-1-

NO. 2

VOL. 1

FAINT BRAYS FROM A TIED JACKASS..................... Page 2
4e tells all in ’’Who Edited Vom's Mamma?"

«

EBEY OBJECTS.......................................... Page 3
Ebey tears his hair over Fan's & STF

IF.......................................
M. F. Crawford

Page 4

HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT?..................... ..Page 5
Robert Bloch tells the one about the Traveling
Salesman

LITHO.......................................
Alva Rogers

Insert

IN THE GARDENS OF MU LUNG........................... Page 7
Leonard Golding Pruyn
CARTOON..............................................Page 8
Geo. Wyman & Crozetti

FLYSWATTER.......................................... .Page 10
Bob Tucker tells what happens when fly swats
man
:

FROM THE PADHOUSE FLOOR.............................. Page 16
The editor quotes what fans think about Venus

COVER by Crozetti,

produced and mimeoed by SHOTTLE-BOP

VENUS is an amateur magazine, edited by Lora
Crozetti, published quarterly at 637-h s, bixel,
Los Angeles 14, California. The opinions express­
ed by the writers are not necessarily those of the
editor.
This issue mimeoed by Walter J. Daugherty

-,P’ ’ cpa <<£•

SEPTEMBER 1944

PRICE 150

I have noticed Bruce Yerke
doing a lot of drum thumping for
himself over a period of years,
blustering that he was the editor
of the original IMAGINATION! He
has repeatedly claimed fame for
being the progenitor of LA fan­
mags via "Madge",
I have done
little or nothing to disabuse
fandom of this fanciful notion,
and Bruce,
thru repitition, may
have come to believe this pleas­
ant fantasy himself.
But his hokum is as hollow
as the drum he's been beating.
When I read in Le Zombie a
semi-official account of early
mags and am told by Tucker that
Yerke edited Madge and that when
it died the
death (after 13
issues) Morojo & I snatched the
letter section and began publish­
ing Vom,.., well,
'tis a bit too
much. Too many new fans are going
to accept Tuck's no-doubt honest­
ly intended explanation,
I would ask you to refer
with me, if you could,
to IMAGI­
NATION! #1,
There were less than
fifty copies originally (it being
hekto'd)
so it is unlikely you
have one handy in your file. But:
just who do you think named the
mag, exclamation mark, and all, in
the first place? YHOS-- meaning,

in this case, not Art Widner, but
Your Humble Obedient Sfforry.
I
did.
I can no longer give you the
breakdown on the typing but I am
reasonably certain that of the' 19
pages with typing, Morojo & I did
18 between us. Yerke wrote and
carboned "Ye ED Says Foo" himself
and contributed another
page,
other articles in the issue at­
tributed to Yerke and Ted Berk (a
pseudonym I devised for him) were
either considerably re-written by
me or ghosted.
I ghosted Hodgin's column,
in the issue; in fact,
I .always
wrote "Way out West".
I had just
about every editorial thing to do
with 16 of the 20 pages in the
first issue,
I did not run them off, Yer­
ke may legitimately call himself
publisher (of the first Madge
only).He did lay the master car­
bons on the hekto gelatan and
pull off half a hundred copies.
As he related in the 2nd issue of
IMAGINATION! he completely wreck­
ed the first 2 pages he pulled off
#1; and after a conference
with
Morojo & Vodoso (now known as Morojo & Vodoro), myself, himself,
and Hodgkins, 8 further pages,...
(which he had typed himself) were
continued on page 15

Fans are odd people.
It is hard to make a statement trite and
dogmatic at the same time,
yet my opening sentence is meant
to achieve that effect.
"Okay," you snarl, "It’s an old gag. SO'
what? Fans do funny things,
like writing letters lambasting
and flattering each other and they hold conventions and form
clubs on the basis of common interest inashakey pulp sub­
ject. So they are odd. Everyone knows that,"
The minor quirk I
the oddest oddity of
am devoting my rave to is,
to my mind,
them all,
•Tis the peculiar lack of perspective that is typical
of fans-- they're all alike in this respect-- they show it in
judging their favorite reading matter. They rate science-fiction stories by science fiction standards*,,
"The guy is wacky."
I hear you shout, "What other standards matter? STF makes its
own standards I"
Consider.
STF, with the exception of a few yarns
that hit book publication, is strictly pulp, and has achieved
recognition as little else. What your dyed in the glasstex
fan considers a good yarn would not impress the average read­
er, who admires things like characterization, style and color
in their stories.
Personally, I find more smoothly narrated and
solidly constructed writing in the average detective magazine
than in the average STF. But I like STF, but only because of
what it is, because it is tinged with more real imagination
than westerns or detective stories.
Examples abound. Take Camp­
bell's MIGHTIEST MACHINE with its streams of windy, weighty,
sentences and technical phrazology.
It's modern counterpart
is any George 0. Smith opus,
or any of C. L. Moore's recent
atmosphere dripping, unweildy "classics"; or E. E. Smith's
ponderous nonsense or Van Vogt's stupidly overdone melodramatics. None of this stuff would get by for an instant in
an "outside" publication.
continued on page 14

The clock raised his eyes,
so large and clear
And ordered himself
a second heer.
Then gazing out
at the loading dock
He said to his friend,
the Hollyhock,

"I wish I were as old
as the hills
With plenty of money
to pay my hills.'1

He guzzled his heer,
so pale and cool'
And stated sadly,
"I hated school

There were so many problems..."
"Large or small?" queried the Hollyhock.

"Both," was the mournful reply of the clock.

s

ABOUT
by

woe#
Black Art is throwing a party,
see? His real name is Arthur Lucentro, but we call him Black Art
on account of him being a wizard.
Sort of a gag, see, because he is
really very serious and raises the
dead, and all that stuff.
But every once
in a
while
Black Art knocks off and throws a
big party with a lot of magic. He
is a good guy,
even though screwy
and he has a lot of liquor,
so we
always come to his brawls.
Well,
this time we are all
sitting around in the big French
parlour he calls the Louis 0 room.
There is F. Gregory Coprophalia
and Doctor Groinberg and Bishop
Shapiro and a lot of other big
shots,
and we are all drinking
Pernod out of paper cups.
Black Art won't
allow any
mirrors or glassware in his house,
because if he sees his reflection,
old John Q. Satan will- foreclose
the mortgage on him. So we are
drinking out of these paper cups,
and talking about Gilles de Retz
and the Marquis de Sade and Darryl
Zanuck and other guys Black Art
knows in the old days.
I notice Black Art is nervous
tonight,
and when he gets nervous
something always happens.
I can

always telJ. To becin with, his
beard usually stands up,
like
there was a wind blowing on it
from across the stars, he says.
Well tonight,
Black
Art’s
beard stands up so straight it
damn near hits him on the nose. He
gets up and walks over to the win­
dow to hide his embarassment but I
see it. He is shaking all over.
I sneak across the room and stand
next to him. He is looking up at
the moon.
Something is flying across it. Seven figures.
"The seven geese I"
I hear him whisper it,
and
then there is an awful squawk as
the birds fly by and the moon goes
behind a big black horned cloud.
"He is coming," Art whispers.
"I see the omens."
Sure enough,
a minute
later
there
is' a big thumping on * the
front door. Everybody shuts up and
looks while Black Art goes and
opens it.
A stranger comes in.
Now there is nothing really
wrong with this guy and the- way he
dresses. He is tall and thin and
he has big sad eyes--- but lots of
finks
look that way. He wears a
black suit,
plenty dusty,
like a
burlap bag with lapels. He carries

-6-

a big bulging suitcase that is
also dusty -- but this isn't so
queer either.
Anyway,
the two
things together make me feel dust
and sadness.
Everybody gets it. Here is
somebody who travels a long,
long
way for a long,
long time. A
little cold wind runs around the
room as Black Art shuts the door
behind the
stranger, Black Art
looks at the dust on the guy's
shoes and at the dust in his eyes.
"I expected you," he says.
The stranger sighs.
It sounds
like somebody lets the air out of
his tires.
"You see the signs?"
"Yes."
"Then you know who I am?"
Black Art nods.
"When the
dogs howl and the seven geese keen
mournfully afar,
I know. A man
would be stupid indeed not to re­
cognize you for what you are."
"Yes," The stranger looks at
us all. "I am the original Travel­
ing Salesman."
He sets the suitcase down with
a thump,
and dust flies all over
the room. Bishop Shapiro comes up
to him.
"The original Traveling Sales­
man?" he asks.
"But there's lots
of traveling salesman, you know."
The stranger smiles his tired
little smile.
"Yes, but there's
only one Traveling Salesman known
all over the world -- the Travel­
ing Salesman of all the smokingcar stories,
the Salesman of all
the jokes. And that's who I am."
He sits down on the sofa very
carefully, as though part of him
is made of expensive glass he is
afraid of breaking.
Black Art
hands him a drink and we all stand
around.
"Thanks," he says. "It's swell
to rest like this. Haven't been in
the city for years, you know, Just
one damned rural route after another.
I go from farm- to farm,
year in and year out. What an aw­
ful life I lead!"
"Yeah?" says Bishop Shapiro.
"What about all those farmer's
daughters?"

"Nyaaaa!" yells1the.Traveling
Salesman,
real loud. He jumps up
like he is being gnawed by mice.
"That's all they ask me. What about
those farmer's daughters? I'll tell
you whatI
"I'm sick of farmer^ daughters
and I'm sick of farmers. I'm -sick
of their wives, their rickety farm­
houses, their squeaky beds,
their
outdoor plumbing!"
"Then why travel?" asks Bishop
Shapiro.
"Why?"
snarls the Salesman.
"Because I am cursed,
that's why..
Like the Wandering Jew."
"Cursed?"
"By men. Men like you, that
tell stories
about
traveling
salesmen. You created me-- you
and your mass thought through the
ages. After millions of men, their
minds sensitized through telling
absurd tales, had thought about me
in groups for hundreds of years —
I just materialized. All those mass
thoughts created a physical being.
Me -- the Traveling Salesman! And
so I am cursed to wander.
"To wander. Every night,
I
visit a new farmhouse.
Never a
change of routine. Greasy supper. A
fight over where to sleep. Then to
bed. And there's always some damn'
daughter.
"Those daughters! Dumb,
fat,
ugly, but insomniacs. Or they have
halitosis. Or cold feet.
Or they
snore,"
The Traveling Salesman began
to groan. We got closer.
"It’s my fate to live through
the details of every one of those
thousands of stories men have in­
vented around my legend.
I must
engage in a hundred foolish acts,
a million excesses.
In barns,
in
haylofts, in horse-stalls, in silos
and even in cow-pastures!
I have to
take a million dizzy wise-cracksftan
farmers, a billion stale payoff lines
from women. I have been accused, ab­
used, subjected to every 'indignity
by the demands of those cursed jokes.
Nyaaaa!"
Everybody looks sympathetic,
and drinks while he shudders.
"We understand, old man." says
continued on page 15

In the Gardens of Mu Lung,
Where fantastic flowers grew,
And sweet songs of love were sung,
I wandered one night weary,
As weary as the moon above was hung.

In the Gardens of Mu Lung,
Where walls away to dust do fall,
And eons pass unsung,
I came upon a maiden
Who was beautiful and young,.

In the Gardens of Mu Lung,
When I knew one night quite truly
The horrors I was among,
I said farewell forever
To the maiden and the Gardens of Mu Lung.

Leonard folding Muyn

Copyright 1944 by Leonard Golding Pruyn

-9-

-10-

FLYSWATTER
by

SOS

'SUOKSO

I perched on the space-bar of the typewriter and watched him. ' I
knew humanity fairly well;
I've been in contact with a few thousands
of them. This man was a pretty poor excuse for one, as men go. He was
bald-headed and had a pot belly. His belt was pulled tight around that
belly and his face was white,
drawn and thin. He wore shell rim spec­
tacles .
His fingers were listless in his lap.
I watched them out of the
corners of my eyes, ready to jump should he reach for the keys. He sat
there, a faraway look in his eyes behind his spectacles.
The room was like the man. There remained but the faded glory of
a once-colorful paper on the wall. The ceiling paper was coming down,
his bed was unmade, the coverings thin and dirty. '
There wasn't much for him to eat in the wall cupboard;
I had in­
vestigated. I had eaten. There was enough there to last me for months,
although it would last him but a few days.
I hoped I wouldn't have to stay here long. I had my orders and it
was my duty to stay until those orders were carried out or until cer­
tain events happened which would cancel them.
Looking at this man be­
fore me, it wasn't hard to guess how long I would be there.
I watched his face.
I knew that through his mind there played a
kaleidoscope of fantastic images. Now and then a trace of his thoughts
would cross his whitened facej memories of a memory that would have
startled another human watching him, had there been another in the
room.
There was fear in his face too.
I could understand that. Anyone
not already a resident of certain human institutions would display
fear, had they seen what this human had witnessed the past night. We
had thought the room untenanted,
otherwise we would not have chosen
the spot for our gathering.
Too late we discovered that he had seen, had watched us. I recall
his face peering over the side of the bed at us there on the floor. It
would be difficult to state which was the most startled.
Our ceremony
was almost finished when we discovered him. At once it was certain
that he knew all, had seen us from the moment we had entered the room.
Being seated in my rightful position near the Queen I made haste
to whisper a suggestion to her. She thought my suggestion wise and or­
dered it carried out. Calmly, as if we were alone, we completed the
rites we had come there to perform and began an orderly retreat. He
had seen us and had done nothing, so there was certainly no reason why
we should abandon our carefully planned rituals to flee. In dignified
haste we finished our ceremonies and began an orderly withdrawal
behind the Queen.
All except myself. While the man was engaged in watchings the rest
of my people leave, I secreted myself under the bed and changed form.
In order to successfully carry out my masquerade I assumed a form
which none of my fellows had utilized for the ceremonies. When they

-11-

were gone and the Gate closed, I came forth from my hiding place to
keep watch on him.
He slept no more that night,. which was as I had expected. What' I
hadn't expected was that he would attempt to set down his experiences,
on paper. We hadn't known he was a writer, in fact, as I have just men­
tioned, didn’t realize that he was in the room at all. It was supposed
to be empty.
I knew at once what he intended to do when he sat down before the
machine and rolled a sheet of paper into position. Alongside the fear
in his face there was a daring resolve,
and just a shadow of hope. A
hope that he could forestall what he knew was inevitable; what we knew
was inevitable,
and what Someone thought had already happened, to
judge by the error of the room not being empty when we arrived. It was
perhaps this advance stage of breakdown that gave him the courage to
write.
He wanted to write the story, phase by phase, scene by scene,
of
the rituals. And Us. His greatest desire was to write about us and de­
scribe us, but he needed the rituals as a setting to depict us. He
would probably make it in fiction form in order to have full freedom in
telling of our Queen, and my companions.
Which is precisely what I am here to prevent. I have succeeded so
far. He has no electric light in his room. He was seated at the type­
writer,
ready, when the first rays of dawn entered his window.
He raised his fingers to strike the keys. I stopped him.
It wasn't hard to do. His condition is weak from days of not eat­
ing, his health isn’t the best;
consequently his will power,
aside
from the one dominating force that urges him to put his memories bn
paper,
is almost nil.
I stopped him very easily, but I knew my task
would be harder as the day grew older.
He is trying to marshal his thoughts;
is casting about for an
opening sentence. I can keep him in this mental struggle indefinitely.
Now and then he comes close to forming a sentence, but just as quickly
I divert a new stream of thought into the foreground which completely
defeats his purpose.
Soon he will grow angry with himself. He will
beat his head and swear and moan because he cannot bring himself to
begin.
The paper was ready, and blank, at dawn.
It is now well into the
morning and still he has written nothing. There are noises of a scrub­
woman outside the door. He turns his head to look at the door and
watches a dull swish of filthy water flow across the sill. That re­
minds him of the flow that crossed the floor of his room last night.
He even sees something coincident in the coloring.
This interests me. Looking at the ugly, darkened scrubwater .com­
ing under the door,
I marvel at the human thought processes that he
should associate that with ud. Humans have such strange minds.
But-- he has alipped from my controlI While I was busily watching
the water and contemplating his mental make-up, he has somehow become
aware of his freedom from my will,
and has written something on the
paper. It is only the title
"THE STORY THAT SHOULD NEVER BE WRITTEN"
He is admiring it. Yes, that is good. Very stupendous, he believes. It
must capture his expected reader's attention,
and once they have.en­
tered into the story, nothing can tear away their attention until they
have finished his account. So he happliy believes/
Suddenly,
a new intelligence at my rear captures my attention.

-12Whirling, ready to flee, I see nothing but an overlarge housefly. His
appearance at this time is strange,
and yet fortunate. I take control
of his mind very easily.
The fly alights on the paper.
I change my position from the black
space-bar to the tabular key.
It has a white background and I am eas­
ily seen. Presently the man notices me,
"Shoo1." he swings a hand to swat at me,
impatiently.
I force my­
self not to move,
although his hand comes dangerously close. He waves
at me the second time but I still hold my ground. This angers him. He
raises a puny, dirty forefinger and jams it down on the tabular key. I
leap Just in time.
The carriage of the machine shot away to the
left at least se­
veral inches,
to be stopped at last by the tabular lock in the rear.
The fly,
resting on the paper,
is now only a dirty streak. The title
now reads....
'ITHE STORY THAT SHOULD NEVER BE WRITTEN"

He read that and his face paled anew. His mind became confused, a
maelstrom of emotions and in this upheaval, I quickly inserted myself
and once again gained control.
The day was miserable. The typewriter, the paper, the room sway­
ing before his eyes, blurry, unfocused. Hunger hurt his stomach,Every­
thing went wrong. The keys would Jam, Words failed to form themselves,
into even simple sentences. Minutes were wasted hunting down the pro­
per spelling of some of those words he could muster—long, multi-syll­
abled words he once dashed off without pause*'And there comes tanta­
lizing memories of the fame he once possessed. The struggle was ter­
rible, wrapped in the grim silence of the room. A continuous battle was
being fought, a battle that was neither seen nor heard, a battle that
one side knew nothing -- yet was half the struggle.
Grim coincidences Jarred each passing hour, for him.
I
would
light on first one key and then another, waiting patiently until
he
saw me, tried to wave me away. Failing that, he would hit the key with
a finger, always Just missing me.
In slow succession then, those keys
would spell out words that pteyed on his concious mind, unbelievable omens that forestalled his every attempt to write,

STOP, LEATH, NEVER, STOP, FINALE......
At noon, despite my efforts to the contrary, he had succeeded in
finishing the first paragraph as well as the title. He got up and.stum­
bled across the room to the wall cupboard, ate dry bread and cheese and
washed it down with water. He sat there so long, unmoving', unblinking,
that I thought it had happened, Without thinking, I rushed into his mind
to find out:
It was almost my undoing. He became aware of me, I attribute it to
his acute condition. Extreme hunger, the approach of death, his'mental
attitide all must have sharpened his wits to an alarming degree.
Turning his head toward the typewriter, he looked directly' at me;
not seeing me only because I was so small at that distance, and
his
vision was failing. His awareness flowered to bright suspicion, and he
suddenly knew. Memories of the last evening and the morning Just past
marched behind his eyes. He remembered that we were in many forms last
night, forms common to earth. And he remembered finding me on the tab­
ular key, of swatting me off many others.
Instantly, then, he perceived I had intelligence, else I wouldn’t
have chosen those particular keys.

-13-

•

»'

\
i

r*

When he came across the room I knew what was in his mind' hut I did­
n't know what method he would use to attempt it.
I could not se£ his
hands, which he kept behind him. Alert, wary, I watched his coming-. He
••stopped before the machine and searched it closely with weak eyes.' I was
safely hidden inside the frame,
out of sight unless he should 'lay his
head on the platen and stare inside, but he didn't think of that.
Failing to find me, he sat down in front of the machine and brought
forth one hand to touch the keys.
I did nothing,
for I had already ar­
rived at the conclusion that should I force myself into his mind again,
he would find me. My beam of communication with him beacme a two-way
line,
once his acutely warped concience had become aware of me. And he
knew this.
Deliberately, he used his left index finger to begin on the second
paragraph.
I debated what to do.
I had been ordered to a duty I must
fulfil...and yet I could not do that duty dead. In the end I decided up­
on short, jabbing, yet heavily-charged jolts to his mind. I must get in,
wreck as much damage as possible, and be away before he discovered me.An
ambush was necessary.
I let him finish the first sentence of the second paragraph.
: Some
of his confidence returned. He had tapped out each letter and word,
slowly, awaiting me. My failure of appearance gave him courage and at
the same time caused him to relax his vigilance. Still wary of that hid­
den hand.
I tried a short; semi-paralyzing stroke. The effect was . in­
stantaneous .
Instead of dazing him as I expected, he bolted into action.
The
hidden hand came forth holding a wire flyswatter which he banged dowr
on the frame of the machine with all the strength at his 'command,The blow
rattled the keys. Only his being unable
to
• saved
my
His eyes searched the machine fervently,
I knew
hewas seeking my dead
body. Hot finding it where he thought it to be,
he knew then I was inside the frame at about the same spot. Bending over, he peered inside.
Anticipating him,
I crawled still further down inside the machine,
•and stopped on a small sprocket that revolved as the carriage Was moved,
It was a precarious position. Next he left his chair, and was lost tc
my sight for a few minutes. I found him looking in the glass windows at
each side of the machine. The only place of real safety near me was a
small spring. I crawled inside.
There was no movement for a few minutes,
I didn't dare attach
my
mind to his to ascertain his whereabouts. Presently, after a long silence
the keys began tapping again. The spring quivered, I knew what its func­
tion was and dreaded being trapped within it, should it suddenly stretcl
and just as suddenly contract. My legs would be caught in its turns, anc
I would probably crushed. Looking out, and up, I could no longer see hir.
so decided he was again seated in the chair. Precariously, I made my wa;
to a small, oblong opening at the bottom of the machine, just underneatl
the key bank. Reaching it,
I dropped a short distance 'to the white,enameled table top and hid myself underneath the machine.
From this vantage spot I again hurled another’charge at him, this tim*
calling upon the very limit of my mental capacity. The blow dazed
him
The typing stopped and his fingers fell heavily to the table top. ■ They
lay there, curling and uncurling spasmodically. He attempted to bring ur
his right hand, which held the flyswatter, but failed. I saw my advantqg
and hurled still another bolt,' It left me weak, but determined to stop
him if I could. I tried a third.
Exhausted, I watched his body fall from the chair.
The noise i
made as it hit the floor resounded throughout the room. A sudden com
motion from the lower floor of the house told me it had been heard else
where too. Crawling to the edge of the tabletop, I stared down at him.

-14-

I couldn't kill him,
that was beyond my province.
I had used the
most extreme method I dared to stop him, and should he revive now before
I had regained my strength, I would be in a hopeless predicament indeed.
Somewhat idly, I wondered what had happened to the Plans, why had some­
one so overlooked this room that he had been there when we came?
Precisely as if Someone had at that moment discovered his error, I
became aware of a Presence in the room. The emanations were friendly and
familiar. I didn't have the strength to seek the source, nor did I wish
to. I knew the other presence.
The man on the floor died.
But what puzzled me was that the Presence remained in the room, and
did not depart as was the usual' case.
The door to the room opened and several people rushed in.
They
gathered around the body, someone took the flyswatter from his hand.
In my exhausted condition, I neglected to hide myself,
but perched
there on the white enameled tabletop. ' Dimly, I was aware of my danger in
that exposed spot. And too late I realized why the Presence had' remained
in the room after the man .died.
In the face of death or not, a female human knows but one major use
for a flyswatter: the use for which it had been specifically made. And I
made a conspicuous blue-black spot there on the white tabletop.

FINIS

EBEY OBJECTS

Yet in the science fiction field,
writing like this is hailed by fan oracles and their compat­
riots, the blurb writers, as great stuff... living literature
no less.
Bah'.
The only thing I can suggest is that each fan ob­
tain a textbook on fiction writing, read it carefully, obtain
a good novel or collection of stories of recognized worthand
devote himself or herself to finding out what is going on in
the realm of letters.
When all this happens, fan ratings will re­
veal a remarkable difference. What's more, they will be acc­
urate .

HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT?

-15■who Edited Vom's MAM,A?

Black Art, patting his shoulder,
"Why not stay here and rest up fbr
a few days? I'll give you a room,"
The Salesman gets to his feet.
"Thanks," he mumbles,
trying to
smile,
"Mighty nice of you to ask
me.
But I really can't do 'it.
Some party in Omaha just figured
out a new story for me-- some­
thing involving a hayrick,
three
daughters and a horse.
I have an
appointment tomorrow to try it
out.
So I must catch my train
now."
He grabs for his suitcase.
Black Art lifts it for him.
"Sayl"
comments' ' Black Art.
"This is an awful load I What's in
this grip of yours?"
The Traveling Salesman blushes.
Then he looks sick.
"Bricks," he whispers.
"Bricks?"
The Salesman opens the door,
and turns around.
"Yes," he snarls, "Bricks 1...
That's the real tragedy of it all.
Here I am,
a crack salesman,
one
of the best on the road. And it
means nothing,
nothing at all,
night as well carry bricks as any­
thing else. Because" — and he be­
gins to scream -- "because in all
the gawd-awful stories about the
Traveling Salesman,
nobody ever
mentions that I sell anythingI"
Weeping foolishly,
the Trav*»'
eling Salesman closes the door be­
hind him and falls down the stairs.

destroyed.
Morojo & I took over.
Aside from a page in.
passed out of the picture.
And ole "doc" Fassbeinder
must either be passing into his
second childhood' or be suffering
delusions of fandeur if he fond­
ly imagines he had anything to do
with Madge or Vom from December,
'37, on.'
And that, ladies' & gentlemen
is the true story of "Imagina­
tion's Editor" Yerke,
the stock
(phrase) market crash,
and the
loss of Bruce's "millions".

0 Say Have U Seen...
VOM for HALLOWEEN?

Fea fur i n g !

Tigrinal"

"Return of

V-Ma i Is

from

Speer !

Diabolicover
montage
b y
Harryhausen
&
Rogers
Letters

FINIS

from
Bl o c h

Warner
Temp I e

de Jack

Wi I son

Often, a good education just en­
ables you to get into more intellignet trouble'.

Rothman

Wi I imczy k

Nightclubs today remind one of the
'Gay' Nineties ' . The wortien are gay,
and the men are ninety.

VOICE

of

the

I MAG I'-NAT ION.. . I 5c

Bx 6475 Met Sfn,

LA-55

-16-

I know new what was meant by the quotation, -"Th? Editor sits on
the madhouse floor and plays with the straws in his hair." I haven't
any straws, but I've run my fingers'through it in desperation until
the dandruff fell like new laid snow. There will be a third issue of
Venus, but unless I receive some material, preferably articles, no
fourth issue will appear.

I am very grateful to Robert Block for his kindness in sending
me his Traveling Salesman, to Alva Rogers for the time he spent, the
beautiful illustration he produced on such short notice, for the poem
by Leonard Pruyn, which is his introduction in print to fandom.
At long last I found Bob Tucker's FLYSWATTER, and hope that now
he will stop being mad to me and not speaking at me.

My special thanks to M. F. Crawford for IF. It took some doing
to get the author to part with it. If you. like it, I have a promise
of more.

Ebey will probably be surprized to find his article in Venus. I
threatened to put it in the Faint Brays column, and I can't repeat
what he threatened to do if I did.
I was surprized at the nice letters I received from fans, and I
shall boost my ego by printing a few of them instead of boring
you
with a long-winded account of the troubles I had with this issue.

From Joe Kennedy:

Venus arrived today. The mag was very gratefully received.
■ An
exceptionally nice job. Gad, Tho —- 15^ to mail it, P.O, Dep't (no
I just wasn't going to give them a chance) trouble, I presume.
The
artwork is impressive, for the most part. Nifty lithos. The verse al­
so, is excellent. Tho prejudiced against FMZ fiction, I'll admit the
Brackettale is tops, Leigh is always good. Of other material, methihx
these were outstanding: (1) 4S J's Lang article (2) the Tucker
bit,
(3) "How to Publish" (4) the Odd John Item. Swell binding. To sum up
Venus is definitely going to make a hit. Wot Else?
(Thanks for them kind words, Joe, only so far, Venus has hit my
pocketbook the hardest.)
From Langley Searles:
It seemed a shame to throw Venus #1 into the waste-basket with­
out dropping the editor a card about the matter----hence this missive.
Front cover fair, back cover so-so, inner illustrations more or less
mediocre. Format in general: excellent. Material in general: poor.The
only readable item was Ackerman's article on Fritz Lang; not even his
habitual "simplified" spelling and annoying tendency to pun could
spoil it... Fiction, poor, as would be expected from nearly all fan

-17-

magazines, with their third-grade pro-rejects. "Venus Moon"-: Joquel
omits mention of the fact that Venus’ satellite was once supposedly
seen by the astronomer Hershel. Page 31: "The Acolyte congratulates
Venus." For daring to publish such tripe, I presume... (Why else??)

From Charles Burbee:
VENUS STINKS.
VENUS STINKS.

VENUS STINKS.
VENUS STINKS.

VENUS STINKS.

From D. B. Thompson:

•

»4

Venus is really a fine production. Amazingly you have quite good
fiction; that is really rare in fanzines, Acolyte being the only reg­
ular source of such since the days of POLARIS—and even that is none
too suitable to my taste, since I dislike horror stories. (Laney's
idea in presenting the best in horror fiction is commendable, since
relatively little such is found in the pulps, the HF there being generally rather punk—but I just don't care for HF; it never horrifies
me. (Me either)
I think Brackett's story rates first of the items with me, with
"Odd John" "A Song of Love and Lament", "At Lang Last," "Earthbound"
and "How to Publish" ranking close thereafter in the above order.
That doesn't include art, which is certainly hard to compare with
writing, Backcover best in that department with Clyne's pic and the
front cover tied for next. Can't say much for the nood with the over­
grown alligator. I’m not an expert on female anatomy, as so many fans
claim to be, but I don't believe there are members of the specie genus
homo who are built like that.
The question of whether or not Odd John is fact or fiction is
well handled by Daniels. (Friend, I re-wrote it almost entirely, and
caught hell in couples for it. The damn' article wasn’t even coherent
in the form I received it. Daniels writes stuff that even Burbee re­
jects.) Personally, I regard OJ as a rather punk superman. And, while
I admire the writing in the story, I don't care for the story itself,
and certainly not for the philosophy presented there.
I like the way you set up "Mad-Filled night" although it seems
to me that you might as well have put the title of the verse on the
page. (Jimmie Kepner cut the stencil and the printing was too high.
There wasn't room.)
From PFC John M. Cunningham:

,*

I think you have stolen a march on 4e and VOM. And to think that
he encouraged you to put the fmz out, I think U put some worthwhile'
work into the fmz as it meets with my full approval. It stand in a
place of its own, The best inner art work, cover & back, I have seen
per fanzine in months.

-18-

Editorial: Good® Do let's have another issue to follow.
Tucker: Dressed up Westerns: Good, straight fact.
Daniels: ODD JOHN: Good coverage. "No more or less than
the book title says, "Odd John".
JM Loring: Earthbound Ye Shall Be: Good.
Metropolis: Litho: Good.
At Lang Last (4e): Fairly good for Ackerman. Somewhat like
Speer inaway.
Brackett: Shadows in the Woods: by best femme pro writertoday, need I say more?
Venus Moon: AL Joquel: Condensed facts that present inter­
esting reading.
Poetry: Fair to middlin'.
Illustrations: Better than average fanzines.

,

<
,

From: Leslie A. Crouteh
\
Thanks for Venus. It was much appreciated. I've wanted a copy
ever since I read about it being in contemplation. I'd send you some­
thing for the next issue but frankly right now I'm so busy with my
work, and magazine, and one thing and another I'm not doing any writ­
ing to speak of. However, enclosed is a copy of LIGHT in some small
repayment and token of thanks.
Yes, I can see the 4e influence in the nudes printed. Tsk tsk'.
LIGHT never prints such sexy trash'. (Fingers crossed.) However, the
whole magazine is neat, well written, the art very nice. I enjoyed •
all of it much better than I do
most first attempts. It just goes to
show the girls Otis many a year since I been a girl.) can do as good
a job, and better in some respects, than the men. If only girls would
support you and keep this going, it would do fandom good. Most of themales are getting too blamed cheeky. There is a dearth of good femme- '
material. I don't know why. Maybe they are too shy to write, or afraid
of criticism from those love-lorn saps who pretend to be half-brained
misogynists. I know, I've met some. Barbara Bovard, Naneck and others.
I have some by Bovard, Mary G. . Byers, and some coming up from Jessie
Walker, an ex-school teacher. I’m also after more if I can get it for
I find the girls attack problems and ideas from a refreshingly differ­
ent angle.

From DAW
(I wrote DAW a nasty little postal in re his review in FFF, That
was one way to get a comment from him. I knew he would be as sar­
castic as hell, and 4e, FTL & I got a big kick out of it. Hope
you do.)
;
Why, I'm sure you misunderstood my review of your VENUS. I only
meant that the fine techniques displayed, the excellence of line and;
mimeographing were up to the skilled standard of those other fans. I
certainly had not intended to indicate that they actually had createdthe work—far from it. If in the editing and publication, it came to
seem that way—blame it on a hurried typewriter, a tired and hot even­
ing, a slip of/a phrase, of unnoticed absence of a strategic word.
The IASFS has set a very high standard of work— one which obvious­
ly requires more than mere handle-turning—witness the vile work turn­
ed out by Master Degler during his sojourn. Contrast that with the per-

.

<

1191

♦

.t

#

fection of Venus# and you will see what I mean by mastery of the true
LASFS fanzine,
Venus showed the true texture of the LA periodical. It had the mag­
nificent page layout of a Daugherty, the subtle touch of a Bradbury mag­
azine, the tongue-in-cheek dash of a Yerke, the swift biting satire?- ■
light and feathery, of a Laney Burlesque on Degler, the deep thought and
solid substance of an Ackerman manifesto—in short I could have given it
no higher compliment than to attribute it to all those persons..
Surely I would have hesitated to attribute it to one solitary new­
comer—a female hesitantly taking her maiden step into these embattled
realms. But I didn't—my typing slipped and the conspiring perspiration
of that turgid evening with an Unger editorially clamoring into my phone
for a review he was not to use for six weeks.
I await, await with baited(Yep, he spelled it thataway) breath, the
appearance of your second number. It should be up to the first-- I dare
not think that it could surpass that for perfection beyond perfection
is unattainable in this world. Such an ideal belongs to some other more
perfect sphere.
Mow had Brown and Laney turned the crank on all pages... ah, then
would have been Utopia indeed I
Yours with grief.

From Charles Brrtay
nin/thirtinvn
fourtif4

J

Dere Crozzeti:

f

I have rec'd & red a cop8 of
that mag of urine, namly,
venis. Gosh, I thoght it was
god.
Of corse I am onley 13
yers of ege,but mi eys are
brite as enythig. I gess my
gudjement isno't so god,but i
thoght it was swel. I didnot
rede eny of the storress in
it yet becaus I cann'"t rerde
so wel yet especial such bun
tiping bathe £lctots were
swel xept the covur 3 sum of
the oughters. i"am working
in a defennce plant rigt now
I makeing $100 dolers a wek
but wil sone get a rase and
ten i wil send you a ten sent
dime for venis wich is gosh
a god mag I think alto i2am
onli thertin yers old of age.

Charles Bnrbj

yor pal

(This is an example of the intellectual type of readers VENUS is
attracting, also of the high-type-clean-cut young men that make up
the LASFS Executive Committee,}

BARNES' 'Surprise Ending'

ARTHUR K
HITS VENUS

THE SAME Till AS HIS "FOG OVER VENUS" HITS

THE WINTER ISSUE OF "THRILLING WONDER"

WILLIAM PALMER'S '

'The

Depths'

A FANTASY TALE OF THE DEPTHS OF VENUS' SEAS

ALSO

CHARLES BURBEE
J. M. LORING AND OTHERS.

PRIZE CONTEST.
VENUS OFFERS A PRIZE CONTEST. $5 WILL BE PAID FOR THE
BEST ARTICLE SUBMITTED TO VENUS BEFORE JANUARY 1-1945

The winning article will be published in VENUS No. 4,
and the prize money will be paid upon the dec ision.of
the judges. See VOM #36 for details.