Fern Marder and Carol Walske Press

Zine Publisher
Name:	Fern Marder and Carol Walske Press
Contact:	Fern Marder and Carol Walske
Type:	fanzine
Fandoms:	Star Trek, Star Wars, Buckaroo Banzai, Robin of Sherwood
Status:
Other:	fanzine publisher
URL:	Interview with Fern Marder
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Fern Marder and Carol Walske Press was based in New York and published Star Trek, Buckaroo Banzai, and Robin of Sherwood fanzines in 1980s. The editors were Fern Marder and Carol Walske.

A in-depth interview with Fern Marder can be found at Renderosity.

Carol passed in 2004 and her memorial page (along with a gallery of her art) can be found on Renderosity.

The press did not have a formal name and is referred to here on Fanlore as the Fern Marder and Carol Walske Press.

On The Press Origins

In a 2005 interview, given shortly after Carol's death Fern explained:

"We got into the publishing business (running a small press company from our apartment), when a small press publisher we knew was upgrading to a better mimeo press, and we acquired her old one. Three fanzines came out of it (none of these with our writing in them), which we helped to produce but did not actually publish in terms of editing or marketing.

At the same time, we both were submitting our writing to fanzines for publication. We were in NYC, it was the early 70s we knew a half-dozen fanzine publishers as friends. We decided to get into publishing zines ourselves when fans of our stories started writing to us, complaining that a lot of the early stuff was out-of-print. We started by publishing collections of reprinted Nu Ormenel stories and branched out from there."

Finding A Printer

As fans moved away from mimeo which could be done using school or church or even self purchased equipment, zine publishers turned to professional printers for offset printing. Finding a printer willing to print fanfiction was difficult so when a printer indicated their willingness to print zines, they were often flooded with fanzine orders.

In the greater New York area one of the the printers most heavily used by fanzine publishers in the 1970s and 1980s was Steve Lohrius, the owner of JLS Printing (now called Printstars, a member of the JLS Group).

Zines Published

Among fanzines that the press published (not a complete listing):

• Nu Ormenel Collected Volumes Star Trek, five in all, containing both reprints and new material.
• The Cavalier - Buckaroo Banzai
• Dagger of the Mind - Star Trek
• Another TIme, Another Place - Robin of Sherwood

They also routinely provided advice, editing, production and financial assistance to zine editors and publishers where they could:

"We were kind of the "fix it" people for a while -- if you got stuck with a zine in trouble, you could come to us for a rescue (either we would help, or we would know someone who could)."

In addition to publishing, Fern and Carol also contributed to other fanzines. Fern's and Carol's most notable contribution was a novel called Stormbrother that they wrote and illustrated, which was published in 1983 as a special issue of Guardian (Issue No. 5). Fern and Carol also wrote shorter Star Wars related fiction that appeared in other fanzines (the double-issue of Time Warp (Issue No. 7) for example). Fern wrote poetry, music and supplied the occasional artwork. Carol also contributed art-work to Time Warp #5 as well as many other Star Wars related fanzines. She was particularly known for her photo-quality portraits of the characters. Note that both Fern and Carol jointly and individually contributed to many other fanzines and in many other fandoms. For a complete listing of references to Fern here on Fanlore, including her works, click here and for Carol click here.