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The first fanzine published by C.S."Sam" Youd**, then of Hampshire, THE FANTAST was later taken over by Douglas Webster. I can give no better intro to it than was written by Harry Warner Jr and which can be found here. It was the custom of UK newspapers of the period to have columnists who wrote under pseudonyms such as 'Beachcomer', a custom fanzines also adopted. There was much speculation over who THE FANTAST's 'Fantacynic' could be, hence some of the incorrect references to him under other names in the lettercolumns. It was in fact Sam Youd himself. As he wrote in a letter of comment on THEN #1:
"I was never a visitor to the Flat - in mid-teens I couldn't afford the fare from Hampshire to London. My first trip was a special one, to the '39 convention, and I had to leave before the end to catch my train back. There was some comment that Fantacynic could not be me because he referred to events taking place after my departure; but I did have a good stringer in John Burke."Below is a listing of all the issues and these will turn into live links as each is posted online.
- Rob Hansen
** Though some people pronounced his name to rhyme with 'mood', it
should actually be pronounced to rhyme with 'cloud'.
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