July 6/2013

1) Added SUPRAMUNDANE STORIES (#1-2) 1937-1938 — edited by Nils Helmer Frome. This is a very big deal. Supramundane is Canada’s oldest surviving SF fanzine and the first to make a big splash in North American fandom. (The first Canadian zine published, THE CANADIAN SCIENCE FICTION FAN, came out spring 1936, and only Donald Wollheim is on record as having seen it. Contents and identity of editor unknown. No copy is known to exist.) Frome is not only Canada’s first widely known faned, he is arguably Canada’s first BNF! (Big Name Fan.) Note: you can find them under SF Zines Historic.

My ecstatic thanks to Kenneth W. Faig Jr. who yesterday gave me permission to scan the contents of the two issues of SUPRAMUNDANE STORIES printed within the pages of his limited edition monograph HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT AND NILS HELMER FROME: A RECOLLECTION OF ONE OF CANADA’S EARLIEST SCIENCE FICTION FANS (1989 Moshassuck Press) edited by Sam Moskowitz. Mr. Faig Jr. had sent me a photocopy of the sold out book back in 2002 to aid my research for my Canadian Fancyclopedia, and now he furthers the cause of Cdn SF Fandom by letting me scan and upload the two zines in their entirety. Huzzah! (I point out his latest book, THE UNKNOWN LOVECRAFT, is available at Hippocampus Press.) Absolutely imperial!

Being a scan of a photocopy of a published copy scanned from a fading original, some of the pages are hard to make out, but I figure 80% of the text is readable, enough to convey the spirit and enthusiasm of Nils Helmer Frome in his pioneering zine. Check it out!

(Why H.P. Lovecraft & Frome? Because the two corresponded. Note that issue two contains both a short story and an essay on writing weird fiction contributed by Lovecraft. Pretty amazing. Astounding in fact.)

2) Added VCON 2 PROGRAM BOOK (1972) under SF Conventions VCON.

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