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Toronto fanartist Taral Wayne, whom I’ve known since he began drawing and writing for my fanzines in the Seventies, died July 31. His good friend and helper Steven Baldassarra had heard from him earlier in the day and was bringing over a few things he needed. But when Steve arrived there was no answer to his knock at the door or to his phone calls. He asked the building superintendant to open the door and check. They found Taral lying down in his living room, unresponsive. Paramedics were summoned but were unable to revive him.
Even though Taral has been writing about his deteriorating health for years it’s a shock that he suddenly isn’t here — he always discussed his physical state in such an indomitable tone. Taral suffered from myasthenia gravis and needed a powered chair – dubbed Traveling Matt — to leave his small apartment. In early 2017 he suffered a stroke but slowly recovered to the point that he told followers of his DeviantArt site the only residual effect was occasional slurred speech.
Due to all his self-revelatory writing I knew a lot more about his life than most other fans’, which is the very reason his death leaves such a hole.
Taral was an eleven-time finalist for the Best Fan Artist Hugo – and terminally pissed off that he never won, let me tell you. However, his selection as the Montreal Worldcon’s (Anticipation) Fan Guest of Honor in 2009 was a step in the right direction toward recognizing his many contributions to fandom.
And I really loved what the committee cooked up as a kind of fan lounge, a “virtual apartment” with walls composed of life-sized photo reproductions of Taral’s place – all the bookshelves, the displays of his aircraft models, action figures, and other collections, including ancient coins and Confederate currency.
Below is a small mockup, followed by a set of photos taken inside the real thing.
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![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Fratz-Stiles-Taral-2009-virtual-apt-x09-174-584x420.jpeg)
Taral first discovered fandom in late 1971 as a result of buying a used copy of Fantastic magazine in a neighborhood variety store. He answered an ad in the back of the magazine that said “Fandom Lives in Canada. Write OSFIC” and attended the Ontario Science Fiction Club for the first time in November 1971. The club met in a room at a Toronto public library. After meetings he hung around with Victoria Vayne and Robert Charles Wilson (Bob, in those days) who would become his longtime friends.
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In Taral’s first decade as a fan he registered a number of memorable achievements. He designed the logo for Iguanacon 2, the 1978 Worldcon, incorporated in the plaques on the Hugo bases. He contributed a card to Bruce Pelz’ famous Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck (published in 1980). He was Tuckerized in a novel – made the unseen sorcerous presence who ruled the Taral Empire with an iron hand in Linda Bushyager’s fantasy Master of Hawks (1979).
He also co-edited a fine faanish newzine, DNQ – an abbreviation for “do not quote,” fanspeak for the things people blab and yet expect the reader to keep secret.
Victoria Vayne and Taral started DNQ on April 28, 1978. That was just three months after I began publishing File 770, but the two had already decided that other newzines (like Locus and, guess who!) “Do not fulfill the need for what is essentially the soul of fandom.” They would write for the people who became fans to “collect coke cans, paint ourselves blue, eat fudge icing out of the can, and to bid for Worldcons five years past.”
Once DNQ threw down the gauntlet, File 770 began to shadow box with them in a Jack Benny/Fred Allen kind of rivalry that would outlast DNQ itself. Taral’s feisty humor carried over to a 1982 cover illustration for an issue of File 770 where Garfield the cat sits in a litterbox reading File 770 and says, “So that’s what he lines my sandbox with when he’s out of kitty litter.” The perfect imitation of the cat’s bug-eyed expression and jaded attitude showed this was said in the same spirit as one late-night host taking a potshot at another, so that the artist, editor and readers were all in on the secret: our friendship had been sharpened by the rivalry, and because of it we ended knowing each other much better than ever.
I remember in the early 1990s when the mailman delivered a worn manila envelope stiffened with a sheet of cardboard, addressed in Taral’s handwriting, containing eight or ten sheets of incredible black-and-white cover art that he wanted to show to a larger audience.
One of them depicted Saara Mar, an extraterrestrial Kjola, Taral’s alien alter ego, companion and foil, quietly lounging on a beach towel in an airless moonscape, taking in the earthshine. Saara Mar in this picture looks like a teenaged girl but is countless years older and wiser. When she “discovered” the Earth in April 1970 her first contact was the artist — Taral. Saara Mar commented freely on human foibles and contradictions – she’s from outer space, after all, not someone who had to hold her tongue like, say, that fanartist from Toronto. Sometimes she made her point wordlessly, or was content to say nothing. That’s the enviable thing about Saara Mar: she’s relaxed in any environment, social or extraterrestrial.
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Taral tried to break into the traditional sf art field professionally. Outside sf he illustrated small magazines, in the 1980’s contributing to an American magazine named Ruralite. He did restorations of Vaughn Bodé art appearing in fanzines for Rare & Well Done Bodé, and research and illustration for John Robert Colombo’s book Years of Light (1982). Taral was a versatile freelancer: he also made cross-stitching patterns, and produced cards for the Tank Vixens Card Game (2004). For a moment it looked like Tor was going to discover him when he was retained to do a series of illustrations for Rudy Rucker’s 2002 novel Spaceland – but the assignment was merely to re-render the author’s own sketches, not the breakthrough he wanted.
The bulk of Taral’s freelance career was the creation of art for private commissions, numbering more than 3,000 inked, colored, or penciled items.
As he told it, his professional high point was working on the Furry comic Tales of Beatrix. Created by Steve Gallacci, the stories were a collaborative effort — drawn by Taral, co-written by Gallacci and Taral. Unfortunately, the title launched during a recession in the comics industry and the series about a rabbit girl superhero ended after only a few issues.
Taral was, in fact, a co-founder of furry fandom, whose beginnings he traced to 1984, the year Marc Schirmeister mailed out the first funny animal apa, Rowrbrazzle. According to Taral, although some insisted furry fandom existed years before then, there was no sense of furries being a separate community for funny animal appreciation. They would have described themselves then as comic book fans, animation fans, manga and anime fans. With Rowrbrazzle the word furry appeared for the first time. Members started calling themselves furries, and the sense of a separate fandom followed.
Taral would fly out to Southern California every few years to visit Marc Schirmeister and other furry artists and writers in the area. On one trip in the early Nineties he came to my Van Nuys apartment and memorably entertained himself by dressing one of my Hugos in G.I. Joe attire. The last time I saw him was a few years ago, before the pandemic, when he, Marc and I met for lunch.
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/G.I.HugoNoreascon3.jpg)
Taral created the File770.com banners. Before we settled on the current one, we used to unveil a new variation annually after the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve – like this one with Sherman and Mr. Peabody.
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/F770-2018-2-584x198.jpg)
His masterpiece was the current banner based on the famous Prague astronomical clock face.
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/F770-Banner-for-Bluesky-584x280.png)
Taral was a devoted fanzine fan, acknowledged by insiders who made him Guest of Honor at Ditto 8 (1995), picked him for the 2008 Rostler Award, named him “past president of fwa” (Fanzine Writers Association) at the 2018 Corflu, and gave him a FAAn Award for Unrecognized Fan Achievement at the 2019 Corflu.
Murray Moore edited a fanthology of his writing for Ditto 15 titled Old Toys: A Tarable Collection.
Well worth reading is the warm remembrance Taral’s friend of more than 50 years, Robert Charles Wilson, has written on Facebook about the long walks and talks of their younger days, “intense, often silly or naive, but wide-ranging and non-stop and seldom less than fascinating.”
I always imagined a great fan artist like Taral comes home from the market looking like Rorschach filled his shopping cart, because something in the budget has to give so he can afford art supplies. If an extra commission comes in he spends it on an artifact that ignites his graphic imagination – a favorite action figure, a model spacecraft, a Roman coin – and goes home to draw the story it brings to mind. And sends that art to be published in a fanzine or displayed on a website. I was privileged to have Taral’s art in my fanzines for more than four decades.
![](https://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Taral-584x389.jpg)
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Such terrible news! Taral’s extensive and eccentric gallery — art going back 50 years! — was always a pleasure to see, as were the e-mails I exchanged with him over several years. I was very happy to commission him once, and I’m sorry it was just the once.
Adding to my sadness is finding out that he was an avid walker in his youth, which made his disabling illnesses all the more horrible.
Now I hope he is free to explore some realm beyond with Beatrix Farmer. R.I.P.
Sorry to read about the death of your friend and frequent art contributor to File 770, Mike. Your account of his art and fan career of 54 years makes for interesting reading. That he did over 3,000 private commissions in addition to all his other art is a staggering amount of work! It seems to me that a conventional and online exhibition of some of his work in different categories would be worth visiting. And Taral’s virtual apartment at Anticipation in Montréal is both a weird and fascinating idea! It reminds me of the reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.
I grieve for your loss.
So sorry for your loss, Mike. He sounds like a really fun person; I’m sorry I never got to meet him.
Though I never became a real ‘trufan’ I also knew Taral for 45 years , as a 15yo neo-fan I looked up to him for his writing and publishing , organizing cons , but also general polymath interest in such a broad range of subjects discoursed upon during those walks described so well by Bob Wilson. I never got the ‘fanzine bug’ but lately I sometimes sent him photos of interesting coins in European museums, ( so much closer to where I live now than to Toronto) and often get the comment that it’s not as good as his collection! And some discussion about the relevant era of history.
All of Taral’s recent fanzines are collected at efanzines.com:
https://efanzines.com/Taral/index.htm
He was as good a writer as he was an artist.
Farewell, my friend. By and by we’ll see you at the centerline.
Taral was always underappreciated in my mind. We had sporadic letters over the years while I was doing Baryon. I will have to see if I have any unpublished -I don’t think I do. I remember the zines from he and Victoria.
I’m sorry to hear of his passing and my condolences to everyone who knew and appreciated him. I wish I had known him better.
Sad news. I’ve been enjoying Taral’s art going back to MU Press in the 1990s. I emailed him and Robert Lichtman a decade ago about Taral’s plans to publish something about Francis Towner Laney’s Ah! Sweet Idiocy! I don’t recall that ever seeing print.
My condolences to Mike and his many other friends and fans across the SF world.
I’ll miss Taral’s bittersweet presence in fanzines and fandom. In addition to his artwork (in which he displayed a good eye for composition and caricature) he wrote on a wide variety of subjects, including cars, films, coins, conventions (both good and bad) and memories of his childhood and young adulthood. He also assembled fan writing from Toronto fans onto CD-Rom discs (like “Toronto The Ghood”) and wrote fanfic of two varieties: stories about the doings of fans themselves, and stories based on fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes and the inhabitants of “Frazzle Rock.”
I’m sorry he’s gone. Back in AZAPA, he was about the first faraway fan to write to me, and his rendering was impeccable even then (ca 1976).
Also, VOOTIE was a funny animal apa before ROWRBRAZZLE, pretty sure, if ’84 is the date for the latter. I’d be surprised if he’s no in there somewhere.
While we probably encountered each other during my trips to Toronto for Mikecon, I cannot say that I kew Taral. There was one incident, however, (prior to our Mikecon encounters, that intertwined our fannish lives.
As the late Bill Bowers, chairperson of Corfu 4 (1987) in Covington, KY, (though the Corflu website lists the location as Cincinnati, OH.) wrote in issue 50 of his fanzine, Outworlds, ” …late Friday evening, in front of Good, Stu Shiffman and myself, Taral (who was Corlu IV’s t toastmaster) drew JOEL ZAKEM’s card from the ‘hat’…and Joel became Corfu IV’s Guest of Honor…
Given the short lead time, and despite the fact that he had not been honed, such as Taral and Myself, by years in the fannish limelight, Joel gave an excellent speech Sunday afternoon.”
What Bowers told me later, and what he did not print in that issue of Outworlds, was that Taral, who had no idea of who i was, asked if he could draw another name. Bill refused, though, on hindsight, given my lack of credentials as a fanzine fan at the time (something I mentioned in my speech), I cannot say that Taral was wrong in asking for a do-over.
(My speech was subsequently published in Outworlds 62, dated January 1982, and an annotated, by me, version can be found on the Corflu website)
Thanks for the detailed and heartfelt tribute. I first met Taral in the mid-1980s when I moved to Toronto and always enjoyed talking with him. He was a talented artist and generous; he provided artwork and several covers for my fanzine, Torus. I posted the one for Torus 3 to Facebook; it’s eerily appropriate. I will miss him and his occasional fanzines.
Wonderful obituary, Mike. Thank you.
I’ve been going down many rabbit holes of Taral’s art this weekend. There were many rabbits.
What’s the story about the wall of guns in the recreation of his apartment? He was Canadian so my first guess is that they are toys and props. I wish that could’ve been my first guess about an American.
rcade: Your guess is correct.
I am crying now. I have been reading all his posts and his problems with his chair and so on, but I always envisioned him keeping on going since he was younger than we were. All our friends and acquaintances are dropping like flies now. What happened to people living longer lives? It seems they aren’t even even living as long as my parents did (79 and 83) Or grandparents…
He was a sweet and wonderful man, a great artist, what fandom Was all about to me
I’m in shock that he has become the next go. I am not religious, but still I pray that all of these friends of mine are up in the great giant fan universe party with Bob Tucker smoothing their arrival and that’s where we will all end up with our private rooms in our instant access to the party room as if we want and we’ll find all of our friends and our pets and doorways to our family members.
I’m so sad to see the fandom that we loved and our fannish family fade away into the timestream. And so very very sad to see Taral has departed. I cannot tell you how sad I am. I knew him from his earliest days as a fan. At one time I sold a bit of my Science Fiction fanzine collection to him and Victoria Vayne . Somewhere there be in Energumens and zines from the 70s… and I just stopped collecting them because I knew there were too many to keep and I would never reread them.
oh just so sad and terrible for me.
Thank you so much Mike for the rememberances! I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed some of your images to use in my recollections for a furry fandom news blog:
https://www.flayrah.com/9208/taral-wayne-early-furry-fandom-artist-passes-away
Dronon: Taral would have wanted you. And you did an excellent remembrance of him.
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The Magician card artwork is beautiful. I snagged it several years ago, when Bruce sold off most of the artwork. Its hanging on my wall, right next to The Star by Freas, and rightly so.
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