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.

8 thoughts on “Ken Fletcher Wins 2018 Rotsler Award

  1. A slight correction is needed. Linda Lounsbury and Ken Fletcher were the Down Under Fan Fund delegates in 1979.

  2. I remember Ken ending a discussion within the Bozo Bus Building some years ago, on the size of the size of the genitalia of a male giraffe after a call to his dad, who had been the director of the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul.
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    * His dad said we should think of a baseball bat between two baseballs

  3. I’ve been buying books from him at Uncle Hugo’s for almost 30 years!

    (To be clear: Books by many people; he was a cashier there when I first discovered the place back in 1990.)

  4. I almost wrote exactly what John Purcell wrote above. How unoriginal!

    I will always remember his cartoons featuring fannish creatures on top of high buildings remarking on the view of Hennepin Avenue.

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