Zine Zaps: Fadeaway & Opuntia


Quick looks at what has been popping up in my snail mail box. (The Web hasn't killed off paper zines yet.)


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FADEAWAY – Robert Jennings, 29 Whiting Rd., Oxford, MA 01540-2035.

“A fanzine devoted to science fiction and related fields of interest.” 8 ½ x 11,, side stapled, 30 pages + per issue. A mix of articles, art, and an active “Reader Reaction” department where topics like the high price of comic books, the death of paper books, and old SF fandom versus modern fandom are discussed. While Robert is open-minded about all sorts of POVs, I could tell he was writing from the perspective of an older fan (he revealed in #32 that he’s 69 years old, “a genuine geezer.”). Then again, you would be surprised how old some zinesters (ahem) are…

Robert’s articles are well-written. Even though I’m not a fan of Tarzan or old time radio, I ended up reading an article about Edgar Rice Burroughs marketing his most famous character to radio back in the heyday of the medium. What hooked me was how ERB was trying to be a smart businessman, unlike most writers/artists.
Subs are $18.00 for six issues. Copies are available for a print fanzine in trade or letters of comment (LOCs are preferred).


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OPUNTIA – Dale Speirs, PO Box 6830, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 2E7. Digest size, 16 pages. $3.00 cash (US banknotes acceptable) for a sample copy, trade for zine, or letter of comment.

If you want diversity, you can find it with zines. Dale’s background includes working for many years for the Calgary Parks Department. Opuntia #69.5 (Oct. 2010) has an article about a visit by Princess Margriet of the Netherlands told from his viewpoint as a park employee. An interesting slice of (park) life. Other issues deal with topics – with a Canadian slant – such as financial panics, the oil and gas business, and transportation.

And if you’re really geeky, Dale has a feature called SEEN IN THE LITERATURE with excerpts and occasional commentary on such articles as “Pitchers of Nepenthes rajah collect faecal droppings from both diurnal and nocturnal small mammals and emit fruity odor” from the Journal of Tropical Ecology. Hey, if you work in a park, you gotta know your plants.