Yum

Yum was a Christmas Card by John Roles distributed through OMPA. The first was Yum, the second Yum Yum and so on, enabling Roles to claim in the third issue, 'Every issue yummier yet.'

Yum and its successors are not noted in APAthy where it's said explicitly that 'Items such as Christmas Cards, Underground Maps or TAFF voting forms have been omitted.' In its 'A Brief History of OMPA', Vin¢ Clarke said:

It had been thought that the small circulation would give members scope to experiment with various duplicating and artistic techniques on a suitable scale, but only John Roles really took advantage of this with a series of experimental covers and the never-to-be-forgotten edible Christmas Card of the first year.

This is presumably Yum and we assume, and indeed hope, that no 'copies' survive. The British Fanzine Bibliography only lists #2, saying that was also edible although with 12 5x2½ inch pages one wonders just how this was. #3 carries a warning on its cover that 'This issue not to be taken internally.'

The OMPA mailings are an educated guess that a Christmas card would have been distributed in the December mailing. There are four known issues and there may have been more as Roles remained a member of OMPA into at least the mid-1960s.

How to categorise it within Fancyclopedia 3 is a challenge. The entry on Christmas Cards is classed as 'Publishing'. Seemingly at least three iterations of Yum were printed on paper and so it is a publication but is it a fanzine? It was distributed through and APA but is it really an apazine? The edible nature of the at least the first presumably qualifies it for the category 'Food'. Remarkably, at least two copies survive and have been posted to fanac.org.

Issue	Date	Pages	OMPA mailing	Notes
1	December 1954	?	2	Reportedly, this was edible
2	December 1955	12	6	called Yum Yum
3	December 1956	16	10	called Yum Yum Yum
4	December 1957	3	14	called Yum Yum Yum Yum

• Yum online at fanac.org.

---

Publishing

1954—1957