For those interested, Project Gutenberg has posted the very first issue of The Fantasy Fan, from September 1933 amongst its public domain offerings.
The debut fanzine (long before the term was coined) features contributions from: Julius Schwartz, Mortimer (that's how it's signed) Weisinger, Bob Tucker, Forrest J. Ackerman, Allen Glasser, and Walt Z. Russjuchi.
The full document can be found in a variety of e-formats here and some of the stories they talk about in The Fantasy Fan can also be found on the web site.
Project Gutenberg believes in the historical preservation of literature and posts a wide variety of material in a vast range of subjects, genres, and languages; as long as it is out of copyright protection.
New posts are made everyday as their transcribers format the material.
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...Sounds good , while read this when I can !!!!!!!!!!!
Forrest J. Ackerman was really getting around back then, decades before Famous Monsters of Filmland. He even got to interview Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's original evil bald Superman in their fanzine.
Issue 2, dated October 1933 has now been transcribed and posted on Project Gutenberg!
You can read it here!
Wikimedia has a few issues of Weird Tales that are mostly complete.
For those interested, Project Gutenberg has just posted issue 3 November 1933 AND issue 4 December 1933.
If you chose not to use the links provided in this thread or if someday they don't work for whatever reason(s), Project Gutenberg has the series listed under its formal title THE FANTASY FAN, but attributes issues 1 and 2 to "By Various", while issues 3 and 4 are accredited to Charles D. Hornig.
Think of it. In 1933 comic books had started but they were only reprinting newspaper strips at that time, five years before Action #1. I'm sure that Julie and Mort had no idea they would work so many years in comics. Also, Science Fiction Fandom begat Comics Fandom many years later.
Palmer's mostly known for pushing belief in UFOs and the Shaver Mystery. He had a magazine called Fate.
Forrest J. Ackerman shows up at the end of Siegel and Shuster's Reign of the Superman, decades before he'd make Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Science fiction fandom isn't really that much older. I believe it developed quickly though while comic fandom took a lot longer to get started.The first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, dates back only seven years before the first comic book, 1926.
In issue #1 there is the following notation:
Join the Jules Verne Prize Club, for the advancement of science fiction, for details write to:
Raymond A. Palmer
4331 North 27th Street
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
For those who don't already know, Julie Schwartz named the Silver Age Atom after him.
(Revised)
Ron M. said:
Science fiction fandom isn't really that much older. I believe it developed quickly though while comic fandom took a lot longer to get started.The first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, dates back only seven years before the first comic book, 1926.
I didn't say SF Fandom was a lot older than comic books, but comics fandom. Science Fiction Fandom is a LOT older than Comics Fandom, which didn't come together in a meaningful way until the 1960s. Comics editors' (Schwartz, others?) decisions to print lettercol writers' complete addresses along with, IIRC, some ads in the comics for fan publications gave Comics Fandom a big push. Up until then it was thinly populated and pretty much disconnected.
That's what I said, comics fandom took a lot longer to get going. Science fiction fans were able to contact each other much sooner. I'm sure guys like Roy Thomas and Jerry Bails were trying to get in touch with other fans long before they were able to. And people would have been discouraged from talking to others about comics during Wertham's attacks and the start of the Code. For all anyone at the time knew, comics would be gone soon.
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