APA-L

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APA-L, based in Los Angeles, is one of the few weekly apae extant, and one of a not very much larger group of local apas. It was founded in 1964 and as of 2024 was still active with over nearly 3000(!!) mailings.

Inspired by APA-F (the first weekly fan APA, put out in New York), Bruce Pelz felt that a weekly APA should be collated at LASFS meetings (though APA-L is not officially a part of LASFS). With the help of his then-wife, Dian (who became the first Official Collator of the APA). and several other local members, APA-L started its weekly run with its first disty on October 22, 1964. As of the beginning of 2015, APA-L had produced just under 2,600 distributions.

Lenny Bailes remembered that when APA-L was started, Dian Pelz stated that it was for LASFS members only, but Redd Boggs and Tom Gilbert decided to pull off a coup. Gilbert wrote to several APA-F members including Dave Van Arnam, Pat Lupoff, Dick Lupoff, Rich Mann, and Bailes. He told them about the creation of APA-L, invited them to send in LASFS dues that he would present to the sec-treasurer and submit contributions. As Bailes remembered it, they did this for the first or second "disty" of APA-L and dumbfounded Bruce and Dian.

Marty Cantor was OC as of 2022.

Most APAs call the bundles they produce "mailings". Even though APA-L usually has out-of-area contributors, some even outside of the US, most contributors are LASFS attendees and pick up their copies right after collation. Therefore, instead of "mailings," APA-Lers call the collated APA issues "distributions". It is usually shortened to "disty".

At one point, the APA ceased production for a period of about 11 weeks. However, once it recommenced distribution, there have been no further gaps in its production. There have been a few of what have been called "Fractional distributions" along the way (e.g., APA-L #30.5). In at least one case, this was done so that a certain contributor would break his string of contributing to each distribution. He managed to hear about it and contribute a zine to that distribution, anyway.

The period in 1972 when APA-L was invaded by large numbers of crudzines is known as the Crud Crisis.

Of considerable note is APA-L contributor Fred Patten, who had a zine in each and every distribution of APA-L even after sufffering a stroke, able to move only his left leg and left arm. It had been said that if Fred ever stopped producing a zine for APA-L, the world would come to an end. (He did stop after disty 2680, but APA-L (and the world) went on!) He also published The Best from APA-L.

APA-L's previous Official Collator Tim Merrigan put in more than 18 years at that job. When APA-L and APA-F were at their height, Dave Van Arnam was publishing four weekly fanzines -– two for APA-F and two for APA-L–some of them 20pp or more in length.

Mailings Dates OE
1 -- ?? October 1964 -- ?? Dian Pelz
172-175 (at least) 1968 Marty Cantor
?? - ?? ?? -- ?? Tim Merrigan
Late 500s ?? -- ?? Marty Cantor
800 -- 824 ?? -- ?? Marty Cantor
?? -- ?? 2001 -- ?? Marty Cantor
?? -- ?? Heath Row

Members and Apazines:

Publication 1964—
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