Leigh Arnold
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| Name: | Leigh Arnold |
| Alias(es): | Siane Jones, Meg Atkinson, Genna Eccles, Genna Leigh (Eccles) Arnold |
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Leigh Arnold was a Blake's 7 and Doctor Who fanwriter and zine publisher.
Arnold published several zines under the press Pony Press, some with Bonnie Vitti.
The 1995 zine The Way Back was a fundraising zine to help Arnold with medical costs.
Arnold's Journey to Blake's 7 Fandom
In 1988, Arnold wrote about her journey to Blake's 7 fandom in the editorial for Magnificent Seven #5:
I got hooked the Fourth of July weekend in 1982 while trying to sleep (believe it or not ... people do all kinds of crazy things at conventions) in a room where people kept trotting in to watch videos (yes, my stupidity knew no bounds). Actually, only a pair of videos managed to awaken me -- I woke once to see this (cute) guy telling a box of christmas lights it could do whatever it wanted so long as it put something on the screen. Ho-hum, ok. I woke up some time later to find this same guy turning away from watching a really bizarre looking ship blow up, and he had the biggest smile ....
Twenty-four hours later I'd taped 'Deathwatch' and 'Terminal' for myself and started up (down?) a long road of fandom. Inside a month I had fifteen of those horrible, glitchy, faded, pulsing camera copies, all three paperbacks, a subscription to the monthlies and a membership in Liberator Popular Front ... and three British zines.
By then I'd lost my job (for unrelated reasons!) and Blake's Seven kept me sane during those two unemployed months. I'd tracked down another couple dozen camera copies and kept my mind off my plight by watching them and writing spoofs of the episodes I knew, with drawings modelled after some rag dolls. When I was working again (September) the stories and drawings got collected and I made copies for a few friends.
Unbeknownst to me, Pony Press was born. Inquiries came in about them from all over the world, and a month later 'Flake's Seven' was being mailed out. I was also writing stories, because the zines were scarce, the camera copies scarcer yet, and the books, monthlies and annuals were unsatisfactory. Through the inquiries about the Flake's Sevens, I was connected with other fans in California, Chicago and Florida. One day I got a parcel from Florida that every editor (should) loves chock-full of good stories and art (one illoing a story of mine I'd sent to share with her)! And a note asking could I do anything with these. Me? I combined them with my own stories (most stuff printed on the work Selectric if I was lucky, my own portable typewriter if I wasn't) and stuck the nicest piece of art on the cover. It needed a name ... and the radio station was playing a song by the Clash that just seemed to fit ... Magnificent Seven didn't even have number, because it never occurred to me that five years later I'd still be heavily involved in such a strange hobby. My interests don't usually last that long.
Had I known then what I was getting into, would I still have done it? You bet! The incredible thing is, it's still fun ... and the sense of discovery is still there! You know, there's a lot of us who know a good thing when we see it!
Blake's 7
The Avon Club Newsletter | B7 Complex | Children of the Federation | D.S.V. | Desperado | Down and Unsafe | Flake's Seven | Gambit | Interface | Lone Star | Magnificent Seven | Magnificent Tails | New Horizons | Powerplay | Return of the 7 | The Seven Live On | Songs of the Seven | Southern Seven | Space Oddity | Starship Britannica
Doctor Who
Dr. Bellfriar's Memorial Journal | Doctor Huh| The Gallifreyan Dispatches | Pirate Planet