Ray's X-Blog

(Apologies to B.B. King.) (From Ray X X-Rayer #131.  http://efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm ) Godzilla, is that you? For someone unfamiliar with the Ultraman TV episode The Mysterious Dinosaur Base (1966) it's disconcerting to see Godzilla in a modified form with a large cartilaginous frill flaring out the back of his neck.  Actually it's two old Godzilla costumes thrown together to create a "new" monster named Jirass. With a tight shooting schedule the producers were able to borrow a couple of Godzilla suits for recycling, assembling a new giant monster of the week. Ultraman is set in the future.  As in every episode the hero shows up at the last minute to battle a colossal menace, using his power to grow to the right fighting size, going eyeball to eyeball with his opponent.   Ultraman is really a regular human, Shin Hayata, who works for the Science Patrol.  SP agents are nattily dressed in orange suits with a white bib and necktie, all topped o...

(From Ray X X-Rayer #132.  http://efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm ) By Ray X 14 nominations.  14 losses.  Someone with a weak ego would have given up after those results. Category: Best Fan Artist.  Award: a rocket-shaped trophy named after scientifiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback.  Nominee: artist/cartoonist Steve Stiles. Despite the repeated losses Steve kept plugging on with his fanzine art.  For him his cartoons were for fun, not a way to win an award.  “There were times,” Steve explained in an email interview,  “when I wondered why I was being overlooked, or how a particular artist got nominated when I was sooooo much better —I’m an egotist (you have to be if you want to survive in any of the arts), but that wasn’t a source of any major discontentment; life’s too short.” Steve’s artistic life was inspired by the EC Comics line published in the 1950s, in particular a Mad Magazine satire by Wally Wood called “Flesh Garden” that spo...

(From Ray X X-Rayer #131.   http://efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm ) Welcome to SF fan alphabet soup. TAFF. CUFF. DUFF. GUFF. All three organizations raise funds so that science fiction fans can travel to conventions in other parts of the world.  Three candidates are vying to win TAFF, Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund.* The TAFF 2017 Ballot explains: "TAFF has regularly brought North American fans to European conventions and European fans  to North American conventions. It exists solely through the support of fandom." This year it's North America to Europe. Fanzine editor  and 2017 TAFF nominee John Purcell took the time to explain how TAFF works.  John is a Minnesotan transplanted to Texas.  His day job:  His day job: instructor at Blinn Community College.  Hobbies:  Besides SF fandom there's music, playing guitar.  He publishes two fanzines with easily confused titles, Askew and Askanc e.  (I know after writing a letter of...

IMAGE:  http://stripgenerator.com/strip/930082/the-marching-morons/ (From Ray X X-Rayer #130) In the last issue I mentioned the term "marching morons."  For those who didn't get the connection I was referring to a short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth first published in the April 1951 edition of Galaxy Science Fiction.* "The Marching Morons" opens in the future, a world where low IQ citizens greatly outnumber the intelligent class.  The simple-minded people need constant attention and care from their mental superiors. But a solution to this problem is found when "Honest John Barlow," awakens from suspended animation.  Back in 1988 a dental accident induced a deep sleep in Barlow.  After acclimating himself to the future wheeler dealer Barlow thinks of a scheme to deal with the surfeit of the simple-minded. Suddenly the public hears that traveling to other worlds has been perfected -- or so it's claimed.  Advertising and "news...

(From Ray X X-Rayer #130) For the second and last time I’ve tried producing my zine, Ray X X-Rayer, on a Hamstrung Chromebook.  I can’t believe I’ve encountered more glitches using that system compared to Windows 10 and Word. With the Chromebook I have to be extra careful when selecting text.  I wanted to only change one paragraph into italic and found the highlighting went beyond what I wanted.  So I selected the text I wanted back to normal, supposedly the correction was saved, and then emailed a copy of the file as Word to myself so I could proofread it on my seven inch Android tablet, making sure it looked OK on the smaller screen. But when I open up the file the correction I made for changing italics to normal remained was missing.  I’m now editing this on my laptop using Word and I still have problems thanX to Google Docs.  Docs has fucked up the page numbering: page 1 is now page 0, page 2 is page 1.  It can’t be changed.  I tried un...