Fred Patten

(December 11, 1940 – November 12, 2018)

Fred Patten, ca. 2005. Photo by Glenn Wooten.

Frederick Walter Patten was born in Los Angeles and learned to read from the comic strips in the Los Angeles Times. At age 9, he was reading SF in magazines and books. In 1960, he discovered SF fandom, becoming active in LASFS. As a member of LASFS, he became interested in comic book and anime fandom. He and fellow club members dressed as members of the Justice Society of America at Chicon III, the 1962 Worldcon in Chicago, Patten as The Flash. He was a member of the ISL.

He edited Shangri L'Affaires when it was nominated for the 1963 Best Fanzine Hugo.

He was a member of The Petards. He chaired Loscon XIV and Westercon 27 as well as working on numerous other conventions. He was part of the planned Expo '81. He was a member of the PanPacificon, LA in '72 Worldcon bid.

He was OE of N'APA in the 1960s. He was a member of IPSO and published an unofficial 7th mailing of it after its demise. He was a founding member of APA-L and contributed Rabanos Radiactivos! to every distribution from #1 to #2290 in 2009 as well as being official collator. He was a member and OE of CAPA-alpha, and a member of FAPA, SAPS, OMPA (Lefnui), The Cult, ValAPA, and others.

In 1972, Patten and Richard Kyle started the Graphic Story Bookshop in Long Beach, California. In 1977, he was one of the founders of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, the first anime fan club.

In March, 2005, he suffered a stroke and donated all his books and fanzines to the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection at The University of California, Riverside. He had a long unbroken string of apazine in APA-L, beginning with APA-L #1, and continuing even after he had his stroke and moved to a convalescent hospital. He was able to move only his left leg and left arm, but the right-handed Fred still produced a zine each week, typing it on an Emac with his left hand. It has been said that if Fred ever stopped producing a zine for APA-L, the world would come to an end. But his last zine appeared in APA-L #2280, January 22, 2009. This zine contained only the header plus one paragraph which began "After almost 45 years, I am finally quitting contributing to Apa L every week. I have run out of material to reprint that fans are likely to be interested in, and I do not have enough new things to say every week to fill more than a short paragraph or two. It is also hard to write with just one finger of my left hand."

Nonetheless, APA-L (and the world) went on! He also published The Best from APA-L (#1 of 3, so far).

Patten published an average of two small-press books a year after his stroke. He was a voracious reader and active in furry fandom, and produced many bibliographies and anthologies of furry stories. He also sold several short stories in the furry genre.

• His photo and brief biography in Schelly's Founders of Comic Fandom (McFarland, 2010).
• Extensive tribute to Fred Patten on furry fandom site Flayrah.
• A remembrance in Scientifiction: The First Fandom Report, New Series #58, 4th Quarter, 2018.
• Fred Patten News (archived).

Fanzines and Apazines:

• The Best from APA-L
• Dry Martooni [1962]
• Foofaraw [1961-64]
• Forry! [1966]
• Great Art Should Never Be Mushed Up [1970] (for FAPA)
• Lefnui [1963-69] (for OMPA)
• Rabanos Radiactivos! (for APA-L)
• Salamander [1962]
• Selake [1969-70]
• Shangri L'Affaires [1961-62] (some issues)
• Vukat [late 60s]
• Wabbit Twacks [1972]

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1963 -- Best Fanzine Hugo (nomination for Shangri L'Affaires)
• 1965 -- Evans Freehafer Award
• 1971 -- Sampo Award
• 1971 -- DeepSouthCon 9
• 1984 -- ConQuistador 1
• 2006 -- Loscon 33
• 2009 -- Baycon 2009 (unable to attend due to illness), Forry Award

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Person

1940—2018

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