Jack Chapman Miske

(August 17, 1920 – December 6, 2003)

J. Chapman Miske was "The first fan to make Cleveland famous," according to Harry Warner. He found sf with the April 1931 Wonder. He was a member of the SFL and New Fandom. He was an actifan from 1937, when he requested a copy of Fantascience Digest from Robert A. Madle, until 1943 when he was inducted into the military. He also wrote weird fiction.

Miske had a reputation for getting into feuds on par with Donald Wollheim's, due, in part to his pseudonymous column "Stardust" in Warner's Spaceways, written under the penname Star-Treader. However, when he appeared at Chicon, the reality was much more subdued. He had received a letter from Earl Singleton dated February 10, 1941, which caused him to doubt the pseuicide.

Miske served as an officer of FAPA for most of his tenure in fandom.

Miske co-edited some issues of the fanzine Scienti-Snaps with Walter E. Marconette beginning in August 1939 through its final issue in 1941, when the name was changed to Bizarre. He also published Chaos.

Miske seems to have gafiated in 1943, although he attended the Clevention, without making much of a fuss and simply sat back and watched other fans without resuming his own fannish activity following the con.

Following the war, Miske worked as editor and eventually editor-in-chief of Foundry Magazine.

His photo appears on page 194 of Harry Warner's All Our Yesterdays.

Obit in Locus, May 2004.

For an early short biography, see Who's Who in Fandom 1940, page 10.

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Person

1920—2003

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