This is going rather a long way back, to my first epoch of SF fan activity. I was publishing a fanzine at the time, and wanted to mail -- that was before the internet, so you had to mail physical copies if anyone was to see your work -- copies of a phoney 45 RPM vinyl record -- this was before CDs, MP3s or streaming, so you had to play music on a platter. I could afford to produce an actual platter, of course. But I could "pretend to." I make 45 rpm disks by cutting them out, and gluing together a sleeve. For the record label, I drew this. It is supposedly a recording of a guest of honour speech by a fan named "Hoy Ping Pong," who was in reality a fan named Bob Tucker. Tucker had been a fan in his 20's, back in the 1940's, and had written in a phoney Chinese vernacular as "Hoy Ping Pong." He was a pretty nice guy, a professional SF writer and also a movie house projectionist. There was nothing serious about it, and was meant entirely in good fun. It it isn't good contemporary social politics, nobody cared in 1948. Nor did I care in 1980 when I drew this stuff as a sort of tribute. In fact, I knew Bob Tucker somewhat -- deceased now for quite a few years. I drew him in the art as "Hoy Ping Pong," but also in the audience, listening to himself. As well, there are at least two other recognizable fans in the audience. To see the jacket art, see the drawing of "Hoy Ping Pong" that follows. The gears within gears design is borrowed from First Fandom's embroidered crest. Yes, there is such an honorary organization, and it does have a crest. Although I am approaching 70, I can never be a member as far as I know. The cut-off date to be invited was years ago, I think, and I suspect you have to be 80 or older to ever belong.
Category All / All
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Size 1200 x 1200px
File Size 219.3 kB
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