Discon

The 21st Worldcon and first in the Baltimore/Washington area, Discon (often styled DisCon at the time; retroactively it was fitted with the Roman numeral I, later often simplified to 1) was held August 31–September 2, 1963 (starting only on Saturday), at the Statler-Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC. The GoH was Murray Leinster, with Isaac Asimov as Toastmaster. Starspinkle 19 reported

Over six hundred people picked up memberships at the desk, and there's reason to believe that unpaid attendance pushed the number over eight hundred.

This might be explained by the "melee" that reigned at the hotel while four other events were also held.

The committee was tiny, just eight people, and their titles were...amusing:

• Crafty Chairman: George Scithers
• Tachylegic Treasurer: Bill Evans
• Despotic Diplomat: Bob Pavlat
• Extemporanizing Editor: Dick Eney
• Flamboyant Foliator: Chick Derry
• Recrudescent Relic: Joe Sarno
• Memorialist of Misdeeds: Bob Madle
• Tartarean Tabulist: Bill Osten
• Publicistean Photographist: Tom Haughey

Opening Ceremonies included a sword fight between Fritz Leiber and L. Sprague de Camp.

At the Sunday banquet, the five 1963 Hugos and two Special Committee Awards were given (the last to Asimov, who moaned throughout the presentation about never winning). The Discon Business Meeting later held the 1964 Worldcon Site Selection (San Francisco in '64, the only left standing) and also adopted the World Science Fiction Society Constitution in its modern form. Hugo rules were specified so that "Individual [short] stories appearing together as a series are … not eligible taken together under the title of the series" after complaints when Brian Aldiss won the 1962 Best Short Fiction Hugo for "the Hothouse series", published as five tales in F&SF throughout 1961.

Chairman George Scithers wrote an extensive Con-Committee Chairman's Guide reporting on both the Worldcon events from his side, and the run-up to it. It's a wonderful example of what conrunning was like in simpler days – when the entire program fit on two pages of the program book and mostly in a single room, some 60 feet (18 m) square.

The Program

Saturday

• 9:00am Registration
• 12:30pm Opening of the DisCon
• 12:45 Jim Blish:
  AN ANSWER OF SORTS
• 1:30 Bob Silverberg & Ed Emsh:
  RING AROUND AN ILLUSTRATION
  Problems in writing a story around an illo; or, pleasing editor’s whimsy for fun and profit.
• 2:00 Ted Cogswell & Cohorts:
  HIPPOCRENE AND HYPERSPACE
  Cogswell struggles with the Muses, best two falls out of three.
• 2:30 Introduction of notables, auction, and break.
• 3:15 Larry Ivie & Dick Lupoff:
  SF ILLUSTRATION & ART IN THE COMIC BOOKS
  (Me to Your Leader Take)
  All in color for a dime: the rise and fall of the comic book.
• 4:30 Willy Ley:
  MYSTERIES OF ASTRONOMY
  A spring day on Pluto, and such.
• 

  Jon and Joni Stopa in their award-winning Discon masquerade costume, “The Succubus and her Mate.”
  7:30 The Convention Members:
  THE COSTUME BALL [Admission by badge]
  Scenes to numb the senses and appall the mind, with music by Ira Sabin and his Orch.

Sunday

• 11:00am Burroughs Bibliophiles:
  DUM-DUM
  Tarzan Rides Again.
• 11:00 Fantasy Amateur Press Association:
  Annual THROW THE RASCALS OUT meeting.
• 12:30pm Fumio Suzuki via Dick Lupoff:
  ASTRO BOY
  A Japanese s-f cartoon film in English.
• 1:00 Hyborian Legion:
  MUSTER
  de Camp and his cohorts on Conan.
• 2:00 The Convention Members:
  BANQUET LUNCHEON
  Guest of Honor: Will F. Jenkins [Murray Leinster] Toastmaster: Isaac Asimov. Hugos.
• 5:30pm L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asimov, Willy Ley, Ed Emsh, and Fritz Leiber
  WHAT SHOULD A BEM LOOK LIKE? [the added "pm" is explained by this coming at the top of another page in the program]
• 6:30 Seabury Quinn:
  SCIENCE FICTION VERSUS FANTASY
  The difference in treatment of a theme.
• 7:00 Auction and intermission.
• 7:30 The Convention Members:
  THE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
  Presentation of special awards. Reports of Committees. Choice of site for the 1964 Convention.
• 8:00 Don Wollheim, Dick Lupoff, Sam Moskowitz:
  SWORDS AGAINST EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
  Alan Howard will moderate this affair.
• 9:00 Juanita Coulson, Ted White, D & M Thompson
  DE STIJL MIT DE STYLUS
  

The art of putting art on stencil and other aspects of good mimeography.

Monday

• 11:30am Auction
• 12:00 John Campbell, Don Wollheim, A. J. Budrys, Cele Goldsmith:
  THE EDITORS SPEAK
  Fred Pohl moderates this discussion of the problems of the editor.
• 1:00pm Barbara Silverberg, Elsie Wollheim, Carol Pohl, and others:
  LIFE WITH A STF WRITER
  Ted Cogswell has induced the wives to tell their side of the story.
• 1:30 Intermission
• 1:45 Hal Clement & P. Schuyler Miller:
  IS THE SF STORY A MENTAL EXERCISE?
  Hal says it is, like a detective story.
• 2:15 Judy Merril and Fritz Leiber, with aid:
  SKIT
  They've whipped up something, but won't tell us.
• 2:45 George Scithers, Ben Stark, Earl Kemp:
  THE FOURTH CONVENTION
  [You thought there were only three, didn't you?]

More Reading

• Discon I publications and photos on fanac.org.
• Dave Kyle's Discon I Reminiscence.
• Con-Committee Chairman's Guide by Scithers
• An Open Letter to Lee Hoffman, conrep one-off by Dick Eney
• Conreport by Louis Russell Chauvenet.

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Chicon III	Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos	Pacificon II
first	Discon	Discon II
	1963

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