Richard Lupoff
(1935 – October 22, 2020)
Richard “Dick” Lupoff was an SF fan and technical writer. Lupoff and his wife, Pat Lupoff, edited the fanzine Xero which they unveiled at Pittcon, the 1960 Worldcon in Pittsburgh.
He discovered fandom in 1952 with Amazing Stories. “...suddenly I discovered a subculture of people who valued the intellectual over the physical, ideas over objects, imagination over conformity, cooperation over competition.” He decided to publish a fanzine, but not having a means of doing repro he produced a carbonzine, typing each page on a stack of sheets of paper and carbon paper. At one point, he published SF52 (print run eight copies!) and sent them to major faneditors. Lee Hoffman wrote back, which encouraged him to stick around.
He was the expert on the arcane art of Rexstripe. He was one of the founders of the Fanoclasts and of Eastercon. He was one of the first members of the Fan Awards Poll Committee. He was a member of APA-F and the New York Futurian Society.
He had a significant pro career, having written SF, mysteries, and non-fiction on a wide variety of popular culture subjects. He used the pen names of Ova Hamlet, Dick O'Donnell, and Addison E. Steele (two Buck Rogers novels). Some of his SF novels are The Crack in the Sky (1976), The Return of Skull-Face (1977), and The Triune Man (1976). His The Great American Paperback was published in 2001 by Collectors Press. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 50 short stories, he also edited SF anthologies.
His earliest fanzines were carbonzines, Voyage of the SF52 and One Shot Wonder. His circulation totaled eight copies each issue and he had to retype each issue twice each to make his circulation, which included Lee Hoffman and Gregg Calkins. His first issue of Voyage of the SF52 was in February, 1952. Only Hoffman responded back. He did two more issues, dated March and April. The covers of Voyage 2 and 3 were hand-drawn on green construction paper. The interiors were regular bond paper.
He was an expert on Edgar Rice Burroughs and wrote Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure (1965) and Barsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Martian Vision (1976). Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure was published by Canaveral in 1965 (a press of of which he was an editor); a paperback edition from Ace in 1966 corrected some errors in the first edition.
A regular feature of Xero was a nostalgic look at Golden Age comic books called "All in Color for a Dime" that later resulted in two books of essays: All in Color for a Dime (1970) and The Comic Book Book (1973), both of which Lupoff co-edited with Don Thompson. Much of its material was collected in The Best of Xero.
He is credited with helping found comic book fandom and then disowning it.
He was married to fellow fan Pat Lupoff, who died in 2018. They had three children together.
- Horrib
- One Shot Wonder
- OPO
- OSO
- OPOSO
- The Reader's Guide to Barsoom and Amtor [1963]
- Sigh of the Blameless
- Voyage of the SF52 [1952]
- Xero (with Pat Lupoff)
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 1963 -- Best Fanzine Hugo for Xero
- 1975 -- Best Novelette Hugo nominee
- 1976 -- Best Short Story Hugo nominee
- 1978 -- Octocon II
- 1979 -- Westercon 32
- 1985 -- Toastmaster at Baycon '85
- 1994 -- Edgar Rice Burroughs conference
- 1998 -- World Fantasy Convention 1998
- 2001 -- NecronomiCon, 5th Edition
- 2005 -- Best Related Book Hugo nominee
- 2009 -- World Fantasy Convention 2009
- 2014 -- GalaxyCon
- multiple Nebula Award nominations
| Person | 1935—2020 |
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