Langford Bibliography
Fanzines

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Titles: Ansible • Cloud Chamber • Drilkjis • The Northern GUFFblower • Sglodion • TAFF Talk • Twll-Ddu
Older Langford Fanzines • Miscellaneous/One-Shots • Ghost Titles • The 1976-1992 List

State of Play: January 2025

• Ansible – informal SF newsletter of libel, scandal, irreverence, and sometimes news. Hugo winner: 1987, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005. ISSN 0265-9816 (print), 1740-942X (online). Latest issue here.
     • First series – 50 issues (actually 49, since 2/3 was a double issue) from August 1979 until publication was suspended in 1987.
     • Second series – from October 1991 as a one-page monthly broadsheet, with the current issue number being 449. This count is complicated by thirteen additional 'half issues' to date– 53½ , 57½ , 89½ , 97½, 113½, 116½, 136½ (for OryCon only), 137½, 160½ (for Tropicon/Fanhistoricon only), 185½ (a 2002 Thog selection sent with Christmas cards), 281½ (2010 ditto), 355½ (in memory of Peter Weston) and 362½ (in memory of Brian Aldiss) – so, subtracting one for that early double issue 2/3, there have really been 462 Ansibles. Try to use this knowledge wisely.
     • Ansible online archive index (1991-current).
     • Ansible online archive index (1979-1987).
     • Ansible ebook compilations.
• Cloud Chamber – slim collections of random personal jottings, mostly contributed to a variety of amateur press associations (APAs) since December 1976. Distributed through OMPA (1-2), WOOF (3, 164), FEAPA (4-5), FAPA (6-7, 10, 13, 17), FLAP (8, 10-13, 15-16, 19-21, 23), APA-SF&F (9, 13-14), EURAPA (13, 17), FRANK'S APA (21-22, 24-35), one without any apparent name (38-39), and finally ACNESTIS (40 onwards), which quietly died in mid-2005. No longer constrained or indeed stimulated to effort by any APA deadlines, Cloud Chamber now appears infrequently on this site with only rare excursions into print. Current issue number: 165.
    • Cloud Chamber online archive index.

The Dead Past

• Drilkjis – intermittently serious SF genzine co-edited with Kevin Smith. Six issues between March 1976 and April 1982. In 1986 it was admitted to be beyond resuscitation by Kevin (whose turn it was and still is to be chief editor). Now available to enterprising tomb robbers only. However, the entire run apart from a couple of regretted items in the first issue can now be read on line:
     • Drilkjis online archive index.
• The Northern Guffblower – inaugural newsletter of the GUFF fan fund for European/Australasian delegate exchange. Issues 1 to 6, August 1978 to June 1980. The only article of note to appear amid the diligent fundraising was Chris Priest's A Message From Our Founder. • Issue 4 was mostly a write-up of the Results of the 1978-1979 TWLL-DDU Fan Poll – a semi-spoof based on the then-annual Checkpoint fan poll, but with voters choosing the worst rather than the best manifestations of fanzine activity.
  • The Northern Guffblower 1, August 1978
  • The Northern Guffblower 2, November 1978
  • The Northern Guffblower 3, March 1979
  • The Northern Guffblower 4, May 1979
  • The Northern Guffblower 5, August 1979
  • The Northern Guffblower 6, June 1980
• Sglodion – personal fanzine started in June 1989. Three-and-two-halves issues only, numbered 1, 1½, 2, 3 and 3½. Portions not suppressed or recycled elsewhere can be read on this site. Specifically:
  • Sglodion 1, June 1989
  • Sglodion 3, April 1991
• TAFF Talk – newsletter of the TransAtlantic Fan Fund for European/North American delegate exchange. Issues 5 to 11, October 1980 to April 1982. (The title was inherited from the previous administrator, Peter Roberts.) All on line at the TAFF site:
  • TAFF Talk 5, October 1980
  • TAFF Talk 6, December 1980
  • TAFF Talk 7, April 1981
  • TAFF Talk 8, July 1981
  • TAFF Talk 9, August 1981
  • TAFF Talk 10, October 1981
  • TAFF Talk 11, April 1982
• Twll-Ddu – personal fanzine of expressed existential horror at conventions, parties, cars, life, etc. Regarded as humorous except by critics. Hugo nominee. Twenty issues since April 1976, but thought to be in suspended animation since 1983. Issue 17, alias Taff-Ddu, was a TAFF promotional special with Jim Barker as guest artist and co-editor. Selections are available on line; more may be added if volunteers can be persuaded to rekey the text or Langford stirs himself to do more scanning.
    • Twll-Ddu online archive index.

Miscellaneous and One-shots

I'm not admitting to all of these, but further titles include the following:

Fanzines Etc.
• Vole, with several others (of whom only Dai Price later impinged on sf fandom) – 2 issues very long ago while I was at school.
• Hidden Shallows, a brief excursion into role-playing games – 2 slim issues, 1977.
• Gonad Comes Again!, round-robin fan fiction by many hands, edited and published by yours truly – September 1978.
• Up the Conjunction, a Bob Shaw speech showcase (actually spare sheets from Drilkjis 3 repackaged as a GUFF fundraiser) – September 1978. See Drilkjis.
• LANGFORDCON flyer, May 1979. A rare venture into fan politics.
• Another Bloody Fanzine with Kevin Smith, June 1979 – proleptically parodying the announced fanzine of that title by Alan Dorey and Joseph Nicholas (see also here).
• Visitor's Pass, a TransAtlantic Fan Fund special with Stu Shiffman – April 1981
  Including my TAFF report appendix "Yesterday's Men".
• Jackie!, collecting the scurrilous "Jacqueline Lichtenberg Appreciation Society" flyers by persons other than me – June 1981. Here's a PDF version, whose illegible patches are faithfully scanned from the originals.
• SF Reading Berks Newsletter with Chris Hughes – short-lived local venture, 5 slim issues from April 1983 to September 1984
• ai with Chris Priest, the newsletter of our computer business – 6 issues 1986-1989 – sample issue here.
• Langford Meets Swamp Thing (2000), a one-off trip report describing my visit to Florida as a convention guest in November 2000, distributed as a Christmas message and later expanded for this site.
• Dreamtime Guilt (2008), a few memories of Aussiecon 3 in 1999 – a single page prepared in PDF format for the "Mimeo Fanzine Demonstration" at the 2008 Denver Worldcon, the idea being to produce a one-off fanzine to which Hugo fan writer and fan artist nominees were invited to contribute. As far as I know the fanzine never appeared.

SF convention publications
• Novacon 7 Programme Book, November 1977 (also Progress Reports over the previous year). Cover by Jon Langford, based on various novels by Novacon 7 guest of honour John Brunner.
• Skycon Programme Book, British Eastercon, March 1978 (also four Progress Reports over the previous year). The programme-book appreciations of the Guest of Honour, Robert Sheckley, are reprinted in Cloud Chamber 132.
• Faancon 6 Programme Book, February 1981
• Seacon '84 Eurocon bid flyer, November 1982
• Britain in 87! Worldcon bid newsletter #1, Easter 1984
• Heliograph (daily newsletter) for Helicon, 1993 British Eastercon, Jersey – ten issues plus addenda
• Cactus Times (daily newsletter) with Abigail Frost and Paul Barnett for Mexicon V, Scarborough, 1993 – eight issues plus a deeply unofficial one
• The Adelphi Coracle (daily newsletter) with Paul Barnett for Sou'Wester, 1994 British Eastercon, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool – nine issues plus addenda

Ghost Titles

Owing to the whims of cover artists, some Langford fanzines have caused confusion to some bibliographers:

• The Beanie is Twll-Ddu 18, concealed behind Taral Wayne's pastiche of Dennis the Menace from that classic comic The Beano.
• Hansible 39 is simply Ansible 39 with a masthead cartoon by Taral Wayne which purports to show fellow-artist Rob Hansen "personalizing" the title thus.
• Twyll-Ddu is cover artist Harry Bell's slip of the hand for Twll-Ddu 14 – duly corrected in the cover of Twll-Ddu 15, by Jim Barker.

The Obsessive List: 1976-1992

Once upon a time I recorded the exact date upon which each Langford fanzine was printed, often with a note of the print run and, where applicable, the APAs or amateur press associations for which the zine was produced. After 1992, with Ansible appearing monthly with the hideous regularity of clockwork and Cloud Chamber confining itself to a single APA, this began to seem a bit pointless. But here is the official transcript of those much-worn sheets from the Ring-Binder of Destiny. One day I'll remember what "SoB" stands for (perhaps copies of that Ansible went out with Roelof Goudriaan's Continental newszine Shards of Babel?).

1. Drilkjis 1 – 13 Mar 76
2. Twll-Ddu 1 – 3 Apr 76, reprinted 29 May 76
3. Twll-Ddu 2 – 7 May 76
4. Twll-Ddu 3 – 29 Jun 76
5. Twll-Ddu 4 – 31 Aug 76
6. Drilkjis 2 – 3 Oct 76
7. Twll-Ddu 5 – 13 Nov 76
8. Cloud Chamber 1 – 5 Dec 76 for OMPA
9. Cloud Chamber 2 – 9 Mar 77 for OMPA
10. Twll-Ddu 6 – 26 Mar 77
11. Hidden Shallows 1 – 26 Mar 77
12. Twll-Ddu 7 – 27 Apr 77 [masthead date May 1977]
13. Hidden Shallows 2 – 20 May 77
14. Twll-Ddu 8 – 22 Aug 77
15. Twll-Ddu 9 – 4 Sep 77
16. Twll-Ddu 10 – 14 Dec 77
17. Twll-Ddu 11 – 10 Mar 78
18. Twll-Ddu 12 – 5 Jul 78
19. The Northern GUFFblower 1 – 20 Aug 78
20. Drilkjis 3 – 20 Aug 78
21. Twll-Ddu 13 – 22 Aug 78
22. Gonad Comes Again! – 19 Sep 78
23. Up the Conjunction – 21 Sep 78
24. Twll-Ddu 14 – 29 Oct 78 (reprinted 26 Apr 79)
25. The Northern GUFFblower 2 – 29 Oct 78
26. The Northern GUFFblower 3 – 7 Mar 79
27. Twll-Ddu 15 – 1 Apr 79
28. Apology ... – 20 Apr 79
29. The Northern GUFFblower 4 / Poll Results – 13 May 79
30. LANGFORDCON flyer – 24 May 79 (150)
31. Another Bloody Fanzine – 17 Jun 79 (100)
32. Twll-Ddu 16 – 24 Jul 79 (320)
33. Drilkjis 4 – 19 Aug 79 (220)
34. The Northern GUFFblower 5 / Ansible 1 – 20 Aug 79 (250)
35. Cloud Chamber 3 – 21 Aug 79 (396) for WOOF
36. Ansible 2/3 – 3 Oct 79 (150)
37. Ansible 4 – 30 Oct 79 (200)
38. Ansible 5 – 2 Dec 79 (200)
39. Ansible 6 – 29 Jan 80 (300)
40. Drilkjis 5 – 23 Feb 80 (300)
41. Ansible 7 – 3 Mar 80 (300)
42. Cloud Chamber 4 – 4 Mar 80 (110) for FEAPA
43. Cloud Chamber 5 – 23 Mar 80 (110) for FEAPA
44. TAFF-Ddu (Twll-Ddu 17) – 24 Mar 80 (300)
45. Ansible 8 – 2 Apr 80 (300)
46. Ansible 9 – 28 Apr 80 (300)
47. Ansible 10 – 4 Jun 80 (300)
48. The Northern GUFFblower 6 – 10 Jun 80 (150)
49. Ansible 11 – 7 Aug 80 (300)
50. Twll-Ddu 18 – 13 Aug 80 (330)
51. War in 2080 correction sheet – 21 Aug 80 (200+)
52. Ansible 12 – 17 Sep 80 (300+)
53. Ansible 13 – 29 Oct 80 (400+)
54. TAFF Talk 5 – 29 Oct 80 (400+) numbering continued from Peter Roberts
55. TAFF Talk 6 – 3 Dec 80 (300+)
56. Ansible 14 – 3 Dec 80 (350) inc some for FAPA
57. Cloud Chamber 6 – 5 Dec 80 (150) for FAPA
58. Ansible 14 supplement – 17 Dec 80 (150)
59. Ansible 15 – 4 Feb 81 (350) inc some for FAPA
60. FAANcon 6 Programme Book – 12 Feb 81 (65)
61. Cloud Chamber 7 – 25 Feb 81 (130) for FAPA
62. Ansible 16 – 4 Mar 81 (300)
63. Twll-Ddu 19 – 6 Apr 81 (610)
64. TAFF Talk 7 – 7 Apr 81 (300)
65. Ansible 17 – 10 Apr 81 (330)
66. Visitor's Pass – 14 Apr 81 (200)
67. Ansible 18 – 3 Jun 81 (300+)
68. Jackie! – 5 Jun 81 (225)
69. TAFF Talk 8 – 2 Jul 81 (100) revised/extended 11 Jul 81 (300)
70. Ansible 19 – 13 Jul 81 (300+)
71. TAFF Talk 9 – 27 Aug 81 (330+)
72. Ansible 20 – 27 Aug 81 (330+)
73. Cloud Chamber 8 – 13 Sep 81 (40) for FLAP
74. TAFF Talk 10 – 28 Oct 81 (300+)
75. Ansible 21 – 29 Oct 81 (300+)
76. Ansible 22 – 3 Dec 81 (330)
77. Cloud Chamber 9 – 14 Dec 81 (50+) for APA-SF&F
78. Cloud Chamber 10 – 19 Jan 82 (130) for FAPA, FLAP
79. Cloud Chamber 11 – 20 Jan 82 (50+) for FLAP
80. Ansible 23 – 29 Jan 82 (300+)
81. Ansible 24 – 3 Mar 82 (300+)
82. Drilkjis 6 – 2 Apr 82 (246)
83. Ansible 25 – 8 Apr 82 (330)
84. TAFF Talk 11 – 19 Apr 82 (400)
85. Cloud Chamber 12 – 25 May 82 (55) for FLAP
86. Ansible 26 – 2 Jun 82 (320)
87. Ansible 27 – 13 Jul 82
88. Cloud Chamber 13 – 13 Jul 82 (250) for FLAP, FAPA, APA-SF&F, reprinted 16 Dec 82 (130) for EURAPA
89. Cloud Chamber 14 – 14 Jul 82 (32) APA-SF&F
90. Cloud Chamber 15 – 25 Jul 82 (40) FLAP
91. Ansible 28 – 27 Aug 82 (330)
92. Ansible 29 – 17 Oct 82 (330
93. Cloud Chamber 16 – 20 Oct 82 (150) for FLAP
94. Cloud Chamber 17 – 27 Oct 82 (150) for FAPA, EURAPA
95. Ansible 30 – 26 Nov 82 (400+)
96. Cloud Chamber 18 – 17 Dec 82 (120) EURAPA
97. Ansible 31 – 3 Feb 83 (400+)
98. Cloud Chamber 19 – 13 Mar 83 (50) for FLAP
99. Ansible 32 – 15 Mar 82 (440)
100. Twll-Ddu 20 – 21 Mar 83 (440)
101. Not Cloud Chamber – 9 Apr 83 (30) for FLAP-2
102. ONE: A Newsletter for SF Reading Berks – 20 Apr 83 (55)
103. Cloud Chamber 20 – 28 Apr 83 (50) for FLAP
104. Ansible 33 – 1 Jun 83 (440)
105. TWO: A Third Newsletter for SF Reading Berks – 16 Jun 83 (45)
106. Ansible 34 – 7 Jul 83 (525) also for FLAP, SoB
107. Ansible 35 – 5 Oct 83 (455)
108. Cloud Chamber 21 – 15 Oct 83 (200) for FRANK, FLAP
109. Cloud Chamber 22 – 15 Oct 83 (65) for FRANK
110. Cloud Chamber 23 – 16 Oct 83 (50) for FLAP
111. Cloud Chamber 24 – 3 Nov 83 (170) for FRANK etc
112. Cloud Chamber 25 – 30 Nov 83 (70?) for FRANK
113. Ansible 36 – 8 Dec 83 (500+)
114. Ansible 37 – 2 Feb 84 (500+)
115. Cloud Chamber 26 – 2 Feb 84 (50+) for FRANK; reprinted 27 Feb 84 (150)
116. Cloud Chamber 27 – 1 Mar 84 (200) for FRANK etc
117. Ansible 38 – 17 Apr 84 (500+)
118. Cloud Chamber 28 – 30 May 84 (250) for FRANK etc
119. Cloud Chamber 29 – 31 Jul 84 (200+) for FRANK etc
120. Ansible 39 – 1 Aug 84 (500+)
121. Cloud Chamber 30 – 21 Sep 84 (200) for FRANK etc
122. FIVE: A Fifth Newsletter for SF Reading Berks – 23 Sep 83 (80+)
123. Cloud Chamber 31 – 17 Oct 84 (220) extended 27 Oct 84
124. Ansible 40 – 21 Oct 84
125. Cloud Chamber 32 – 30 Oct 84 (220) for FRANK etc
126. Ansible 41 – 9 Dec 84 (500)
127. Cloud Chamber 33 – 28 Jan 85 (100) for FRANK etc
128. Cloud Chamber 34 – 22 Feb 85 (150) for FRANK etc
129. Ansible 42 – 6 Mar 85 (500+)
130. Cloud Chamber 35 – 25 Apr 85 (150) for FRANK etc
131. Ansible 43 – 17 May 85 (500)
132. Ansible 44 – 10 Sep 85 (500)
133. Ansible 45 – 6 Feb 86 (500)
134. Ansible 46 – 10 Jul 86 (500+)
135. Ansible 47 – 31 Oct 86 (600)
136. Cloud Chamber 36 – 18 Dec 86 (150)
137. Ansible 48 – 12 Feb 87 (600+)
138. Ansible 49 – 16 Apr 87 (600+)
139. Ansible 50 – 26 Aug 87 (600+)
140. Cloud Chamber 37 – 1 Oct 87 (500)
141. Sglodion 1 – 25 Jun 89 (500+)
142. Sglodion 1.5 – Oct 89 (?)
143. Diolch yn Fawr – 6 Dec 89 (60ish)
144. Sglodion 2 – Apr 90 (500+)
145. Sglodion 3 – 29 Apr 91
146. Ansible 51 – 3 Oct 91 (250)
147. Cactus Times 3:7 – 1 Nov 91 (?) for Mexicon
148. Ansible 52 – 1 Nov 91 (350)
149. Ansible 53 – 5 Dec 91 (300)
150. Ansible 53½ – 18 Dec 91 (200)
151. Ansible 54 – 2 Jan 92
152. Ansible 55 – 4 Feb 92
153. Sglodion 3½ – Feb 92
154. Ansible 56 – 5 Mar 92
155. Ansible 57 – 1 Apr 92
156. Ansible 57½ – Easter 92
157. Ansible 58 – 77 May 92
158. Cloud Chamber 38 – 25 May 92
159. Ansible 59 – 4 Jun 92
160. Ansible 60 – 2 Jul 92
161. Cloud Chamber 39 – 23 Jul 92
162. Ansible 61 – 6 Aug 92
163. Ansible 62 – 3 Sep 92
164. Ansible 63 – 1 Oct 92
165. Ansible 64 – 5 Nov 92
166. Ansible 65 – 3 Dec 92

The indexes to my on-line archives of Ansible and Cloud Chamber include (most of; see also Drilkjis) and continue this listing.

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