwork in my early fanzines. A delightful person with a wonderful heart.
Joan and I once were close when I lived in Chicago. She was a very free spirit.
My heart breaks to think of this, so instead I’ll remember a lost summer back in, what was it, the early 80s? Joanie was dating a guy from Japan who had a posse of sushi chef friends. I am hazy on the details, but there was a lot of sushi and ice cream that summer. God, did those guys love American ice cream (by which of course they included gelato and sorbet). Joanie somehow wound up with a 100-lb bag of rice. It made sense at the time. She stored the contents in glass mason jars on shelves covering an entire wall of her kitchen. It was a beautiful display, very zen. One of the prettiest things I ever saw in a kitchen, come to think of it. A great artist can’t help but be an artist, even when indulging the food quirks of a summer fling. Love you, Joanie. Love you forever.