James Kepner

(January 1923 – November 15, 1997)

James Lynn “Jimmy” Kepner, Jr., aka Jike, an LA fan and LASFS officer, was mainly active in fandom in the early 1940s. He was listed as a member of the Claude Degler-created Futurian Society of Los Angeles and the Futurian Society of California, probably without permission. He belonged to FAPA.

He described himself in Shangri-L'Affaires 23 (February 1945):

And then there is yours truly, aka, James L Kepner, Jr, Jike, Jasker, John or Jean Arnold, Lynn Peterson, Conrad Desty, (Four-)flush(-er) Gordon, and other things unprintable but hintable. I entered fandom in 1942, and after a year in the GGFS, I moved to Los Angeles. I was the first fan to move into the house now known (not to the landlady) as Tendril Towers. I have served as Director [president], Librarian, Secretary, and am now Treasurer of the LASFS. I was the last active Outsider to quit the LASFS, and came back later with Laney and Brown. Six feet, 135 pounds, twenty-one years, dark hair and eyes, and a part time mustache. I've published such things as TOWARD TOMORROW, ditto YESTERDAY, FEN, MIDGE, and the CAUSTIC SQUARE BULLSHOOTER.

F. T. Laney wrote in Ah! Sweet Idiocy! (1948):

Attempting to limn a word picture of James Lynn (Dirty Old) Kepner is fraught with difficulties if it is to be libel-free and still conscientiously factual. Jimmy is a tall and delicate young man, very frail and effeminate, who is cursed with an almost impossible block which keeps him from making up his mind about anything very often. Jimmy can see both sides of every question with almost equal clarity, and in his efforts to be “impartial and factual jumps from one side to the other with astounding ease and frequency. He is a great one for crusading, a militant idealist one might say, but his great difficulty in taking and maintaining a positive stand often vitiates his genuine effectiveness as a proselyter....

Kepner has a much better than average mind that seldom comes close to its potentialities simply due to this inability to channel it in any one direction. Personally, Jimmy is extremely likeable; friendly, and good company – although his tendency to blow first one way and then another can get highly irritating if one is in his company a good deal. Still, striking a balance on the lad will end up with a favorable picture.

He was found as an abandoned infant in Galveston, Texas, on September 19, 1923. He was adopted by a religious Christian couple railroad worker, James Lynn Kepner, Sr., and his wife, Mary Christina Peterson Kepner. He became a writer, historian and important early gay activist who wrote a wide variety of material during his lifetime, including SF. He wrote under many pseudonyms in the gay press and prozines.

From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944

Jike Pronounced [zike]. Taken as a nickname by Jimmy Kepner, and finally abandoned because nobody'd pronounce it right

• “James Kepner at LASFS.”
• Biography.
• Obituary.
• Entry at glbtq.com.
• Papers at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, University of Southern California.
• “Jim Kepner and the Sanctuary of Sci-Fi,” video by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives Director Joseph Hawkins, October 25, 2014.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Caustic Square Bullshooter [1943] (for FAPA as by Flush Gordon)
• Fen [1943-44] (for FAPA)
• Midge [1944-45] (with Mike Fern)
• The Panty Raiser [1944] (with F. Towner Laney)
• Parnassus (with Art Saha and Alva Rogers)
• Songs for Sorrow and Beauty [1944] (with Arthur Louis Joquel)
• Toward Tomorrow [1944-45]
• Toward Yesterday [1943]
• Western Star [1950]

See also: Celebrity Fen.

---

Person

1923—1997

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.