Angels
An archaic fan term, borrowed from the theater, where angel is described the "patrons" who support the production with grant-sized donations that enable them to function at enough of a profit to continue without charging ruinous admissions or requiring that the actors, writers and stage crew starve to death. Times have changed, now we have wikipedia:angel investors.
In fandom, in the 1940s and through the ’50s, "angels" tended to be fanzine patrons who provided sufficient cash to individual fan editors to finance, for example, a lithographed cover or something else equally special. Angels also provided funding toward sending fans to conventions they could not otherwise afford, an early informal form of fan funds.
“Angel” was also verbed, so carrying out this practice was called angeling and one would say that a fan with such a benefactor had been angeled.
Forry Ackerman was one of fandom’s foremost angels, contributing to and promoting a variety of fannish endeavors. For example, he financed Ray Bradbury’s trans-American Greyhound trip to the First Worldcon in 1939, as well as Bradbury’s first fanzine Futuria Fantasia (both technically through a loan: “It took him a couple of years to pay me back… but he's one of the few people who ever did.”).[1] Later Ackerman made up the shortfall in the Big Pond Fund to bring Ted Carnell from England to the 1949 Worldcon, Cinvention, in Cincinnati. He then helped finance Science Fiction Club Deutschland through Alden Lorraine Ackerman Fund.
Angels still exist, but they often work through mundane crowd-funding platforms.
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Wilson calls Los Angelenoes Angels, but the word usually means somebody who contributes a sizable bit of dough to a fanzine to help it do something special like having a lithographed cover. |
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| The word usually means somebody who contributes a sizeable bit of dough to a fanzine to finance something special like a lithoed cover. |
| Fanspeak |
| This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc. |
- ↑ “Inside Darkest Ackerman”, interview in Wonder (Bennett) 7.
