Pogo
(Did you mean a comic strip or an Alpajpuri fanzine?)
(November 19, 1921 – May 21, 1996)
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Mary Corinne “Patti” Gray (later Wood, later still Ripley) was a Los Angeles fan frequently called by the Esperanto nickname Pogo. She and her cousin Morojo (Myrtle R. Douglas) were avid Esperantists.
Pogo was one of the charter members of The National Fantasy Fan Federation, as well as a member of LASFS and of the UK's Science Fiction Association (SFA). She was ardently pursued by the fanboys of the period. See “In Defense of Pogo.”
She and her husband, Russ Wood, were founders of the Harbor Fantasy League, a group of fannish couples in the LA area. The couple were jointly nicknamed Pogorus, also the name of their fanzine. They married on December 11, 1941, in Yuma, Arizona. They had a son together named Curtis, but later divorced. She seemingly remarried as according to Forrest J Ackerman in Science Fiction Chronicle #94, July 1987, she was then Mrs Patti Ripley.
Pogo published STF-ETTE, the first feminist fanzine, and, with Russ, Fan-Damn. She was heavily involved in the Sacred Order of FooFoo and was thus, of course, an anti-Ghughuist.
In 1942, she had a feud with Forry Ackerman, about which he pubbed The War Lock in FAPA 21. He later tried to keep her out of LASFS.
Francis Towner Laney described her in Ah! Sweet Idiocy!:
She is a rather large woman--not fat, but tall, big-boned, and well-built; carries 140 pounds in a manner that makes them look like 120. She is brunette, pretty good looking, and notable for an air of vague helplessness which largely stems from myopia and is not at all reflective of a rather self-sufficient and competent personality... Her interest in fandom was almost entirely limited to the people in fandom, rather than in fantasy, stf, or other facets of the field; and she was far more interested in going dancing than in sitting around the turgid atmosphere of the club.
The two of them dated awhile when estranged from their respective spouses.
- “In Defense of Pogo” by Charles D. Hornig (Hornig's Bulletin 1, 1941).
- Response to Hornig by Arthur Louis Joquel II (SunT(r)ails 1, p. 6).
- Photos on pages 135 and 248 of Harry Warner's history of fandom, All Our Yesterdays.
- Founding Members article with photo in the March 2016 National Fantasy Fan.
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Nickname for Mrs. Russell M Wood, formerly Mary Corrine Gray, once called Patti. |
| Person | 1921—1996 |
| 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. |
