Post-WWII treans-continental Sci-Fi Fanzine: FANTASY ADVERTISER

Fantasy Advertiser. ed. Gus/Norman E. Wilmorth. Vol. 1, No. 6, Jan. 1947. Mimeographed Side-stapled Quarto, 62 pp. From the collection of Hyman Brodofsky, president of the National Amateur Press Association, 1934-37.

 

This mimeographed sci-fi fanzine sheds fascinating light on how the growth of genre/nerd subculture was catalyzed by the Second World War. Building on the many affinity-based friendships between British and American soldiers during the War, this home-made fanzine was a transatlantic collaboration, made in Los Angeles but with a distro address in Leeds, England for European fans. The magazine is dedicated entirely to ads by fans or by the first pioneering genre-specialized book-sellers, advertising their offerings and their needs, in order to facilitate the sharing of magazines and books hard to find on the opposite side of the Atlantic - doing the work that the internet would eventually facilitate fifty years later. Thanks in part to the growth and strengthening of this network, Sci-Fi was just beginning to define itself as a genre and a subculture distinct from the broader "fantasy" catch-all of previous generations, as evidenced by the fact that this was the last issue to be mimeographed, before circulation grew to a size that enabled it to switch from home-printed mimeograph to contracted offset printing. Close perusal of these home-made ads, replete with fan art and nerdy inside-jokes, provides a fun and revealing look at a subculture in the early stages of defining itself.

This copy was owned by the writer and editor Hyman Brodofsky, a very active Amateur Journalist (the predecessor of a Zinester) who edited the amateur journal The Californian and was president of the National Amateur Press Association (N.A.P.A.) from 1934-37, where internal power-struggles prompted H.P. Lovecraft to defend him and compare his prose rhythm favourably to Flaubert and Dunsany.