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Quanta, v. 1, issue 3, August 1949
Page 22
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22. appreciated when they are so avidly grasping the mag. The best thing that could happen would be to turn it over to one of them. And then start kibitzing. Ah, the wonderful world of the future. There are two things that I will say about fanzines in general, and they are important to the prospective editor of one. First, unless you're an awfully strong character with a knack for getting things done and doing what you want, despite the wishes of others, do not take over the official organ of a club. An OO can be run only two ways: as the professional "yes!" zine for the club, or the same as if it were the personal property of the editor. Kerkhof is still trying to find the happy medium. That is why this issue, in his own opinion, stinks. That, and the fact that there are only a few good writers in the club. Miles Davis, a person for whom I have much more respect in so far as writing prowess is concerned after reading the "R. S. Barber Mystery" (which he wrote) had quit the club. Leo Carrol has left town permanently. Others either can't write, won't write, or are too busy writing for other zines. (My current excuse. I'll invent another one before the next issue. This article is the result of having almost finished HS, if not for that I am afraid this would be the third straight issue of QUANTA with nothing by me.)(Of course, Frank has rejected two of my things - a generally disliked short, and a history of WSFA. He printed his own!) To get back on the subject, don't publish a club zine unless you can reject things at your own free will, and don't mind missing a dead-line because of dearth of material, and are willing to stretch a point and use outside material. That is, I believe, QUANTA's biggest mistake - using only WSFA material. It is also missing a bet in not printing the minutes of meetings down in a readable style. Something that would make WSFA seem interesting. The following advice does not apply to publishing parties of the WILD HAIR type, but only to semi-serious zines. That advice is: Don't publish a fanzine unless you have complete control over it. If you want to write for one, you have no worries about the other things that are published. If you are editor of some particular section - art or articles or fiction or poetry - you also have no worries about anything outside of your section. But don't, for the sake of all you hold sacred, co-edit the thing. Derry and I co-edited HS (Briggs was art editor). We get along famously, and have done so far years period. But we both disagreed with the other on a couple of things that slipped in. It made HS less solid than it might have been, had either one of us edited it alone. In addition, we both cut stencils, sometimes leading to one talking about something he thought the other was going to mention, and then didn't. It lead to confusion. Further, some of the stencils were half cut by one person and then continued by another without sufficient indication that there was a change in authorship. If one man does the stenciling that cannot happen. If two or more do it, it shouldn't happen, but it does. At least it did in HS; not once, but twice. Other mass produced fanzines have avoided that, but we didn't. The main trouble came during the last minute work while the mimeoing was actually in progress. The best solution is probably dummying. For a publishing party, only the taking of pains can be counted on. If everything in HS had headings, it would have worked out alright, but in one case there were seven blank lines to be filled, and in the other an editorial
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22. appreciated when they are so avidly grasping the mag. The best thing that could happen would be to turn it over to one of them. And then start kibitzing. Ah, the wonderful world of the future. There are two things that I will say about fanzines in general, and they are important to the prospective editor of one. First, unless you're an awfully strong character with a knack for getting things done and doing what you want, despite the wishes of others, do not take over the official organ of a club. An OO can be run only two ways: as the professional "yes!" zine for the club, or the same as if it were the personal property of the editor. Kerkhof is still trying to find the happy medium. That is why this issue, in his own opinion, stinks. That, and the fact that there are only a few good writers in the club. Miles Davis, a person for whom I have much more respect in so far as writing prowess is concerned after reading the "R. S. Barber Mystery" (which he wrote) had quit the club. Leo Carrol has left town permanently. Others either can't write, won't write, or are too busy writing for other zines. (My current excuse. I'll invent another one before the next issue. This article is the result of having almost finished HS, if not for that I am afraid this would be the third straight issue of QUANTA with nothing by me.)(Of course, Frank has rejected two of my things - a generally disliked short, and a history of WSFA. He printed his own!) To get back on the subject, don't publish a club zine unless you can reject things at your own free will, and don't mind missing a dead-line because of dearth of material, and are willing to stretch a point and use outside material. That is, I believe, QUANTA's biggest mistake - using only WSFA material. It is also missing a bet in not printing the minutes of meetings down in a readable style. Something that would make WSFA seem interesting. The following advice does not apply to publishing parties of the WILD HAIR type, but only to semi-serious zines. That advice is: Don't publish a fanzine unless you have complete control over it. If you want to write for one, you have no worries about the other things that are published. If you are editor of some particular section - art or articles or fiction or poetry - you also have no worries about anything outside of your section. But don't, for the sake of all you hold sacred, co-edit the thing. Derry and I co-edited HS (Briggs was art editor). We get along famously, and have done so far years period. But we both disagreed with the other on a couple of things that slipped in. It made HS less solid than it might have been, had either one of us edited it alone. In addition, we both cut stencils, sometimes leading to one talking about something he thought the other was going to mention, and then didn't. It lead to confusion. Further, some of the stencils were half cut by one person and then continued by another without sufficient indication that there was a change in authorship. If one man does the stenciling that cannot happen. If two or more do it, it shouldn't happen, but it does. At least it did in HS; not once, but twice. Other mass produced fanzines have avoided that, but we didn't. The main trouble came during the last minute work while the mimeoing was actually in progress. The best solution is probably dummying. For a publishing party, only the taking of pains can be counted on. If everything in HS had headings, it would have worked out alright, but in one case there were seven blank lines to be filled, and in the other an editorial
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