John Boardman

(September 8, 1932 – )

John Boardman is a New York fan who has been active in most areas of fandom. He found fandom in college, and was one of the founders of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club in 1950. In a loc to G² 10 (March 1962), Boardman wrote:

Tom Seidman, George D'Asaro and I sent out a call for a meeting, and were answered by a large crowd which proceeded to elect officers, perform a ritual exorcism upon Shaver’s dero-tero cult, and put out a fanzine. I didn’t stay with the club for very long, as I was overawed by the superior fannish background of most of the people who showed up for the meeting.

Ray Nelson didn’t show up at UC until the 1951-2 academic year. He was then married to Perdita Lilly, his first wife. He, Tom Seidman, Mike Girsdansky, Seymour Nelson and I obtained some brief notoriety in that year as the result of a planned Black Mass. (Seymour is no relation to Ray; his version of the common surname was originally Katznelson;) We had planned to conduct a Black Mass at a Halloween party in 1951, with Ray serving as the high priest and Perdita as the altar. However, the story got out. A Catholic student heard about the proposed diabolism, and carried to the university’s chaplain a story that we planned to steal communion elements. The chaplain told Cardinal Strich, the Cardinal told the university’s president, and the principals in the escapade were confined to quarters.

Boardman was a member of the CCNY Sci-Fi and a life member of the Lunarians. He was Treasurer of Nycon 3, the 1967 Worldcon. He was a member of The Cult, APA-F, and was FGoH at Lunacon 41.

He is credited as founding Postal Diplomacy and publishing its first fanzine. Diplomacy was a multiplayer game of intrigue which was a major fannish activity in the 1960s and ’70s. He was a member and officer of the Puddleby-on-the-Marsh Irregulars, and a founder of the Beaker Peoples Libation Front. He was an active member of the SCA (as John of Brooke-Lynne) in New York, and served as the Mural Herald of the early East Kingdom.

John was born in Turlock, California. He earned his Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1962, and was a professor of physics at Brooklyn College. He married fellow fan Perdita Boardman on August 23, 1963, and was the stepfather of her daughter, fan Karina Girsdansky.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• The Amateur Effer (for APA-F)
• Anakreon [1980s-90] (filk fanzine for APA-FILK)
• Beyond the Fringe and Then Some [1960]
• Blue Cat
• Dagon [1960s–80s] (in APA-Q)
• Empire (Diplomacy fanzine)
• Fredonia (Diplomacy fanzine)
• Graustark (Diplomacy fanzine)
• Knowable [early ’60s]
• Leftovers [1967–68] (with Perdita Boardman)
• Pillycock [mid ’60s]
• Pointing Vector [early-mid ’60s]
• Priscus Ordo Seclorum [1971] (SCA newsletter)
• Sagana
• So You Want to Be a Fan [1966]
• Stoned Henge (Diplomacy fanzine)
• Tabard [1970] (SCA newsletter)

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1998 — Lunacon 41

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Person

1932—

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