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Voice of the Imagination, whole no. 50, July 1947
Page 3
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VOM the defunct fanzine 50th and Final Issue, spontaneously combusted during July 1947 by its sire and m̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ slave, Forrest J Ackerman, Bx 6151 Met Stn, LA 55. It has been a year since Vom # 49 was issued at the Pacificon. As months ensued and no Vom was issued, I was pepperd with postal inquirys. Individuals who were owed a single 15c issue twinged my conscience with their questions as much as if I owed them 10 times the amount. On numerous occasions I was tempted to return all outstanding moneys and call the whole thing quits. Two things deterd me: One, because I was born with 10 fingers I felt a compulsion to publish a 50th number--to abandon the magazine at #49 would be monstrous, unthinkable. (Had I been born into a society of 12-fingered homo saps, 48 would have been the magic number and I doubtlessly would have ceased publication with that issue. For there was no question but that the whole project had palled on me. While reproducing everyone else's articles, I had little time to create my own. I --but I will not go into the whole thing.) But months passed and I never got started on the last issue. That was because I was so appalled by the prospect. The final number had to be something extraspecial, of course, surpassing all that had gone before. The line-up of contributors should be stellar, the lithografs several. The outstanding letters of the past 10 years should be selected, reprinted, commented on. A resume should be made of the first 49 nos., and predictions for the next 50 pronostigcated (oops!) -- but the overwhelming work involved whelmd over me... Bit by bit I began to read references in the fanpress to "the defunct Vom". At a time when I was still intended to "keddy on" altho my heart was no longer in it, more & more mentions of the ex-Vom finally sold me on the idea of giving up altogether. BUT I HAD A BEAUTIFUL COVER ALREADY LITHO'D! At least I think it's a beauty--all hail the artist, Lou Goldstone--and double hail Earl Leeth, the swellow (that's Ackermanese for "swell fellow") who did the wing-work on it. In other words, Leeth was the angel. The regalength 2-color job set him back the better part of 10 bucks, and that, friends, is what I call a fan size hunk of angeling. Makes me feel quite salaamy, and that's no baloney. Thanx, Earl; and thanx again. Incidently, how many of U recognize what the picture illustrates? It's the "cast of characters", as it were, from S. Fowler Wright's tremendous futurian fantasy, THE WORLD BELOW, my personal favorite of all book fiction I have ever read. If, as I have heard it rumord but not confirmd, Wright should recently have died, the cover will prove a timely memorial for the master author of this magnificent novel. --Without further ado, then, adieu. A letter, an article, and an ad--and that's the end of Vom. Will only charge a nickel, tho, for this Voice of the Slimagi-nation. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* A profound impression was made on all by a wartime letter from Anglofan Wm Temple. On 13 Nov 45 he sent another letter which I have treasured all this time. It "has" almost as much as its predecessor. It is one of the most memorable letters I had the privilege of presenting: Some musings in my den, attained at last after 3 years in foreign climes, though occupied often enough, God knows, by my astral body projected from such places as the Red Sea or a slit trench on Etna's slopes. Yes, it all looks the same: the same fotos of Wells, the book-lined walls, the typewriter and my letter files, the batches of clippings about odd things, the carefully selected survivors of my once large collection of stf. mags. But does it quite feel the same? Nothing inside this room has changed, but the world outside, where I have been all this time, has changed. Have I changed with it? Some of the old wonder-thrill of these rows of books of stf., fantasy, and the weird-horror has hardened into lumpy fact for me. Do the pages of Bierce & Poe contain anything more gruesome than those 4 days & nights I spent, partly alone, in that cut off road tunnel in the Alps, with the bodies & parts of bodies of some thirty German engineers who, in
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VOM the defunct fanzine 50th and Final Issue, spontaneously combusted during July 1947 by its sire and m̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ slave, Forrest J Ackerman, Bx 6151 Met Stn, LA 55. It has been a year since Vom # 49 was issued at the Pacificon. As months ensued and no Vom was issued, I was pepperd with postal inquirys. Individuals who were owed a single 15c issue twinged my conscience with their questions as much as if I owed them 10 times the amount. On numerous occasions I was tempted to return all outstanding moneys and call the whole thing quits. Two things deterd me: One, because I was born with 10 fingers I felt a compulsion to publish a 50th number--to abandon the magazine at #49 would be monstrous, unthinkable. (Had I been born into a society of 12-fingered homo saps, 48 would have been the magic number and I doubtlessly would have ceased publication with that issue. For there was no question but that the whole project had palled on me. While reproducing everyone else's articles, I had little time to create my own. I --but I will not go into the whole thing.) But months passed and I never got started on the last issue. That was because I was so appalled by the prospect. The final number had to be something extraspecial, of course, surpassing all that had gone before. The line-up of contributors should be stellar, the lithografs several. The outstanding letters of the past 10 years should be selected, reprinted, commented on. A resume should be made of the first 49 nos., and predictions for the next 50 pronostigcated (oops!) -- but the overwhelming work involved whelmd over me... Bit by bit I began to read references in the fanpress to "the defunct Vom". At a time when I was still intended to "keddy on" altho my heart was no longer in it, more & more mentions of the ex-Vom finally sold me on the idea of giving up altogether. BUT I HAD A BEAUTIFUL COVER ALREADY LITHO'D! At least I think it's a beauty--all hail the artist, Lou Goldstone--and double hail Earl Leeth, the swellow (that's Ackermanese for "swell fellow") who did the wing-work on it. In other words, Leeth was the angel. The regalength 2-color job set him back the better part of 10 bucks, and that, friends, is what I call a fan size hunk of angeling. Makes me feel quite salaamy, and that's no baloney. Thanx, Earl; and thanx again. Incidently, how many of U recognize what the picture illustrates? It's the "cast of characters", as it were, from S. Fowler Wright's tremendous futurian fantasy, THE WORLD BELOW, my personal favorite of all book fiction I have ever read. If, as I have heard it rumord but not confirmd, Wright should recently have died, the cover will prove a timely memorial for the master author of this magnificent novel. --Without further ado, then, adieu. A letter, an article, and an ad--and that's the end of Vom. Will only charge a nickel, tho, for this Voice of the Slimagi-nation. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* A profound impression was made on all by a wartime letter from Anglofan Wm Temple. On 13 Nov 45 he sent another letter which I have treasured all this time. It "has" almost as much as its predecessor. It is one of the most memorable letters I had the privilege of presenting: Some musings in my den, attained at last after 3 years in foreign climes, though occupied often enough, God knows, by my astral body projected from such places as the Red Sea or a slit trench on Etna's slopes. Yes, it all looks the same: the same fotos of Wells, the book-lined walls, the typewriter and my letter files, the batches of clippings about odd things, the carefully selected survivors of my once large collection of stf. mags. But does it quite feel the same? Nothing inside this room has changed, but the world outside, where I have been all this time, has changed. Have I changed with it? Some of the old wonder-thrill of these rows of books of stf., fantasy, and the weird-horror has hardened into lumpy fact for me. Do the pages of Bierce & Poe contain anything more gruesome than those 4 days & nights I spent, partly alone, in that cut off road tunnel in the Alps, with the bodies & parts of bodies of some thirty German engineers who, in
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