A short-lived fanzine from the late ’70s that I have recently gotten issues of is Age of the Unicorn. Lasting but eight issues from Michael Cook, it was edited and published by Cook & McDowell Publications.
The demise of the fanzine was due to the publishers’ real business, publishing local histories and genealogical works, which was taking off and not giving them time to continue the fanzine.
For this fanzine, these are some of the interesting articles. (Yes, I don’t list them all.) In addition, there are reviews, ads and letters. All issues were printed on 8.5-by-11 paper, stapled, with colored paper covers.
#1 (April 1979) As a first issue, there were not as many articles as ads. Among the articles were an index to the short-lived Haunt of Horror black-and-white comic magazine from Marvel. A reprint from The Pulp Era on the Bantan novels, a jungle hero, by the author of the series. There is also some poetry, and an index of The Spider novels.
#2 (June 1979) The second issue has more articles than the first, but probably more ads than articles (but even some of the ads are interesting). Bernard Drew, who wrote about the pulps, contributes a new article on doing so, and also included is a list of his articles (to date) plus a reprint of one of them. We get notes from a planned annotated edition of Arthur Conan Doyle‘s “Lost World” by Dana Batory. No idea if it was every published. An index for the short-lived Worlds of Fantasy pulp. Tom Johnson has an article on pulp author G.T. Flemings-Robert, creator of the Green Ghost, Captain Zero and others. And another index, this time on Australian pulp SF magazine, Void Science Fiction and Fantasy. And we get a cover by Frank Hamilton, who would soon provide a new logo for the magazine as well.
#3 (August 1979) With this issue the fanzine Fantasy Mongers would be merged in. See my posting on that one for more info. Nick Carr has an article on Operator #5. Dana Batory has one on Conan Doyle’s “The Leather Funnel”. Another article is on the Frank Merriwell dime novels.
#4 (October 1979) includes an article by Will Murray where he finds out from five other pulp historians what they felt were the top 25 Shadow novels, and one stinker. There is an article on Dennis Lynds and the works he wrote under several pseudonyms. An article by Nick Carr tells of his work to find Emile Tepperman, who some thought was a pseudonym for someone else. And there is an index of Popular Publications short-lived “yellow peril” villain pulp, Dr. Yen Sin.
#5 (December 1979) has a cover by Frank Hamilton of the Six Million Dollar Man, along with an article on the character by Al Tonik. Next is an article on pulp author Donald Barr Chidsey. Michael Avallone provides a prospectus for a proposed men adventure’s series that never happened.
#6 (February 1980) has another Frank Hamilton cover, this time a recreation of the the Doc Savage cover for The Land of Terror by Baumhofer. We get the prologue from Brian Lumley‘s Titus Crowe novel, In the Moons of Borea. Nick Carr provides a discussion with Ryerson Johnson on his sole Phantom Detective novel. Dafydd Neal Dyar provides an interesting article on the idea that the song The Ballad of Big Bad John tells of the end of Doc aide Renny Renwick. Another article speculates on where Doyle’s Lost World was located. William Bogart‘s The Crazy Indian, which was originally to be a Doc novel, is the subject of another. Tom Johnson looks at an interesting femme fatale from Secret Agent X.
#7 (April 1980) has a cover of Hamilton of Walter Gibson, creator of The Shadow, which ties to an article on the Belmont Book Shadows. Dafydd Neal Dyar provides an interesting idea on the origin of Doc Savage: outer space. Old King Brady, a detective from the dime novels, is highlighted in an article. Harold Sherman, an expert on ESP who wrote two pulp novels about The Green Man, is covered in another article. And we get an overview of Basil Coppers‘ Solar Pons collections, the Sherlock Holmes pastiche created by August Derleth.
#8 (Special Issue) is the final issue, and is twice the size of any others. Among the materials is an excerpt from Robert Sampson‘s “Yesterday’s Faces,” his multi-volume work on the early pulp characters. Will Murray again organizes an article with other pulp histories who look at the top 10 Doc Savage novels and one stinker. Nick Carr provides his view on The Spider. Dana Batory provides two articles: one on “War of the Worlds,” the other on Conan Doyle. Another article looks at author Michael Avallone. And an article on the dime novels.
A great fanzine that was sadly short-lived. If you can find them, check them out.
After the demise of this fanzine, the Age of the Unicorn was “merged” with another fanzine, the Science Fiction Collector, which became Megavore as part of this with issue 9. It went back to the original name with issue 14 and the zine ended with #15. At this point, the Age of the Unicorn was restarted by Grant Thiessen, the publisher of SFC/Megavore, with issues #9 thru 15. And when that ended, the Age of the Unicorn was merged into Bill Laidlaw’s Doc Savage Quarterly with issue #10 and remained (I think) until that zine ended with #16, which ended Age of the Unicorn forever.
UPDATED
Nice review of AGE OF THE UNICORN, Michael. Mike Cook had a lot going on back then. Unfortunately, his wife found him dead of a heart attack when she returned home one day. I think he was trying to do too much, maybe. If you are not aware of them, there are two hardbacks he published that should be of interest to most pulp fans, and mystery groups in general. MONTHLY MURDERS, which indexes most of the digest mystery magazines, and MYSTERY, DETECTIVE, AND ESPIONAGE MAGAZINES. I contributed numerous essays for the latter, and helped Mike compile indexes to many of the magazines for the first book. Published in 1982 and 1983, respectively. At the time Mike was publishing AOTU, XENOPHILE was almost totally adds, and there weren’t many fanzines around devoted to all the pulp magazines. Just a few Doc Savage zines, and maybe some others, but AOTU covered a variety of subjects — as you noted with the Harold Sherman article.