Reporter Gets Reported
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Reporter Gets Reported |
| Creator: | Bob Tucker |
| Date(s): | Published September-October 1940 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Science Fiction |
| Topic: | Chicon I, science fiction fandom, science fiction zines |
| External Links: | Hosted online by fanac.org; article pp. 3-4 |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Reporter Gets Reported was published in the September-October 1940 issue of Le Zombie. Humorist Bob Tucker described an interview with a reporter that took place before Chicon I. Tucker had sent a notice about the convention to the paper, along with a pre-con issue of Fantasy Fictioneer.
Tucker reported that The Daily Phantagraph published the article and photograph on Saturday, August 24, 1940, with "a headline four columns long, and the story itself occupied four quarter-columns."
Excerpts
"...You're Mr Tucker?""Uh-huh" . . . somewhat cautiously.
"Fine. Tell me, what is this thing 'fandom' ?"
Fast, wasn't she? In the house 42 seconds, and demanded the answer to a question our best fan-minds have spent fifteen weary years wrangling over, without yet producing a comprehensive definition!
"Now about our Convention-----" I hedged; "we're gonna have some BIG names there ...."
"What about these science-fiction magazines?" was her next. "I had never noticed them before!"
Not only fast, she was inhuman! Explain, to an "outsider", a science fiction magazine, just like THAT! (( sound of snapping fingers ))
"Hmmmmm," I hmmmmd; "well ... lemme see. They print stories. Yes ! Thats it— they print stories. Uhhh — imaginative stories, like Wells & Verne wrote."
"All of them?" (I had previously explained there were 18 existing.)
"Well, no---we have one magazine called Capt. Future that uh...uh well, they print yarns by a guy named Ed Hamilton. And ummmm — that is, some of us, don't exactly believe him to be a Verne, or a Wells .... "
"Have you ever written for those magazines?" (Torturer! Only last month when I moved, I burned a stack of rejection slips o high the good neighbors grew alarmed and sent in a fire alarm.) "I see they pay good rates: one to four cents a word!"
"Gal (I sez to myself), you've been reading your office ABC reports! Wouldn't Hornig, Pohl and some of the others like to hear that!"
"Now," she now-ed, " -what is this 'Le Zombie' on your letterhead ? That name fascinates me!
('I wish to hell more of my readers shared her views', I thought bitterly. 'Fascinates isn't the word the critics use!')
So I dutifully explained fanmags and their functions in fandom. With seeming delight she poured over my bound volumes of Spaceways, LeZ , Sweetness & Light, Polaris, Ad Astra, Stardust, The Fantast, and etc., examining the fan-artist's work, reading bits here, pages there,mostly reader columns and contents pages. She wasn't slow:
"Almost always the same set of names appear, everywhere." ( I had explained that fandom consisted of an estimated five hundred fans. ) "Hardly a hundred of the grand total. Why? "
I understand people stop Einstein on the street and inquire of him the date the sun will explode, killing them all. And I'm far from being a genius like Einstein.....
"Now about our [Chicago] Convention-----" I hedged; "we're gonna have some BIG names there . . . "
"Alright. About the Convention. What is to take place there?"
"Ohhhh, (she called my bluff — now what?) we're gonna talk..... and eat....and dance....and uh, eat....and show a movie....and things."
"Oh yes, that movie." (I then showed her a book of stills from it, Ackerman's Chicon booklet) "who is this Ackerman? What is his connection with the Academy? Why does he use that form of spelling?"
"Aw," I informed casually, "Ackerman is a west coast biggie. [...] About the method of spelling— our Mr Koenig wants the same answer you do."
"How much of an attendance do you expect at the Convention?"
(Think fast Tucker: would 'five thousand' be to expansive? Yes, it would; so:) "Oh, about two hundred. Perhaps more, perhaps less."
"I read ((and here she dropped another bomb)) this account in Time of your [World] Convention last year."
"Wouldn't-you-care-for-a-cooling-lemonade?" I asked real fast-like. [...]
She was interested in the IFF and its international aspects ---- indeed, English and Canadian fans and fanmags and pro mags amazed her more than did our American activities. She mad note of [ Georges Gallet,]the French fan who survived the Battle of Dunkirk.And finally she posed Sully and I before my fan and pro mag collection in my basement den, idly thumbing thru a fanmag. Sully told me later it was a copy of Sweetness & Light. I wouldn't know. I was too busy assuming the pose and expression of a typical fan, and trying to still not look like an idiot.