T. Bruce Yerke
(1923 -- 1998)
Theodore Bruce Yerke, nicknamed Tubby, found sf in April 1935. When his family moved and he discovered that he was four blocks from Ackerman, he just walked over to see him. He joined the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society as a teenager in February 1937, and was for a while its "perennial secretary." He was considered to be part of the Moonrakers, a "bad boy" group within LASFS. He was also a member of the insurgent Knanves and published their fanzine, The Knanve.
Yerke sometimes used the pen name of Carlton J. Fassbeinder and published the The Bedside Fassbeinder in 1944.
In September 1937 he published the one-shot Scientifooey Mag, and in 1938 decided to publish a regular fanzine. The result, Imagination!, edited with Forrest J Ackerman, became the voice of the LASFS. With Ackerman, he also published The Damn Thing. He published the Report to Science Fiction Fandom: The Cosmic Circle. He was considered to have been one of the best fan writers of the 1940s.
Yerke recruited Ray Bradbury for LASFS.
Yerke's unfinished autobiography, Memoirs of a Superfluous Fan (1944/reprinted in 1991), is one of the best pictures of those early days of SF fandom in LA. He served as the model for the victim, William Runcible, in Anthony Boucher's novel Rocket to the Morgue. He was an advocate of Technocracy.
For an early short biography, see Who's Who in Fandom 1940, page 15.
Fancy 1 entry under Tubby
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Nickname of T. Bruce Yerke. |
Fancy 1 entry under Carlton J. Fassbeinder
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Penname of T. Bruce Yerke. |
- The Bedside Fassbeinder [1944] (as by Carlton J. Fassbeinder)
- Damn Thing [1941-42]
- Imagination! (with Forrest J Ackerman)
- The Knanve [1943-44]
- Memoirs of a Superfluous Fan [1944]
- Report to Science Fiction Fandom: The Cosmic Circle [1943]
- Scientifooey Mag [1937]
| Person | 1923—1998 |
| This is a biography page. Please extend it by adding more information about the person, such as fanzines and apazines published, awards, clubs, conventions worked on, GoHships, impact on fandom, external links, anecdotes, etc. See Standards for People and The Naming of Names. |
