Wild Shaarkah
A perzine pubbed in English by Czech fan and pro Eva Hauser(ová) in the early 1990s.
There were 7 ishes between October 1990 and December 1991 (almost regularly bi-monthly except the summer), the last "special issue" serving as her GUFF bidzine; on the strength of these, she indeed won the 1992 GUFF Race. An important part were her own drawings; much of the contents, especially travel/con reports, appeared also in Czech in the newszine/genzine Interkom (see https://interkom.vecnost.cz/$hau.htm).
The publication ceased somewhat suddenly and without (previous) announcement, explained later by lack of time and waning enthusiasm. (Eva still contributed to the Shards of Babel for some time.) In late 2018 Eva uploaded the archives to eFanzines.com and an equivalent Czech fanzine-historical site (PDF without OCR, about 5 MB per issue; the Czech site allows browsing by individual pages in JPG, although these often too small to read properly).
(When the English version of Eva's GUFF trip report "My Australian Diary" appeared in Paul Kincaid's Guffaw #4, May 2000, he wrote that "through some very good detective work, Irwin Hirsh discovered" it "came out in her perzine Wild Shaarkah". Anything such is absent from the archive, which conspicuously ends before the trip – Eva seems not to remember similar details anymore [personal communication, spring 2022]; a conceivable explanation would be that the report saw a limited distribution to the GUFF stakeholders … but it might be just as possible that there was indeed one more full-fledged special issue, not found and forgotten in 2018. Ah well; all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.)
The title was explained (in the masthead of the first 3 issues and again in the retrospective) as a reference to the nature preserve wikipedia:Divoká Šárka valley in NW Prague near Eva's home; the name means Wild (as in wilderness; the less rocky downstream part is Tichá, Quiet) and the heroine of the ancient legend of wikipedia:The Maidens' War (i. e. anti-male revolt at the dawn of time, supposedly centered on the locale). This suited Eva's feminist and environmentalist activities, as well as sense of humour and puns.
Note that while the pictorial masthead of the first 3 issues was spelled (in all-caps, and with a slight punning linebreak – after the revolt was defeated, Šárka threw herself down from a rocky outcrop rather than be captured) SHARKAAAH, by #4 this changed to a typographical Shaarkah (i. e. from 1 and 3 As, respectively, to 2 and 1, better corresponding to the Czech pronunciation). This latter is/was the form preferred and used within texts by Eva herself, but spelling confusion still abounds (both fanzine archives use "Sharkaah", i. e. 1+2).
| # | Date | Pp | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | October 1990 | 2 | |
| 2 | December 1990 | 8 | |
| 3 | February 1991 | 6 | |
| 4 | April 1991 | 10 | |
| 5 | June 1991 | 6 | pictorial front and back cover, two sheets of text, both numbered 1 and 2. "The Hard Life of a Feminist in Czechoslovakia" on the first, followed by "Czechoslovakia Today" ("part of a letter I wrote to Charlotte Proctor after reading a comment […] by a Czech fan in Charlotte's fanzine Anvil") and "A Very Confused Eurocon" report - significantly and shortened from the Czech version |
| 6 | October 1991 | 14 | "This time dealing with only one topic: Our Great American Travel" incl. guest room of Bruce Pelz, culminating in Chicon V |
| 7 | December 1991 | 4 | bound with Please Turn Over by Bridget Wilkinson, 1992 GUFF Race bidzines |
| Publication | Website Website | 1990—1991 |
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