Amra
The journal of the Hyborian Legion, Amra was devoted to Sword and Sorcery and published by George Scithers and edited by Scithers, Liz Wilson and Dan Adkins, and many others. (Amra liked to print long lists of editors, some with fanciful titles, or to simply credit the "Editorial Horde", so it's usually not clear just who the editors -- other than George Scithers -- were.)
The Scithers Amra ran from Vol II, No. 1 to Vol II, No. 71, from 1959 to 1982. It was "Volume 2" because starting in April 1955 George Heap published a fanzine which was probably a direct predecessor. It had few issues. Some early issues of V2 were reprinted at least once.
According to Scithers, "Amra is about various heroic heroes, mostly of swordplay-&-sorcery stories set in fantasy worlds." Subjects and characters of interest included Robert E. Howard's Conan, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea, Michael Moorcock's Elric, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter.
Amra was printed by offset lithography, with high-quality artwork, including by Roy G. Krenkel, Gray Morrow, and Jim Cawthorn.
The written content was impressive too. Amra published articles, criticism, discussions of medieval and ancient history, weaponry, and technology (by writers such as de Camp, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Jerry Pournelle, and Leigh Brackett), book reviews (including by Harry Harrison, Buck Coulson, de Camp, and Leiber), poetry (translations from the Old Norse by Poul Anderson; limericks (some of them quite good) by many hands; and poems by Roger Zelazny and Lin Carter). It also published fiction, including a number of pieces by Ray Garcia-Capella and things like "Six Scenes in Search of an Illustration", where six writers (de Camp, Dick Eney, Leiber, Katherine MacLean, Moorcock, and John Pocsik) wrote story vignettes around a centerpiece foldout illustration by Krenkel.
Awards and Honors
- 1964 — 1964 Best Fanzine Hugo
- 1967 — 1967 Best Fanzine Hugo
Amra Fanthologies[edit]
Jack Chalker's Mirage Press published several nice hardcover volumes of articles and artwork from Amra: The Conan Swordbook (1969), The Conan Reader (1968), and The Conan Grimoire (1972). They were edited by de Camp and Scithers.
Issues[edit]
Issue | Date | Pages | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
V1 #1 | April 1955 | 2 | Published by George Heap in as a single sheet folded in three. This was the sole issue. |
V2 #1 | January 1959 | 20 | Essentially new publication under the editorship of George Scithers which was numbered as "Volume 2" |
2 | 1959 | 20 | |
3 | May 1959 | 24 | |
4 | June 1959 | 28 | |
5 | July 1959 | 24 | |
6 | September 1959 | 28 | |
7 | November 1959 | 16 | |
8 | December 1959 | 20 | |
9 | January 1960 | 20 | |
10 | April 1960 | 20 | |
11 | April 1960 | 24 | |
12 | September 1960 | 16 | |
13 | 1960 | 16 | |
14 | January 1961 | 28 | |
15 | May 1961 | 24 | |
16 | July 1961 | 24 | |
17 | October 1961 | 20 | |
18 | December 1961 | 16 | |
19 | February 1962 | 20 | |
20 | April 1962 | 20 | |
21 | June 1962 | 20 | |
22 | July 1962 | 20 | |
23 | January 1963 | 24 | |
24 | May 1963 | 20 | |
25 | June 1963 | 20 | |
26 | October 1963 | 20 | |
27 | November 1963 | 20 | |
28 | June 1964 | 20 | |
29 | August 1964 | 20 | |
30 | September 1964 | 20 | |
31 | December 1964 | 20 | |
32 | March 1965 | 24 | |
33 | April 1965 | 24 | |
34 | May 1965 | 20 | |
35 | July 1965 | 20 | |
36 | September 1965 | 20 | |
37 | January 1966 | 20 | |
38 | February 1966 | 20 | |
39 | March 1966 | 20 | |
40 | June 1966 | 20 | |
41 | July 1966 | 20 | |
42 | September 1966 | 20 | |
43 | March 1967 | 20 | |
44 | October 1967 | 24 | |
45 | December 1967 | 20 | |
46 | April 1968 | 20 | |
47 | August 1968 | 20 | |
48 | August 1968 | 20 | |
49 | August 1968 | 20 | |
50 | May 1969 | 20 | |
51 | November 1969 | 20 | |
52 | April 1970 | 24 | |
53 | September 1970 | 24 | |
54 | April 1971 | 24 | |
55 | December 1971 | 20 | |
56 | June 1972 | 20 | |
57 | June 1972 | 20 | |
58 | January 1973 | 20 | |
59 | February 1973 | 20 | |
60 | September 1973 | 24 | |
61 | March 1974 | 20 | |
62 | October 1974 | 28 | |
63 | April 1975 | 20 | |
64 | October 1975 | 20 | |
65 | April 1976 | 20 | |
66 | April 1976 | 20 | |
67 | February 1977 | 20 | |
68 | July 1978 | 20 | |
69 | January 1981 | 20 | |
70 | September 1981 | 40 | |
71 | July 1982 | 40 |
Publication | 1955—???? |
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