Archive
(Did you mean the Arthur D. Hlavaty fanzine?)
Archive (formally styled ARCHIvE by its editor ) was an apazine, or perhaps better a family of apazines, published by Archie Mercer in Lincoln, UK for OMPA. It was succeeded by Amble.
Its numbering is challenging. The interpretation below is helped by the APAthy OMPA index and an explanation by Mercer in Archive #13 (Autumn 1957) where, after musing on the number thirteen, he said:
All of which is merely intended to justify the straightforward numbering of this issue of Archive as 13. Which numbering is as it happens completely absurd in any case, if numbers have any meaning at all. Because whatever number this issue should in the natural course of events carry, it is certainly not thirteen.
Archive was divided into 'volumes' although these aren't explicit in the fanzines themselves. Volume one consists of #1–4, volume two is #5–8 plus the unnumbered supplements, volume three is #9–12. Volume four starts with #13 but it's unclear how much of what follows is included. For the first two volumes a separate cover was produced and included in OMPA mailings as details below. There were no covers for volumes three and four as, per Archive #13, stapling volume two had been too challenging.
The Archive Between Meals supplement were, at least based on the examples available on fanac.org, devoted to mailing comments. There were nine unnumbered issues and, again based on the fanac.org examples, these were post-mailed to the OMPA mailing on which they were commenting albeit some comments are addressed to fanzines themselves post-mailed to the previous mailing. Mercer styled them 'pre-supplements' so the Archive Between Meals dated October 1956 was post-mailed to OMPA mailing #9 on which it commented and was a 'pre-supplement' to Archive #10 which itself appeared in OMPA mailing #10. A single issue of Archive Weekly also appears in the mix.
The sequencing distinction is important – at least for certain values of important – as Mercer ran a serialised story, 'The Great Irish Rift Valley Expedition, or The Search for Eney's Fault', across Archive, Archive Between Meals and Archive Weekly. The serial is credited to 'Gridban Minor' and features various prominent fans of the day, some under thinly disguised pseudonyms such as 'Ethel Liniment, Sister-Inspectress of Health, Hygiene and Happiness'. It starts in the October 1956 Archive Between Meals in OMPA mailing #9, continues through Archive Weekly, then Archive #10, then the January 1957 Archive Between Meals in OMPA mailing #10 continuing to at least Archive #13. That installment ends 'to be continued' although perversely the earlier installments, at least those available at fanac.org, don't. A comment from Ethel Lindsay in Scottishe #13 suggests it may conclude in the Archive Between Meals post-mailed to the 13th mailing making 10 installments overall.
There were no more issues of Archive Between Meals after the 13th mailing although something billed as an Archive Pre-Supplement to Archive #14 appeared in both mailing #15 and #16. These were likely mailing comments too and may have been post-mailed.
OMPA mailing #17 (Autumn 1958) did not deliver the the hinted-at Archive #14 but rather a title changes to Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement. There were at least five of these, unnumbered and with one further issue using the initialism A.Q.O.S.2 and APAthy at least treats this as a separate variant. The presence of an issue in mailing #21 is extrapolated from comments in mailing #22.
A final Archive, #14 as heralded by its Pre-Supplements, appeared in OMPA mailing #22.
There were also a series of Archive Quotecards produced in seventeen varieties distributed at Cytricon, the 1957 Eastercon, and thus falling between #3 and #4. While not a fanzine, Mercer does include them in his Archive sequence and uses them to explain why he doesn't apply whole numbers to the title and its variants. Depending on whether you count them as 'one' or 'seventeen', Archive #13 is really Archive #25 or Archive #41.
And as if that weren't enough, a final wrinkle is the Archive Memorial Page, subtitled 'Great Irish Rift Valley Expedition' and credited to 'Syd Crockett' (Sid Crockett had been a character in Mercer's serial). It seems to be a coda to the serial and a note at the bottom asks '(Association Editor: Please give this page credit to Archie Mercer)'. Exactly when it appeared in OMPA, assuming it did, is unclear. It's not mentioned in APAthy suggesting it was after mailing #20 so September 1959 or later, but that seems a little late given Mercer's serial had concluded in October 1957. It seems, though, that it can't have been earlier than mailing #14.
| Issue | Date | Pages | OMPA mailing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Autumn 1954 | 6 | 1 | |
| 2 | Winter 1954 | 8 | 2 | |
| 3 | Spring 1955 | 20 | 3 | |
| - | Easter 1955 | - | - | Archive Quotecards |
| 4 | Summer 1955 | 18 | 4 | |
| 5 | Autumn 1955 | 18 | 5 | |
| - | October 1955 | 8 | 5 | Archive Between Meals |
| - | 1954–5 | 2 | 5 | cover for Archive vol 1 |
| 6 | Winter 1955 | 14 | 6 | |
| - | January 1956 | 8 | 6 | Archive Between Meals |
| 7 | Spring 1956 | 14 | 7 | |
| - | April 1956 | 8 | 7 | Archive Between Meals |
| 8 | Summer 1956 | 14 | 8 | |
| - | July 1956 | 8 | 8 | Archive Between Meals |
| - | 1955–6 | 2 | 8 | cover for Archive vol 2 |
| 9 | Autumn 1956 | 14 | 9 | |
| - | September 24, 1956 | 2 | 9 | Archive Weekly |
| - | October 1956 | 8 | 9 | Archive Between Meals |
| 10 | Winter 1958 | 14 | 10 | |
| - | January 1957 | 8 | 10 | Archive Between Meals |
| 11 | Spring 1957 | 14 | 11 | |
| - | April 1957 | 10 | 11 | Archive Between Meals |
| 12 | Summer 1957 | 14 | 12 | |
| - | - | 8 | 12 | Archive Between Meals |
| 13 | Autumn 1957 | 14 | 13 | |
| - | October 1957 | 18 | 13 | Archive Between Meals |
| - | Spring 1958 | 14 | 15 | Archive Pre-Supplement to #14 |
| - | Summer 1958 | 10 | 16 | Archive Pre-Supplement to #14 |
| - | Autumn 1958 | 14 | 17 | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement |
| - | Autumn 1958 | 4 | - | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement (4-page extract of the previous item) |
| - | Winter 1958 | 6 | 17 | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement |
| - | Winter 1958 | 2 | 18 | A.Q.O.S.2 |
| - | Spring 1959 | 8 | 19 | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement |
| - | Summer 1959 | 10 | 20 | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement |
| - | Autumn 1959 | 10 | 21 | Archive Quarterly OMPA Supplement |
| 14 | Winter 1959 | 18 | 22 | Final issue |
| - | ? | 2 | ? | Archive Memorial Page – 'Great Irish Rift Valley Expedition', by Syd Crockett |
- Archive online at fanac.org
| Publication | 1954—1959 |
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