Skyliner #4

Everything in its place.

Crankitorial ...............................

03

Visiting Margaret Brundage ..... 05

Queen of Weird Tales ............... 07

MovieTime ............................... 10

Maxine ..................................... 11

Retro Fan ................................. 15

The Retro Fan .......................... 15

Slots! ........................................ 25

DrinkingThings! ........................ 29

Pixelarium ................................ 31

Skyliner #4 A Zine from Pixel Motel. ©2018 Pixelmotel properties owned by donating artists and may not be copied without express say-so from whoever the hell that is.

Seeking fannish creativity: funny business with a fannish bent or going places and doing things.

In case you haven’t been warned, PC doesn’t live here. If you need a warning about anything, this isn’t for you, and if you can’t take a joke, for god sakes, go no further.

Alan White Space Cowboy

CONTACT IIIIIII IIIIII

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Crankitorial DIALOGUE FOR A BETTER FUTURE

As we go to press, the banner is still up at “The Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Writers and Artists Group”, though I suspect only I can see it. There is no evidence of either Admin being in attendance for months, if not years, and no doubt oblivious to the entire scenario. I don’t think banning fanzine cover art that’s barely PG without discussion sounds like a good idea; but evidently, that’s just me.

Does the cover art of issue #2 really go against “Community Standards” or just the whim of one lonely miscreant? I wonder.

I’ve made no bones about being out of touch with NuFandom, which at this point I define as any fandom I’m not participating in, which is pretty much all of them, yet I’m hanging out with the self-marginalizing oldsters because it’s easy, free, and I don’t have to do anything but blow away the cobwebs.

I was sure when I got old, younger fans would look to me like Zarathustra coming down from the mountain, extolling fannish virtue and doses of gowshwowboyohboy like Tinkerbell sprinkling fairy dust. But reality paints the picture of an old garbage bag tossed from a moving car along the highway and rolling down a hillside.

What am I to do with myself? Everyone is so fucking old I can’t stand it. Once in a while I’ll visit the Vegrants who are often as not mulling over the same patter they’re wearing thin over at Neardeath Oaks right down the street.

What number fandom is this? SEE, you don’t know do you?

Nobody cares enough anymore to keep track and in a few years whatever number we are, will be “UP!” anyway. Does it matter? No, not really, but then it never really mattered. It was just a clever device to make fans think we were actually moving forward, but it felt good.

But our Fandom, remains a dwindling thing while others are burgeoning all around us. They’re having fun, while we’re sitting around with a bunch of old farts wondering what the hell happened, if my last Corflu was any indication. We’re still mentioning Burbee and Laney like they mean something; our own Ghods are so arcane only the near dead can invoke them.

The most staunch detractors of Forry’s iconic “SciFi” have to shut the fuck up now. The crickets are screwing louder than ever, the war is over, you lost; and it just makes you look old and sad.

“Like sands through the hourglass so are the days of our lives.”

Would NuFandom treat me as welcoming as my first visit to fandom in 1965? No wait, during my introduction to OldFandom, they frankly treated me like dirt, never mind. But that’s why I hung around fringe fans who held Fandom in much less esteem than say: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and didn’t have that gassy “Holier than Thou” thing going on. Probably why I do the type of zines I do.

What are the rules of this new fandom? God knows they aren’t using the old ones. Would a participant of Hugo winner Lady Business have the least inclination to read this zine? Doubtful, and if so, would probably find something to get their nickers in a twist.

I watched the Hugo Awards. Who the hell are these people anyway? I feel like Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who held out on that island for 30 years thinking that surrender thing was a hoax. But at least he had the balls to shoot at people once in a while.

How will I ever catch up with contemporary fandom and should I even bother? I know nothing of pissed-off puppies and I’m equally confused by this statement from winner of the Best Fan Writer Hugo Sarah Gaily. . .

“I want to thank the people who have challenged me, who have told me I was wrong a hundred times at great personal cost to themselves, have made the effort to make me a better member of this community. I also would love to thank my agent who has made everything I’ve ever done possible, and all of my editors.. . . .”

“Great personal cost?” What the hell did you do, kill their pets? This is what’s needed to win a Fan Writer Hugo? Crap - scratch that one off my bucket list. No wonder I’ve never won anything, it appears you need a legion of contrary psychophants willing to fall on their swords at the drop of a hat and a cadre of agents and editors to grease the wheels and that’s just the fan award.

Someone over at Timebinders commented "The human trait involved in the passing on of accumulated knowledge to new generations, which in turn makes it unnecessary for each new generation to 'reinvent' the wheel and allows that generation to use the wheel as stepping stones to invent something else.”

I think it’s safe to say they have no interest in our wheels. And I’ll wager the younger generation has neither interest in any of our “accumulated knowledge”.

To be honest, I think the inherent structure of NuFandom seems built entirely on the ability to buy your fandom de jour off the rack. But, I’d like to give it a closer peek. I’m envious and repelled at the same time.

Suggestions appreciated.

To break the ice, I wrote Fan Art Hugo Winner Geneva Benton to share some art. We’ll see what happens.

I wonder, how many of the nominees for Best Fanzine, Fan Writer and Fan Artist have ever been to efanzines.com?

Back in Delineator days, I was sure NuFen would eventually leave us in the dust, but I thought they would at least wave as they went by. ◀

Margaret Brundage A Visit With

As told by

Forrest J Ackerman September, 1940

No interview, to my knowledge, ever has appeared with fantasy fiction’s foremost exponent of the unclothed feminine form divine in cover art. Learning that she lived in Chicago, I resolved to meet this mysterious Madame during “Chicon Week.” and accordingly called her on the phone one morning.

On my first call I explained I was an admirer of her work from the West Coast and would it be possible to see her sometime during the day? She replied she had certain things to do but that it was probable they could be put off and would I check back with her within an hour. Which I did, to learn she would be free and glad to see me - So I made a date for 7 o'clock. A short time after the hour I found myself on the 2nd floor of an apartment building on the north side of Chicago.

I was admitted by Mrs. Brundage. Margaret B., creator of those come-hither, getcha alladither, Mither of Mercy, Minga-maidlike pastel pretties is a woman in her mid-30’s, tall, blond, affable.

She has a teenage son who reads science fiction, Amazing being his pick for first place. Brundage, believe it or not, is an authority on Hitler having read every line available on the would-be World-Dictator during the last year. Margaret B. got started in fantasy with her Oriental lady on an early cover of Oriental (one-time companion to Weird Tales), simply walked into the office and showed a sample of her work. Soon Oriental became Magic Carpet, and Brundage also began to draw for Weird Tales where her work was greeted with wild acclaim. Used to get $90 for a cover: now $50.

Cannot draw a cover in under a week, and the materials that go into its making cost about $10 with packing and mailing taking a good part of $5 more. For such a price as this she cannot afford models and, like Finlay, frankly copies from photos.

The Phantom Lover on the November (1940.) Weird Tales was Robert Taylor the dancer, and Loretta Young. I have come to be far less critical of artists since Learning some of their trials and tribulations. For instance, Margaret pointed out to me, on a proof of one of her covers, that, the hands were over-large. That issue, no doubt, many fans said “What the heck’s the matter with Brundage, she ought to be able to draw better hands than that; why, they're all out of proportion.” Pastel is a hell of a difficult and delicate medium in which to work. When she was about 7/8ths thru with that particular pic, the publisher ordered a change in it necessitating enlarging one hand, so naturally she had to make the second bigger. And so, they were out of proportion, thru no ignorance or intention of hers. Oft-times, too, the plate-maker does not reproduce her colors correctly, she stated, as in the case of the current cover of Weird Tales where the green was black.

Brundage also has done calendar art under the pseudonym of Bron, and now is developing a new black-and-white technique for propaganda work under her maiden name, Johnson. Considered by fans a natural for the late South Sea Stories, though Palmer was all for her work, unfortunately she was never able to click with Ziff-Davis (the dope).

Robert Taylor and Loretta Young in “Private Number”

I was privileged to see two of her original unpublished calendar subjects; the most delicately done and delectable of damozels. My mouth is still watering! ◀ Originally printed in The Alchemist, 1941

Science fiction artists, like science fiction writers, were targets of my evil design once I became aware that they existed, in the early 1950s. I sought them out diligently in the same manner I located my favorite writers, and managed somehow to get to know them also.

Margaret Brundage was one of my earlier delights. For years, actually before my time, her paintings had graced the covers of Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet, and pulp magazines of that nature in the 1930s. Her pictures showed vast areas of nebulous thought surrounding ethereal sailing ships navigating hazardous waters using only ghost crews. Or vast expanses of space with sea vessels effortlessly sailing on toward the sultry maiden waiting in the distance, somehow suspended above it all.

For over a decade spanning the 1930s and 40s, she was the most prolific and popular female cover artist working in the pulp field.

She rightly acquired the title of Queen of Weird Tales. And, just as rightly, it was Weird Tales that first attracted my attention away from comic books and moved me into the pulps. I also liked Spicy Mystery Stories because I was starting to grow up at the time and was filled with disturbing lusts all my own, or so I thought.

There had never been a thought passing through my head that I would actually someday get to meet the queen herself, but I did. In her place in Chicago I would sit there with Margaret Brundage by the hour, looking at magazines with her paintings adorning them (she had almost no originals left by that time) and listening to her talk about painting them and the good old days‌.

I first met Margaret in Chicago in the mid-1950s when I was getting to know (perhaps "forcing myself upon" would be more appropriate) everyone in the area evenly remotely connected with science fiction. She was a wonderful and gracious lady of the old school. She painted the sexiest, most desirable nudes ever to grace the covers of any magazines, and etherealness and vastness and endless desires and expectations. It was easy to see that Margaret (who was born in 1900) had been a fantastic looker in her prime and I

always thought she secretly used the memory of herself to model for most of those alluring vixens.

I considered myself lucky to have been able to spend as much time with her as I did, and to persuade her to lecture before the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club a couple of times while I was president of the organization.

There is a wonderful interview with Margaret Brundage conducted by R. Alain Everts on August 23, 1973 (three years before her death). It appeared in Etchings & Odysseys #2 with a special bonus: a couple of nice photographs of Margaret at different times and some of her Weird Tales cover scans.

One of the stories Margaret tells in that interview, in reply to the question "Did Weird Tales ever attempt to censor the nudes you were doing for their covers?"

"No," Margaret said, "all they wanted me to do was to paint women with bigger breasts."

Margaret's painting of the Weird Tales cover for September 1933 > was a total sell-out.

I particularly remember one of Margaret's favorite stories she shared with us at the UofCSF Club and I hope she would like to know that it is being retold yet again.

In Chicago, when Margaret was growing up, she attended McKinley High School where she was editor of the school newspaper for years.

During her tenure there was one particular student who unrelentingly pursued Margaret to do artwork for the paper. He so annoyed Margaret, in fact, that she remembered never using a single drawing he submitted.

Then, after having graduated, Margaret moved on directly to the Chicago Academy of Fine Art where, much to her surprise, the same rejected artist appeared in some of her classes.

Skip ahead: Numerous years later, while on vacation in Los Angeles, Margaret thought she would like to see him again for some unknown reason. She picked up the telephone and called him and, much to her surprise, was put right through to him without delay.

Walt Disney, her old classmate and perennial rejectee, insisted that Margaret come to see him right away, and she did.

Disney met her personally, as she entered the building, and gave her a guided tour of all his facilities (this was the animation studio, not Disneyland), bought her lunch, and couldn't stop talking about how fondly he remembered her.

It almost made Margaret wish she had used at least one of his drawings.

Eventually, maybe because she couldn't get rid of me anyway, Margaret Brundage gave me one of her original oil paintings that she had created during the 1940s. The name of it was "The Wind" and it was vaguely > Gainesboro Pinkyish in nature. I treasured it with all my life until, like most everything else I treasured, it somehow seemed to evaporate from my

existence. That's what happened when I sold it to Robert Weinberg, along with a few other treasures.

I also knew Margaret's many-years-estranged husband, Slim Brundage. He operated an unusual coffee house named the College of Complexes where people who thought they were smart would go, sit around, drink coffee, debate, and discourse on any subject anyone would run with. I recall local personalities like Studs Terkel and Irv Kupcinet being regulars there for a while. There were lots of places like that around in those days, where people could just show off being naturally smart and jangling their nerves with some over-charged caffeine…. ◀

*In memory of Margaret Brundage, hero of my youth.

FOLLOW THE LEADER. . . to an Rap video from 2010. No kiddin’.

4:47 CLICK ME AND VISIT YOUTUBE!

FRANK GASPARIK SING-A-LONG Fans wax poetic as Frank Gasperik sings at our Margaritaville Bidding Party, 1990.

15:02 CLICK ME AND VISIT YOUTUBE!

LOSCON 36 MASQUERADE 2009 - LAX Marriot Hotel 9:43 CLICK ME AND VISIT YOUTUBE!

EXECUTION OF A BOND GIRL Susan Tyrell, David Del Valle and I watch Martine Beswick’s execution in “The Offspring”, 1987 • 1:58 CLICK ME AND VISIT YOUTUBE!

One for Halloween

My marginally cringeworthy reading of Mr. Poe’s THE RAVEN. An animated short done entirely in Adobe Flash.

CLICK ME NEVERMORE

By Earl Kemp SOMETHING really big grabbed me and forced me to surrender totally to its objectives. It literally dominated me, jumping right into my head and grabbing my mind in a total lock-down. It took control of all my emotions, thoughts, desires, forgotten memories, using them only for its own reasons. It kept me from doing much, including even thinking, for days and days. It literally swept me up and threw me through time and space backward into the very absolute best times of my useless lives.

I’m writing this in an effort to explain the fascinating thing about me then to me now and taking you along as an interested observer in hopes that you will find something rewarding within the maze.

Maxine, the literary bitch, did it to me. She is the one who grabbed me and kidnapped me into doing only what she demanded of me, total submission to her devious desires.

Maxine Reynolds, in case you didn’t know, was a pseudonym of Dallas “Mack” Reynolds. He wrote two Gothic horror novels for Beagle Books in the 1970s. One of them was The House in the Kasbah. (I do not have a copy of this book.)

The second Maxine, the one we are concerned with here, is The Home of the Inquisitor. This well-fingered copy was given to me by Emil Reynolds, Dallas’s son by his first wife. Over time, Emil, like his father, and I became rather good friends.

When Emil gave me the paperback I carefully placed it inside my personal private collection of valuables where it immediately got itself lost among the clutter. Out of sight. Out of mind…literally for years.

Then, without warning, it dropped out of the accumulation abruptly and screamed at me. Maxine shouted, “You bastard…how could you do this to me? Read me….” And I did, and here I am, and here you are along with me….

In my ezine e/I, I did one complete issue devoted to my and Dallas’s long-running relationship. You can click into it HERE. Among the articles there is “Nuñez 32” the address of the Reynolds’s house in San Miguel de Allende, Juanajuato, Mexico. A shorter version of this article appeared in Banana Wings 28, November 2006.

IGNORE the gothic horror aspect of the book, it is right up to snuff story wise, but is not what grabs us here. What does is exactly what happened to me personally those many wonderful years, many different people I was then, away from now.

It concerns George (the female protagonist of the book), a charming, young, innocent, naïve beauty (aren’t they all?) who has never been anywhere outside of the United States who suddenly and abruptly finds herself in Mexico and not only that but right in the middle of a large, over-active artist’s colony.

The exact same thing happened to me, completely, both Mexico (my first foreign country) and the artist’s colony. Mine was in suburban Guadalajara, in Ajijic, Jalisco. In the 1970s I was a bit envious of some of my neighbors who had 50 year leases at $10 per month while the best I could do was a 5 year lease at $40. Probably the same thing rents for hundreds of dollars a month these days.

The artists in my Ajijic colony maintained a continuous non-stop 24/7 outrageous party of beer, booze, and pot (top quality at $16 a kilo… that’s two pounds, two ounces), moving from house to house with mostly the same cast performing each event together. Living in Ajijic also did a long-term trick to me. Because of doing so I have managed to keep a private residence in Mexico for over fifty wonderful years.

What Dallas does in the book at hand, and superbly at that, is to lead George through a thorough textbook of life in Mexico, concentrating on the simple differences between there and the United States. All of which is exactly the way I discovered it for myself the first go around. And many things are vastly different, and vastly superior to anything known before.

Little wonder it does so much inside the first-time resident-to-be that is radically different to them than things they are commonplace accustomed to.

It is also an excellent tourist guide to the nation of Mexico, one that every tourist should read before venturing into that fabled country for the first time.

LONG before I ever met Dallas Reynolds in person I thought of him as being a good friend.

This is because he and his incomparable wife Jeanette spent years literally traveling around the world looking for the specific special place where they should live. In time that turned out to be Nuñez 32 in an ancient Spanish town turned Mexican. Along the way Dallas would occasionally write letters to Evanston, Illinois, to the William Hamling publishing combine.

Those letters were eagerly passed around among the employees and some of them even wound up as travel articles for Rogue magazine. Dallas would also seek out book stores in those obscure places looking for copies of Maurice Gerodias’s public domain Traveller’s Companion books and he would either write me the addresses of those stores so I could get copies of those books or, better yet, he would buy them and make sure I got them in Evanston to reissue through Greenleaf Classics.

Eventually the best thing possible happened. We finally met in person and WHAM it all fell into proper place. We were solidly bound as close friends.

DALLAS was finally Maxine, and every word, every page of The Home of the Inquisitor was exclusively his alone to share with me, with the world, and he did it magnificently. Reading the book is the ingredient that made my captivity, the obsession dominating every thought I tried to have, that caused me to try to explain it to

me, and to you, and anyone else who gives a damn.

I am, once again, together with myself and with my friend in San Miguel de Allende, just the two of us with Jeanette occasionally accompanying us for some reason. Dallas and I are seated close together inside his wonderful study where he spent most of his time writing away compulsively. I can hear him perfectly and reply in kind. I can feel the closeness of his presence. He would now and then fiddle with his pipe, emptying or refilling it. He would now and then take a brief sip of his choice of watered down booze of the day. I can even smell him again as I could before this miracle happened to me.

Oh the delight of it all, the captivity of myself, the thorough enjoyment of our reunion.

No wonder Maxine became so terribly special to me, forcing me back to the keyboard to try to make sense of my obsession for me and you and the rest of the world.

Damn, but I’m one really lucky son of a gun.

WHEN I was living in my artist’s colony in Ajijic, I took advantage of every chance I had to run away to San Miguel de Allende just to spend that much more time with my obsession of just being together with Dallas again for as long or as short a time as possible. Every one of those trips, the occasion or event making them possible, was entertainment and growth far beyond explanation. It was commonplace while being in Allende with the Reynolds to meet and become acquainted with every recognizable personality, big time authors, artists, entertainers, literary agents, publishers, want-a-bees, you name it…they were somehow always there. At long last Maxine has finally had her day in the spotlight and I am wonderfully released from her benevolent clutches. Dream on, dear friend….◀

SOMETHING DIFFERENT and FREE BACK ISSUES

HERE

Deep in the Woods. . .

Alan White

Thoughts from the Brain Hole of Forrest J Ackerman I WASTED the first five and a half years of my life, but in 1922 my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of Fantasy via what unfortunately is a long lost film. Well over half a century ago, my maternal grandparents, last of the big time angels, took me to see it: One Glorious Day, starring the internationally famous wit of his time, Will Rogers. But it was not the adult actor who amused me, it was a youngster named John Fox who portrayed Ek, a mischievous ectoplasmic wraith who convinced me in 56 mesmerizing minutes that imaginative movies were more entertaining than mundane.

Alan Hale, Lila Lee with John Fox as Ek > It was a great time to be alive, young, have doting grandparents who would take you to as many as seven films in a single day (we could have seen, more between opening time at 11 a.m. and midnight, but first-run downtown movies in those days took up the time of an extra film with vaudeville or stage shows) and it was a period of the flowering of fantastic motion pictures. The 13 greatest consecutive years of imaginative movies were the seminal period 1923-1936. At six, at seven, at eight, at nine, my wondering eyes beheld 49 dinosaurs and one prehistoric brontosaurus rampaging in London (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World”); The Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney Sr. as Erik, the nightmare incarnate, “The Phantom of the Opera”; the horrors of Hell in Dante’s Inferno; Quasimodo, the demented human monstrosity with a heart of gold, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”; "The Thief of Baghdad" vs. the fire-breathing dragon, the giant undersea spider, astride the flying winged horse, in the forest of the arboreal beings, wrapping himself in the cloak of invisibility, the magic powder of power; "Siegfried" fighting Fafnir and bathing in the slain dragon’s blood; the ravishing robotrix of Metropolis, in the premiere city of the year 2027 with its population of 60 million, soaring cloudscrapers connected by aerial skyways, offices equipped with telephotophones, the amazing machinery of Moloch in the steaming subterranean depths; the revivals of the early German classics "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ” (Conrad Veidt as the sinister somnambulist) and “The Golem” (Paul Wegener as the clay statue imbued with life) and the Russians' picturization of a revolution on Mars, Aelita.

And at 10 and 11 and on into teenhood the silver screen burgeoned with titles that titillate to this day: Lon Chaney’s lost "London After Midnight", Lionel Barrymore's “The Mysterious Island”, A. Merritt's Seven Footprints to Satan, High Treason (England’s vision in 1929 of the Federated Atlantic States of 1940 in Britain’s second talking film with Raymond Massey in Things to Come in a bit part), “Just Imagine” (1930’s vision of a world of indexed numbers--hero J-2 1, heroine LN 18, et al – and a rocket trip to Mars in 1980, starring Mia Rosemary’s Baby Farrow’s mother Maureen “Tarzan’s Jane” O'Sullivan), Fritz Lang’s “Woman in the Moon” (wherein the director invented “countdown” on the screen), “The End of the World” from France, “The Strange Case of Captain Ramper” from Germany (Paul “The Golem” Wegener as a kind of Arctic “manimal”), Charles Laughton’s “Island of Lost Souls”, and that inseparable pair of horror classics “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”. < Yup, that’s Forry.

While all these “scientifilms” and “imagi-movies” were being seen (and, after Al Jolson, heard) on the screen, something new had been added: the world’s first monthly magazine of science fiction was published--Amazing Stories, bearing the date April 1926. At the time its tales by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe et al were all reprints, an amalgam of imaginative literature transporting the reader from micro-space “The Man from the Atom” by teenaged G. Peyton Wertenbaker, later to make his literary mark as Green Peyton) to the rings of Saturn via Jules Verne’s “Off on a Comet”. The editor/publisher of this audacious periodical, which took off like a rocket, was Hugo Gernsback, author and inventor, an immigrant from Luxembourg who started the ball (lightning) rolling into the future with a momentum that by nearly 50 (49, to be exact) 1953 would produce a plethora of fantastic periodicals which a dedicated aficionado could acquire (if probably not read) in a single enchanted month. ◀ Note: Read that first issue of Amazing Stories HERE.

A Tale of Woe by Forrest J Ackerman The Story thus Far: Last issue we told the tale of Forry approached by an auction house with eyeballs of putting a portion of his magnificent collection under the gavel in hopes that Forry may spend his twilight years on Easy Street. Well! The gavel fell for the last time. Let’s look in shall we and see who picks up the tab tonight…!

“105 boxes, a ton of treasures from my 62 years of collecting, went on the auction block in New York and for me it was a complete financial catastrophe and a personal tragedy. “ “I hope you make a million,” Don Wollheim said in advance.

“You’ll make a billion!”

Anticipated Kenneth Galante, dealer.

After the fact:

“An unmitigated disaster” Robert A. Madle, pioneer fan.

“A horror chapter for New York Babylon” Kenneth Anger / Hollywood Babylon.

For the first issue, April 1926, of Amazing Stories I realized $36.

An inscribed photo of Lon Chaney, Sr. for which I anticipated wild bidding up to $5000, went for $50 ($40 to me).

With 3 issues of Schuster & Siegel’s “Science Fiction” currently in a catalog for $23,000, I expected the entire set by the creators of Superman would command $35-$50,000. (1 understand the world-class collection of Supermania is being leased to Cleveland for 5 years for $2 million.) My set: knocked down at $2750 ... less 20% Two years ago I let go of my least favorite of three Brundage pastels for $25,000 (and no 20% commission to auctioneers). My second best (and, historically, her first published cover on Weird Tales) went for less than half that ... less commission!

Collectors' items were selling at 10%, even 5%, of estimated bids.

One dealer was heard to glee that what he bought for $80 he could sell for $500 ...

Heinlein’s Discovery of the Future went for $600 (previously $1300 to a dealer) ... The 1912 AllStory featuring first publication of Tarzan of the Apes, which the American Booksellers Association reported a couple years ago sold for something in excess of $8000 (and mine was inscribed by Edgar Rice Burroughs!) slipped away for $2500 ($2000 net to me) to a young Texas fan who decimated me afterward by informing me he’d been prepared to go $20,000!

It was a field day for buyers, “Freebie Time in the Candy Shop”; for me, Heartbreak Hotel. A major downfall for me was the lack of reserves on important pieces. I told the auctioneers in advance that I didn't want to part with a valuable piece worth, say, $25,000, for a tenth of its worth; that it should sell for at least no less than half its value; but they insisted that it was against their policy to have reserves: “You lose some but you win some and the bidders have to feel that it’s possible to get an occasional bargain” In reality, it was almost impossible not to get a bargain, and too late I learned that Vallejo and Frazetta et al did have reserves on their works: for instance, the highly-sought-after “Conan” was withdrawn when it raised (as I recall) “only” something like $42,500. My Brundage, Tarzan, Fear (Hubbard/Cartier), Science Fiction (Schuster & Siegel), inscribed Chaney and Ghost of Slumber Mountain posters definitely should have had reserves on them. The Slumber Mountain (no sleepers!) went for about one-third of what I paid for them and about one-fifth of what I (and others) anticipated they would fetch. Did it make sense for the Auction to profit 10 bucks on the sale of the Chaney portrait at the expense of a loss to me of a potential several thousand dollars??

Among those present at the debacle were Robert A. Madle, Ernle Korshak, Julius Schwartz, Tom Savini, Boris Vallejo, Ron Borst, Mark Frank, Zacherly, Phil Riley, Sam Moskowitz, Stuart Schiff, Peter Michaels, EF Bleiler, Frederick C. Durant III, Barry Malzberg, John McLaughlin, Bruce Francis, Andrew Porter, Richard Bojarski, Harvey Clarke and David Hartwell, from Los Angeles, Texas, Canada, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, England and elsewhere. I have heard from Atlanta, France and Israel (!) that I was seen on TV. I think 499 of the approximately 500 present, told me I made their childhood or was their hero or idol or expressed some similarly warm and humbly appreciated sentiment. I was flattered that Isaac Asimov came with his wife and made opening remarks about me at the reception

sponsored by OMNI. I have no complaint that I didn't receive all the (unexpected) egoboo one could ask for. But my goal of financial independence was radically unrealized. I won’t know for a month but my educated guess is that, after commission & taxes, I won’t wind up with more than $75,000 whereas my expectation had been for a sale in excess of half a million. Farewell, fond dreams, of another car (after 12 years), money to restore & preserve important imagi-movie posters, bringing Giovanni Scognamillo of Turkey to the Ackermansion at my expense, and in general play Scienti-Claus. ◀

Final Words from the Vault Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I’m here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I’ve gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it’s obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I’ve come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi.

I was a secular humanist before I knew the term. I have not believed in god since childhood’s end. I believe a belief in any deity is adolescent, shameful and dangerous. How would you feel, surrounded by billions of human beings taking Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and the stork seriously and capable of shaming, maiming or murdering in their name? I am embarrassed to live in a world retaining any faith in church, prayer or celestial creator. I do not believe in Heaven, Hell or a Hereafter; in angels, demons, ghosts, goblins, the devil, vampires, ghouls, zombies, witches, warlocks, UFOs or other delusions and in very few mundane individuals - politicians, lawyers, judges, priests, militarists, censors and just was rid of smoking, drinking and drugs.

My hope for humanity - and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction - is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to existence, will enjoy true love and friendship, will pity us 20th century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious, anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism, war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative “norms” of our current civil(?)ization.

I have devoted my life to amassing over a quarter million pieces of sf and fantasy as a present to posterity and I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.….◀ - Forrest J Ackerman - 1984

If fans truly have anything in common, it’s that sooner or later they kick the bucket, one and all.

Not in unison thankfully, but in singular dribs and drabs, here and there, defined by health, condition and “shit-happens”.

My last visit to the sawbones, I was required to fill out a form detailing instructions to medical personnel what procedures should be taken on the event I hit the floor and start flopping around like a flounder.

I ain’t goin’ down without a fight, (it says here,) but that’s now. Ask again in ten years, maybe that’ll change to “I ain’t goin’ down without a sandwich. Currently, the most likely options of suggested medical care remain in the vicinity of: 1. Everything possible to keep you from kicking the bucket.

2. Pump you with fluids and see what happens.

3. Wave goodbye.

According to Wikipedia, barring calamity current human lifespan arguably averages: US Male 76.9 • US Female: 81.6 This gives the gals near five years to deal with the channel changer on their own. But also, if I hit the standard, I should have another 5 years to burn the candle at both ends, yeehaw!

In Harold and Maude Ruth Gordon suggests life becomes less significant once you hit 85.

She believes age 75 is too early to croak as her character is very much enjoying life for what it is; but in the end, die gracefully. "Look over the Horizon” she exclaims.

I am the last withering leaf on my family tree, I have no family, and what grandkids DeDee has neither know nor care what any of this “Sci Fi” stuff is. With that in mind, I would hate what few things I have, chucked in the bin upon my demise, and decided everything should be dealt with while I still have some say-so over it. With this in mind, I have but one question: “How do those of you with a lifetime of accumulated Fannish ephemera plan the ultimate disposition of it all… or not? ◀

URBAN Kodály - It worked in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in which we learned aliens are inherently musical creatures who at the first sound of a B flat will merrily throw their children at you in favor of cryptic hand signals and window shattering music any alien mum would be prone to shout “Turn that crap down!”

We now present five new hand signals that should come in handy in the event of bumping into aliens who can’t be assuaged by a jolly ditty. Here are four new signs of greeting and one more in case things go bad. Good Luck. ◀

I LOVE THINGS GRAPHICAL AND GRAPHICS ARE WHERE YOU FIND THEM

Maybe I spent too much time on the Long Beach Boardwalk ’57 through ’68 frequenting concession stands and tattoo parlors, watching drunks stumble from bar to bar and spun-to-the-hub hula girls coaxing you into The House of Horrors, The Ossified Man, or that guy with all the snakes. This is when the “Good Old Days” meant something, at least to me anyway. It left me with a love of the tawdry, the offbeat and that shiny thing over there. Slot machines are no longer just “One Armed Bandits” but techno-marvels that can rob you with a smile and the graphics are great.

Here’s a few samples of mainstream slot machines with a fannish bent, plying your nostalgia bone to wrest every penny from your pocket. . .

Mwahahahahahahah!

Drinking Things So You Don’t Have To

Public Service Announcement

Natty Rush Watermelon Splash

Full Throttle Energy Drink

How could you pass up something that sounds so refreshing on a hot summer night?

Looks like something those fat-ass bikers would drink careening up the highway to Sturges every August, but the commercial is pretty cool and would make anyone take a sip they would soon regret. There are three flavors, but I opted for “Original”; why? because it’s original, whatever that means.

What is it? Head for your nearest truck stop, the later the better. Push a couple’a strung-out hookers out of the way, mumble: “I got a cravin’” in a gritty voice and grab a tall, frosty can of yet another shit-nasty fluid perfect for somebody with nothing to do.

Grab some teriyaki jerky, maybe a bag of OKe-Doke Cheese Popcorn. Nothing sugary, just salt, and skedaddle home, ‘cause once you start drinkin’ this stuff, you’re done with everything but the nightmares.

Looks like: I popped the top, poured it down my throat; never saw what it looked like. Shame, that may have explained a few things.

Selling Points: 25oz of 8% alcohol for $1.79 makes this just another Malt Liquor calling the frat boys to get fucked-up cheap and wake up late. This stuff promises to kick Four Loko off the throne.

Tastes Like: In a world… where things taste pretty much like pisswater, This stuff isn’t that bad. Watermelon? Mmmmmm, but just the rind. It was like eating a watermelon from the outside in.

Result: Got a definite buzz half-way through. After all, that’s what we’re payin’ for, right? I finally passed out for a half hour; maybe ‘cause I was watching “Ocean’s 8”; you decide.….◀

What is it? Billed as an energy drink, but if there is any energy in this can, it’s from 58g of sugar, 160mg of salt, 200% daily value of Niacin, B6 and B12.

Looks like: Thrice-through the bladder, Mountain Dew. Selling Points: A blue collar logo and this poem: We live scars, white knuckles and no regrets.

Broken Bodies that refuse to quit.

Graveyard shifts we never miss.

Fearless and peerless.

Unstoppable, undefeated, unbroken.

We live Full Throttle.

A manly mantra indeed; I can smell Michael Paré from here.

Tastes Like: A rotten lime, stuck in the toe of an old gym sock and waved over a tin of Shinola®.

Result: “Hard Working?” I can believe that. It can’t be easy to taste this bad. “Easy Drinking”? Not on my watch!

I can’t believe some marketing guy said “Great, run with it!”….◀

Observations on Summer’s End in Las Vegas I have a thermometer on an awning post outside my window I check every morning that predicts the possibilities of my going outside and for how long. The thrill of summer has left my gray matter a cloud of dust blowing about my cranium like a Mad Max snow globe, leaving the rest of me unmotivated to do much of anything.

For the first time in months the singular hand of the thermometer has failed to attain the dreaded triple digits and hints autumn is on the horizon. The summer heat burns away all that sissy stuff never meant to live, and terraforms the city from the infernos of Crematoria into the best weather anywhere on earth.

Funny how the temperature doesn’t drop slowly from 115° over a few days. It’s 115°, then it isn’t. . . and tomorrow my skin won’t smoke like Proinsias Cassidy without his umbrella. What puppets we are to the whim of the sun.

Summer is only three months long. Longer than any need I had to eat Quinoa or Kale; though to others it may seem an eternity (summer, not the Quinoa).

Our flowerbeds are still bristling with summer colors but come the first tinge of chill they will do the skeletal hustle like Christopher Lee in those old Dracula movies with dank despair than a teenager’s poetry slam. All that remains amongst the trees will be the avian real estate of residents now flown to more temperate climes.

Of the two, I prefer heat to cold. You get to wear less clothing, your car always starts and you never have to shovel heat from your driveway.

The back yard is still the best place to put your feet up, hammer a few brews while arthritis in the old bones takes a breather till winter comes calling. ◀

JohnThiel Nice seeing a third issue of Skyliner. I like the aura of blatant exhibitionism and suppressed glory, and the mixing and meeting in fandom that it shows. It’s a real waker-upper to the fantasies of living and the utter utterness of life, here in this present age and within the milieu of science fiction and fantasy fandom…a blazing excursion into the secret and overt places of life.

Thereby it’s a fanzine well worth looking through, with an attention-getting impact. Las Vegas fandom seems to have its own nature, making it distinct from fandom existing elsewhere. One could wish to meet fans out there, take a stroll through the streets of Las Vegas. Since your last issue I was trying to get John Polselli to take this trip for me and tell me what he saw and did in Las Vegas (he says a skyline of it was visible from where he lived in Henderson), but regrettably he’s had to move out into California. Well-wishes for you in this publication, and I’ll be looking at the next issue and seeing what it has to present.

Nothing suppressed here, we let it all hang out! Thanks for the props, John. Vegas Fandom is a runaway child. Everyone is from elsewhere and makes their own fandom - like accessorizing a pizza. I’ll wager, those who know a smattering of fannish history are only the half dozen souls meeting in Arnie’s living room twice a month. For everyone else, “Fandom” is a catch phrase denoting an interest in media, attending Creation Con and a number of pop culture events which ComicCon has become, and we pass like ships in the night.

Since old-Fandom would never consider adding younger members, we are going the way of the Shakers. I’ve brought a few Padawans to meetings who would never return citing “Nobody talks about Scifi!” Can’t argue with that; it’s old people talking about old people stuff. I suspect the Millennium Fandom Bar with its “Gangs all Here” ambiance is more in keeping with the tastes of contemporary Fandoms.

I feel like the old geezer rocking on the porch while the Mighty Zeus passes me by!

Expand your browser, grab a colorful drink with an umbrella in it, maybe some nachos, and CLICK. Oh, and here’s a shot of Vegas from Henderson.

Mission Accomplished. >

TaralWayne I wanted to drop you a line, but with a warning... I doubt I’ll be writing a loc soon. In fact, “soon” would be leaving you with false expectations that I might write a lot any time before your 20th. issue. I am not in the habit of writing locs at all, lately – maybe two or three a month in better days – but I’ve fallen out of the habit entirely, along with many other fallen expectations.

It will be unlikely in the future that I write a loc to anyone more often than once every two or three months. The will is lacking now, and I prefer to save my energies to publish ... or even to draw now and then. After a good start this year, I’ve slackened off again.

But I thought I’d mention some general impression of your zine. Clearly, you enjoy publishing a busy looking fanzine, that gives your art skills a challenge ... but I myself prefer text to be mostly text. As a reader, a 300 page novel is easier to get into than a magazine full of ads for vacations in Vegas. But that’s how I prefer to read, and should in no way indicate how you wish to placate your creative urge.

Thanks Taral,. We are indeed a graphic heavy zine for the visually inclined who need just a tad more in their eyeballs to reach nirvana. We’re not so much an ad for Vegas, as showing active fans taking advantage of things and events available to them, and not necessarily the stereotypical couch potatoes of yore. We welcome fannish proof of life the world over. Will we get some? Probably not, but the door is open.

This is only our fourth issue, so don’t give up on us. By the way, Taral. I’ve installed the Zine Art Gallery on my site HERE. If anyone thinks more of it than I do, they are welcome to take over its operation.

BradFoster Thanks for Skyliner #3. (Though I must admit I am more curious about the supersecret “Skyiliner #3”, that was mentioned in the subject line of your email. Is that the extra-secretspecial-edition with more “I” in it???? :) ) Interesting stats on viewings and talkin'-abouts of the first two issues that you posted to various on-line sources. But how about those copies you sent directly to people, as you did to me? I know you got at least -one- response, since I sent it.

But was the rest just a black hole of silence? Ah, how withers fandom.... (withers? Whethers?

Weathers??)

“Drinking Things So You Don't Have To”. I've scanned those rows of oddly named beverages for years, before reaching for my tried-and-true old Diet Coke can, and wondered who in the world actually paid to swallow any of those. Now I know.

Your service is appreciated.

Loved your long Burning Man trip report, even with the sad start to it all. Don't know if it is something I would ever do myself -- but, like your drinking things so others don't have to, you have made the trip and done the report for me as well, and I am satisfied.

Poe is one of at least two people-of-the-past (the other being Einstein), who I would love to go back to see if for no other reason than to let them know that they will become cultural landmarks themselves in the future, their faces popping up again and again in the oddest places than they ever could imagine — even with their great imaginations!

Moving along through more pages of people and events here, the thought strikes me you must have more fun in your life than any three normal people combined. :) Looking forward to #4!

Yup, I admit I was in a hurry trying to get the issue out. The usual plan is uploading to efanzines, and use it as a server to get it linked from FaceBook, but Bill was absent, I got antsy and sent out a dozen issues, and yes you are the one response. I also notice, the older I get, my typing skills are plunging into the abyss. My fingers don’t point to the same keys they once did. Drat!

Hey thanks, I’ll continue the “Drinking Things” until something makes me sick. By the way, is nothing sacred? I see Coca Cola is potting up your fave drink.

While you’re visiting Mr. Poe, be sure to score a few signed first printings to help defray the expense of time travel, it’ll be worth itl If you suddenly get a craving to hit Burning Man, let me know. You of all people would have a great time: CLICK.

NicFarey I believe I shall continue articulating the phrase "explosion in the grafix factory" until it's been utterly bludgeoned into eye-rolling ennui at its use, and yet my mind, such as it is (and what's left of it) seemed to urge me to draw parallels between Skyliner and Hugo-winning Journey Planet, which might superficially seem to share the chuck-it-all-at-the-wall approach.

Any presumed superficiality in likeness is, however, er... superficial.

For me it's always helped a great deal to be friends with, or at least have personal knowledge of any given faned and their coterie to fully appreciate their product, especially something as essential as the personal zine, although genzines (especially the "BFFs - Big Fat Fanzines" as designated by the perspicacious Leigh Edmonds), by their choice of presentation and contributors can also exhibit the kind of coherent "personality" more obvious in the likes of the late and already missed Vibrator (G Charnock), Spartacus (Guy Lillian III) and indeed (trumpets, off) my own now long-ago This Here...

I suppose the point I'm trying in a rather labored way to make is that one needs to know you on some level to appreciate the deeper excellence of Skyliner beneath the initial and obvious goshwow of the presentation. In this, I have the advantages of both being your friend and fellow faned and can

thus appreciate the thought and, I would say, precision that goes into your ish in terms of both content and layout.

And there we have the fundamental difference between Skyliner and Journey Planet (which I've usually found toxically unreadable since Claire Brialey left the collective several hundred years ago), your efforts having personality, depth, and, let's say, a philosophy which engenders coherence. JP, conversely, has a marketing department.

Don't make space on the shelf for the rocket yet, Alan, as thoroughly deserving as you might be for one. A nail in the coffin is clearly the fact that you get actual locs, as real fanzines do (even if never as many as we'd like), but not Hugo-winning ones.

(As a small aside, I continue to wonder whether JP has an actual policy against printing locs, or whether it really doesn't get any.)

Ad nauseam, we continue to endure dire pronouncements of "the death of fanzines", which doggedly persist as the numbers of what we might call "traditional" faneds decline and our community circles the wagons - but yet, who could not be startled by the headline "Bless You Andy Hooper”?

Thanks, Nic. Who would’a thought in another non-fannish dimension, zines are having a vigorous heyday. There are several Facebook fan-ed hangouts such as ZINES, LV ZINE LIBRARY, ZINE CLUB; the “How to make a fanzine” class at Dick Blick’s, and there’s even a free (sorta) online zine maker HERE. But they are more emotional craft classes for millennial emos.

Were you here for ZineCon 1 and 2 back in ’99 and 00? Fans wouldn’t care for it, and none showed up - it was more of a Mad Max in a Box vibe HERE. Yeah, I was compelled to give Andy a “shout out” as the first to mention what we were really doing here! I can’t but think the days of old-timers winning the rocket have pretty much come to an end.

My only philosophy is “if you can’t go over the top, don’t go,” from too many years of Ken RusselI, John Waters, and Kenneth Anger movies, put into a blender on purée, passed through the beating heart of an axolotl on speed, kissed by the resurrected corpse of Saul Bass, then poured into the thrice blessed flagon with the dragon, held a gunpoint by the alien mind slaves of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs, then poured into a bong and fired up during the space gate scene from 2001. Ahhhh, home at last!

LloydPenney It sometimes takes a while, but I do get to respond to just about any fanzine anyone cares to send to me. I figure that you worked hard enough on the issue, you deserve at least some feedback. I wish more did that, but that’s my job right now, on issue 3 of Skyliner.

Oooh, nice artwork, all the way through. You sure do have some fun with this. And not much appreciation, hm? Fandom has become more in the way of consumers than creators, but I think a lot of that is because of advancing age, and no one coming along behind us to pick up the sputtering torch. Will the last person leaving Fandom turn off the light…

Waybackwhen, zines came out, and yes, I recall the bloody

war between xero and mimeo, and you had to use twiltone to get the best faaaanish response. I realized that I was not a member of FANZINES: The Definitive Facebook Group. Let’s see if they let me in. We live in a litigious age, with the new Republican/Christian prudery, and the arrogant assumption that we know what’s best for you. Maybe that’s why fandom isn’t approving of your zines, but then, newer fan groups aren’t doing fanzines; they’re barely doing blogs.

I didn’t know that about World Horror, that it was last held in 2016. I remember when it was here in Toronto in 2007, but with some of the people connected with it, they were careful with their advertising, as in don’t let local fans know about it, and it came and went with very little fanfare, as if that’s the way they wanted it.

By the way, a couple of nights ago was the Canadian launch of the newest paper incarnation of Amazing Stories. The editor is local fan and writer Ira Nayman, and there’s some noticeable Canadian content in that. I might get the chance to be a proofreader or copy editor for the magazine, so we will see what happens.

It looks like you are trying the horrible drink stuff, just to see if it’s as bad as it looks.

Being a former resident of British Columbia, I got the taste for hard apple cider, and in Ontario besides the myriad microbreweries, there are micro distilleries and micro cideries. I am finding that ciders taste better when the alcohol content is 4.5% or lower.

Getting nostalgic, are you? Much of fandom for me is going back the waybackwhen I mentioned earlier. In Toronto fandom barely exists. I produce a conlist to mail out to others in an effort to keep the old community together, but for the most part, it’s barely working. There’s a few fan-runs left, but for the most part, it’s the pro-run cons that bring in the tens of thousands with obscure actors. Even someone like Forry, one of the most positive fans ever, had negative words for fandom. Fandom has become passive consumers, and perhaps they always were. I never knew that Forry was in tight straits financially, but then, when it comes to Fandom As A Whole, I have always been kinda isolated up here.

I always see what’s happening at Burning Man every year, and often it’s put on local TV to give people a look at what’s happening in the insane asylum to the south. I look at BM, and think, I don’t think I ever wanted to go, and I know that we certainly can’t now. The weirdest event I’ve ever attended was a couple of years ago, when we went to Lincoln, England, for the annual Asylum Steampunk Festival, where we were but two of thousands, and all in costumes. I know there’s a lot of steampunk at Burning Man, but in Lincoln, there was a great hotel room to come home to at the end of the day…

Poestal…he’s a Poe boy, from a Poe family… I used to look for similar stuff (bills, stamps, etc.) for Nikola Tesla. I gather no one’s leaving anything for EAP at his Baltimore gravesite any more.

In less than a month, cannabis becomes legal in Canada! I know there’s some states where it is legal, not sure if Nevada is one of them, but we are getting the warnings here from various stick-upthe-ass American border officials that if you have ever smoked up, or you work in the industry, or even invest in cannabis start-ups or stocks, you will probably be banned from entry to the US for life.

Ah, more people in the locol! Good to see. Even seeing this is making me nostalgic. Ick, we’re quaint? Say it isn’t so! If the kiddies don’t want to play with our fanzine toys, then let’s us do it, and take

our toys with us when we are done, in more ways than one. I can only hope that someone might look back at all that we did, perhaps study it, and preserve it for a library or two. Or maybe they’ll just look back, say “Huh?”, and carry on as they were.

Take care, good sir…it is Friday!, so I hope you have a stellar weekend planned. We’re going thrifting, looking at all the local used clothing shops for interesting costume pieces. We shall see you with your fourth issue!

Your job as Zine Monitor is much appreciated.

Funny I get grief about too many graphics, but our last issue had 13,000 words and nobody said doodly squat about any of them, and there were some mighty fine words in there too!

FANZINES: Nah, probably a lonely SJW afraid somebody somewhere was having a good time. I was in high school back in the 60s when do-gooders came through, removing “objectionable” books from the library. Funny, all these years later, as Poe would say, the pendulum has swung the other direction.

Now it’s the sjws who want to ban things less we we are driven to commit crimes upon humanity. CLICK. Sputtering torch is right, and no reason for youngsters to pick it up. Their torches are burning bright, and their fanart is so much better than anything you’ll find on eFanzines. The only problem I have with it, is being from the Manga generation, everything looks as if done by the same person.

These aren’t our kids growing up into hand-me-down science fiction. They’re kids of the mainstreamers who came into this from Star Wars and anime and find no historical relevance in anything we hold dear.

Good luck dipping your toes into the pot pool! Let me know how that pans out CLICK. Wow, good luck on the proofreading gig. Wish I could hire you here. Vegas’ free-range Fandom is sorely lacking in Steampunk activity.

Good shopping sir, oh, and Fair Aether, as them Steamy punks say.….◀

Vegas Sunset

See Ya’ Next Time!