An Anniversary issue of a fanzine seems to call for something in the line of retrospective: A glance back at past issues. With SFFY, every issue seems to call for a retrospective. So here we go again ....
Looking back, it seems like lifetimes have passed since I cranked out the first issue of SFFY on the Thing In The Attic thirty years ago. I've undergone a multitude of incarnations since then. So has SFFY.
The first issue was primarily an experiment in mimeography. Tucker had told me about the masterful multi-color work some folk called The Decker Dillies did in a fanzine titled PLUTO somewhat before my time. I've never seen PLUTO, but I felt challenged, so I stocked up on the necessary equipment and started cutting stencils.
The cover, as I recall, involved eight different colors/tints, and went through the mimeo five times. Since I was trying for some pretty close registration, my loss ran well over fifty percent. Actually I didn't get any with really good register. I had to lower my standards appreciably to get enough copies for FAPA and friends. Fortunately most of the interior work was not quite so ambitious.
This trouble with register may seem strange to those modern mimeographers who never knew a Speed-O-Print Model L or its ilk personally. And the idea of eight different colors may appall the mimeographer who envisions cleaning ink rollers, changing fountains, etc. But the Speedy L wasn't that kind of machine. With it, color changes were fairly easy. Nothing else was.
Invention of the mimeograph is generally credited to a fellow named A. B. Dick, but modern philosophical archaeology has surmised that the true inventor was one Samuel S. Torquemada who developed the basic design during the Second Fannish Inquisition (An occasion deftly and subtly celebrated by Suzanne Tompkins and Jerry Kaufman in trufannish manner.) Most scholars agree that during the inquisition, the person accused of fannish proclivities was forced to operate the device until such time as s/he became so disillusioned as to denounce fandom publicly.
The Speedy L consisted primarily of an open drum -- a cylinder gaping wide on one side -- with holes in it; an impression roller -- like a typewriter platen -- which would engage the drum; and a pusher arm -- a series of levers attached to the drum which culminated in a device that applied weight on a friction surface against the top sheet of paper on the bed, shoving the paper between the drum and the roller at more or less the appropriate time as the drum was turned. The friction surface was usually supplied by rubber bands slipped over the worn-out pressure pads that came with the machine.
The bed where the paper rested before going between the drum and the roller had guides on three sides which were supposed to position the paper so that it would feed neatly and evenly. An adjustable rubber pad at either side of the stack was supposed to provide just enough pressure to prevent the sheets under the top sheet from moving with it into the rollers. These pads were also always worn out.
The system was completed by a detachable tray at the other side of the roller and drum which, under the right weather conditions, caught the mimeoed sheets into a neat stack.
In operation, the mimeographer would turn a crank attached to the drum with the right hand. With the left hand s/he would assist the pusher in getting the top sheet (and it alone) started toward the rollers. As the top edge of the top sheet came to the point where the drum and roller met, it would be caught between them and carried through. If the top of the paper met the drum evenly, at just the right time, the sheet would feed straight through. If it arrived a little late, it would go on through, but half of the stencil would print on it while the other half would print on the impression roller which would, in turn, offset that print onto the back of the sheet in question and -- if not cleaned before the next turn of the crank -- onto the backs of the following sheets. If, in its travels, the sheet wobbled a bit or the pressures guiding it weren't well-balanced, the sheet would feed through at an angle which usually resulted in the rollers gently creasing it into an erratic fan-shape. If the creases were deep enough, the stencil would tear.
(Fig. 1: Lee at the mimeo - output flying from feed tray into trash can)
(Fig. 2: "Erratic Fan")
Where did the stencil fit into all this? Remember, I mentioned the holes in the drum? There were a lot of them, like someone had fired at it with an amazingly-well patterned load of buckshot. Over these one fitted a blanket of soft absorbent fabric which fastened inside the drum at each end. Ink the consistency of cheap ketchup was poured from a can into the opening of the drum and evenly spread (as evenly as possible) over the buckshot holes with a paint brush. (You could get a long-handled bent-necked brush made especially for this purpose which got into the corners better and didn't put quite so much of the hand into contact with quite so much of the ink inside the drum -- but cheap paint brushes were cheaper.) The ink was supposed to be absorbed evenly through the blanket and to seep evenly through the cut-out areas of the stencil. (It was not supposed to drip out of the drum onto the impression roller, thereby causing the backs of each sheet to be printed with large smeary blobs. Hah!)
Those of you who took General Science in High School will recognize that this device called a Speedy L is actually a very cleverly disguised static generator. All that friction, paper sliding over paper, drums turning, etc. On an ideal chill dry winter day a competent operator could draw a magnificent blue arc that could be picked up on a radio receiver far at sea. And the levitation aerobatics of the sheets which were supposed to be piling up in the receiving tray were a wonder to behold.
On a warm humid summer day the paper tended to lie limply on the feed bed, refusing to move, except in clumps. And, of course, the ink didn't dry until autumn.
(Fig 3: paper on bed in summer)
But changing colors was pretty easy.
One simply removed the blanket, cleaned the drum sufficiently to keep globs of the black ink from escaping it, then covered the holes in it with an old backing sheet from a used stencil, put a fresh blanket over the backing sheet, and inked from the outside.
Inking from the outside meant that with each impression the amount of ink lessened. The image grew a little fainter. After a couple dozen or so copies, the mimeographer had to stop, carefully lift the delicate and inky stencil from the blanket, and reink, a process not conducive to long stencil life.
As Samuel Johnson said of dogs walking on their hind legs and women preaching, "It is not done well, and you are surprised to find it done at all."
After a while I stopped doing it.
In 1971, SFFY appeared for the first time entirely in black and white. While it was a relief to go to one-color repro, this wasn't the actual reason for this exciting innovation. The fact is, I just couldn't get the necessary materials.
Over those twenty years since I discovered the results of shaking a can of yellow ink without first being sure the cap was on tight, the technology of mimeography had advanced far more rapidly than I had. With the exception of a few hard-shelled old timers in church basements and various impecunious faneds, mimeographers had gone Gestetner and Rex Rotary. Speedy L's were just about obsolete. It became difficult, then impossible, for me to get the inks I required.
The white toner disappeared first. I couldn't turn it up in my neighborhood in NYC in 1966. I ended up concocting my own from artists' titanium white and Wesson oil. (This may have been the first low-cholesterol mimeo ink suitable for deep frying.)
(Fig 4: Lee deep fat frying SFFY)
Five years later I found myself far beyond the bourne of civilization as I had known it, in a village that had not even existed when I first entered fandom. Here it was hopeless, so I sent an emissary to that outpost of civilization, Tampa. Tampa proved not to be as far behind the times as I had hoped. Even there the Speedy L was obsolete. My representative couldn't get red, blue, or yellow ink, or even a new impression roller for the old machine.
Fortunately black ink could still be had and a good cleanup and dusting with talc brought a glimmer of life back to the old impression roller, so I managed to squeeze one more issue of SFFY through the mimeo myself. But by 1976, I knew it was hopeless.
I had neither the inks nor the ambition to carry on in the ancient tradition of truly hand-crafted fanzines. Or even the Do-It Yourself Plastic Kit tradition of pubbing an ish. If it had not been for Terry Hughes and Modern Technology, the 5th issue of SFFY would have been the first to feature invisible ink on intangible paper (without staples, Grandpa).
Now a new lustrum is upon us and another hand has grasped the crank -- or pushed the button as the case may be. Dan Steffan (of whom Living Legend Charles Burbee has said "He's intelligent ... is he real?") is doing the work this time, while I bask in undeserved ghlory. After thirty years of experimentation, I have definitely found the ideal way to publish a fanzine -- let somebody else do it.
-- Lee Hoffman Sept. 1981
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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