ROMPA

The Rival Off-trail Magazine Publishers' Association, ROMPA, was a British APA that produced five mailings between February 1974 and February 1975.

In the 1970s, the sole UK APA of the day, OMPA, was perceived (probably correctly) as being in poor health and populated largely by non-UK fans; the British members were mainly not from the newer fan generations.

The idea of a new British APA to be called ROMPA was first proposed by Brian Temple of the Gannets group in 1972 according to Peter Roberts writing in Checkpoint 28 although Temple was seemingly a hoax. It was Ian Maule who, in an attempt to either prod OMPA back into life or to create an alternative, founded ROMPA in 1973.

The first quarterly mailing appeared in February 1974. Peter Roberts writing in Checkpoint 45 conceded that 'Contents ... might be judged light and certainly rather feeble for a new apa' but still claimed it 'already looks healthier than its ailing forbear'. Rob Hansen writing in Then finds this is an odd verdict as ROMPA managed 72 pages against OMPA's 128.

Ultimately, ROMPA was not a great success, sadly; it saw only five mailings, the final one distributed in February 1975. Rob Jackson took over from Maule as OE and announced a sixth mailing would appear in May 1975 but it never happened. In a circular to OMPA members in August 1975 Keith Walker suggested that ROMPA would be 'rekindled' in the hands of John Hall but it too came to nothing.

Members and Apazines

• Frank Balazs
• A. Graham Boak — Sheep May Safely
• Ian Butterworth
• Lisa Conesa — Trismus
• Rune Forsgren (never contributed)
• John Nielsen Hall — Legends
• Chris Hulse
• Rob Jackson — Flatulence and variations thereof
• Brian Lombard
• Ian Maule
• Greg Pickersgill (never contributed)
• John Piggott — 61 Cygni C
• Pete Presford — Mad Muses
• Nick Shears
• Neil Stein
• Julia Stone
• Keith Walker
• Ian Williams

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Publication

1974—1975

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