Rats on Fire

A fanzine pubbed by Denice and Brian Earl Brown from Detroit in the 1980s. It featured Detroit fandom news and gossip and very bad reproduction, and was often mimeographed on the back of convention fliers and advertising circulars.

Awards and Honors

• 1983 — Hogu Award for Worst Fanzine Title

Ish	Date	Pages	Notes
1	November 1981
2	December 1981	3
3	January 1982	2
4	February 1982	3
5	March 1982	3
6	April 1982	3	Denice replaces BeB as editor.
7	May 1982
8	June 1982	4
9	July 1982	12	Ratcon (MI) 1 Program Book
10	August 1982	3
11	September 1982	5
12	October 1982	6	Dated November.
13	November 1982	2
16	1983		From Mike Glyer's review in Holier Than Thou 16 (June 1983, p. 32): “Unmistakably reproduced on the back of (1) a Windycon X flyer, (2) a handbill from the Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., (3) a promo for Daily Construction Reports by The Contractor Publishing Co., and (4) some kind of xero­ graphic technician’s test pattern. It is disturbing that the repro quality of the "crud-sheets" is much higher than that of the fanzine’s own text. Grey smudges indicative of electrostencil burns have bled through on part of every page of text. A further side­ effect of electrostencilling "camera-ready" copy is uneven density of the text, and the tendency for the centre of boldface lettering to face out due to inadequte inking.”
39	1985	10	From Mike Glyer's review in Holier Than Thou 21 (Winter-Spring 1985, p. 14): “With a full ten months left on my 1985 calendar, there is plenty of opportuni­ty for fandom to yield up a worse fanzine than RATS ON FIRE #39, but it will be an accomplishment not casually achieved. The editors both have years of fanzine ex­perience, have ambitiously experimented with various print mediums, formats and editorial styles, and have discarded every single thing that threatened to improve ei­ther the legibility, readability, or entertainment value of RATS ON FIRE. What could possibly dislodge them from the bottom of the heap? Even the most wretched high school kid’s crudzine survives with its integrity intact on the excuse that he doesn't know any better. The Browns not only know better, they have done better. “Except in 39 issues of RATS ON FIRE. With the zine's consistently execrable reproduction, tabloid newspaper clippings, and failed fannish humor, RATS ON FIRE looks like something Dick Geis used to clean the crud out of his mimeo. Of course the analogy breaks down at this point, because what Dick Geis would have thrown away the Browns have mailed away.”
52	1986

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Publication

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