– issue zero, a warning shot, from Joseph Nicholas, 2 Wilmot Way,Camberley, Surrey, GU15 UA, UK, and Alan Dorey, 20 Hermitage Woods Crescent, St John's, Woking, Surrey, GU21 1UE, UK. June 1979.
//// E IS FOR EDITORIAL //// Joseph Nicholas
This is an opening shot; something along the lines of a declaration of Editorial Policy for ANOTHER BLOODY FANZINE; which may sound pretentious to a few of the cretins out there, but the fact remains that any fanzine of real worth has something to say; even if it's the essentially empty message of cosmic triviality that gets broadcast endlessly and pointlessly by most of the fannish fanzines. And I'll say right now that the reason for ABF is fucking well not what a whole horde of mindless chortlers will be thinking up their sleeves at about this point; no way am I indulging in all the soul-crushing effort of putting out a fanzine simply in order to shut up the cretins, and I suspect they're 100% the same ones, who found it such a hilarious laff that Joseph M Nicholas should sit around pontificating about fanzines for Nabu when he'd never published a fanzine in his poofy little life. That sort of blindingly vacuous comment is totally symptomatic of what I see as the real sickness of the British fanzine scene as we now know it; the shallow, inconsequential giggling which passes for great humour and no doubt considers one-liners about lipstick and "chiffon" scarves (ho bloody ho) to be the most stunning effusion of wit since the last Beano. Or since the last banana-skin, as its pretty obvious that nerds like this aren't up to the subtle wit displayed in such intellectual organs as the Beano.
A good fanzine has its underlying message and ideology, as I've tried to explain above; and, yes, I've been seriously formulating the platform which justifies the existence of ABF; this is fanzine which knows right from the very beginning where it's going, and also knows the place from which it starts. And this is where it's at right now; this is where I think it's about time to reveal the Word which inspired ABF in the first place: fannishness as we know it is dying out.
To quite a few of the readers this observation will seem so bloody obvious as not to be worth the fuss of writing down let alone sealing under vacumn-sealed glass for posterity; but I'm prepared to bet that a pretty huge proportion of the nerds out there, (the sort of dullards who wouldn't be unduly perturbed if tomorrow the sun came up in the west; or not at all) just haven't noticed the trends which have been going on inexorably right in front of their myopic eyes.
Yes, the whole "funny frenetic fannishness" ideology is manifestly moribund, simply because its over-celebrated exponents are sick of all this fucking frivolity. Earth shattering, eh wot? But it's a straightforward statement which you can prove to yourself again and again by taking an unemotional look at our so-called BNFs. Kettle with his sterile quips is no more than a posturing party clown in these latter days; Walsh is mellowing steadily downhill towards the grotesque stagnation of a Roberts (I mean, Christ, what sort of indictment of British fandom was it when the TAFF-slate consisted of Roberts, Jeeves and, fucking hell, Presford?); fallen idols like Pickersgill and West are just fucking apathetic, while the dilettante Charnox were never particularly interested or involved in the first place; Langford and Smith go on relentlessly playing for laughs, but are manifestly running out of the laid-back "clever" gimmicks which keep their self-confessedly superficial fanzines in business; and the of course there's the ridiculously acclaimed and over-praised "new wave" of Higgins, Kincaid, Collick and the rest, not one of whom can really write worth a shit. I assure you it's no bloody coincidence that I've chosen as ABF's co-editor a fan who's grown out of the mishmash of conflicting tropisms and snobberies which masquerade as trufannishness; Alan Dorey, who after a stint at the endless Sisyphean effort of fanzine reviewing (I know all about that particular way of wasting time, boss; I've been there too) has broken out into some really hot-shit political activity; things like kicking the tedious old-style BSPA right where it hurts, and pissing with fucking superb accuracy on Isaac Asimov's Happy Endings Magazine.
And that's where Another Bloody Fanzine is going: in a sort of crusade to shoot down in flames the rampant stagnation which has grown all over SF fandom like some life-sapping fungus. Alan and I reckon it's time to kick apart the cobweb-ridden BNF structure and anything else which doesn't have its roots in where things are really at; ABF is designed to be the spearhead, and a bloody sharp one at that, of the 1980s fandom which won't be even passingly concerned with which fans reckoned themselves as pretty hot stuff in the forgotten 70s. Mayhem is the name of the game, friends; our long-awaited night of the long knives is just starting, and we've got fucking mounds of deadwood to clear. Make no mistake about it; gouts of steaming arterial blood will be spurting from any number of intellectually impoverished nerds in our first proper issue (out in time for Seacon); and unless you re-examine your personal motives and commitment to fandom very, very carefully, we're promising that a pint or two of that spilt blood is going to be yours.
//// DOREY SPEAKS //// Alan Dorey
Everybody knows that Joe's been threatening to do his thing in a fanzine of his own for some time and now he's finally got off his arse and doing it (with a little help from his friend). Jesus Christ .... its Another Bloody Fanzine! What do we want another one for? You might well ask. A lot of people won't want it, its going to shake up a lot of complacent cretins who thought they were all right in fandom. And that's not just the cretins you think you know .... its a lot of "BNF's" too. Because Another Bloody Fanzine isn't just that. Its got a lot more to it than that, and if you haven't understood what yet then go back and fucking well read Joe's bit again.
This is a statement of editorial policy. We're not interested in the sort of lightwieght articles passing off for good "fannish" writing from tired old hacks of the early and middle seventies ... we don't want any of the trivial reportage of cons and parties and weddings and things. Hell, we're going to go to cons and parties, and have a lot of fun getting pissed and that but Jesus Christ Almighty do we have to read all about it in dozens of fanzines as well! No we fucking well don't! .... and in Another Bloody Fanzine we're not going to. No way!!. This is a kill-the fuckers fanzine that tells it like it like it is.
Gonna be a new way in fandom, and Another Bloody Fanzine is right out in front.
Why this flyer? youre asking yourselves, well it should be fucking obvious. Get a policy statement out, get a load of response back in and ABF1 (delayed by typer problems) kicks off with a lettercol jampacked with squeals of rage. You better get squealing too, cos we're just not interested in sending ABF to dull fuckers who sit round expecting fanzines like a godgiven right - Jesus Christ they do make me sick. No such thing as a free lunch, boss.