I was recently sent a new fanzine: Ackermansion Memories #14. Put out by James Van Hise, it harkens back to fanzines of the past before the advent of print-on-demand and the like. It comes in at 80 pages, with heavyweight color front and back covers and most of the rest in black and white, though there are a few pages in color to better reproduce an article in this issue. I think it’s published about once or twice a year and has been around since about 2015 or so.
The name is a clear homage to Forrest J “Forry” Ackerman (1916-2008), an editor, writer, agent, publisher, collector, and promoter of science fiction. He is probably best known for creating and editing the long-running Famous Monster of Filmland magazine, which spawned a slew of imitators. I remember getting many issues in the late 1970s and early ’80s before its demise. His home was a treasure trove of science-fiction collectibles.
Ackermansion Memories #14 (February 2023) is like similar fanzines, a collection of articles and artwork taken from a variety of sources. These include sf pulps, fanzines, and other sf magazines going back to the 1920s.
We get several items from the 100th issue of Famous Monsters, including an overview article on the magazine. We get some early fanzine articles by Forry from the 1940s. There are some unpublished items for proposed movies that I assume came from Forry’s files. One is a yeti movie by Charles Beaumont and John Tomerlin, and the other is a proposed sequel to Rocketship X-M.
I am not familiar with Francis Laney who was a figure in sf fandom in the ’40s and became somewhat controversial. We get several items by him.
For purely pulp items, there are several. There is a two-page poem from The Thrill Book. From Science and Invention are two articles from 1922 and 1935 with lots of pictures of early movies using dinosaurs.
From notable sf editor Sam Moskowitz is an interesting article on the adoption of the term “science fiction.” This is something too many sf fans aren’t aware of. Big surprise.
There are several items relating to Ray Bradbury. One is an article by him on Jules Verne, another is an ad featuring him, and finally an interview with him.
As noted, there is various artwork, including cartoons and several pages of Ron Wilber artwork. I think this helps round out the issue.
So overall I enjoyed this issue. I like such publications where there are a wide variety of items on a variety of topics. I usually find that while I may not like everything, there are enough items I do that make it enjoyable.
It appears that all prior issues are available from Van Hise for about $25 each plus shipping (except for #8 which is $30). You can reach him at jimvanhise@aol.com for details.
As I was also sent the table of contents of the prior issues, I think I might start slowly getting the rest. While a lot of what is in these issues is by or about Ackerman, due to what he did that itself is wide-ranged. And there are other sf-related items from both the pulp and post-pulp eras to round things out. Do check this one out.
