Van Splawn

(November 14, 1927 – July 27, 1973)

Van Henry Splawn was a St. Louis fan who published the weird fiction fanzine The Fantasmith for FAPA, in 1953. He was a prolific fanzine editor from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. He was a founder of Vulcan Publications.

He was a fanartist, too; Harlan Ellison called him a “true ‘craftsman’ of the field” of fanzine art in Sol IX.

Van was born in 1927 in Oklahoma. His family moved to the St. Louis area in the early 1940s. He was in the Army from 1947–51, becoming a sergeant. At some point in the 1950s, he moved to Las Vegas, NV, by which time he had apparently gafiated. He married Nancy Haight in 1958 and died in Nevada in 1973.

• FindaGrave entry.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Djinn [1952]
• Fandom on Parade [1945]
• The Fantasmith [1953] (for FAPA)
• Mars [early ’40s]
• Prometheus
• Sevagram
• Soma
• The Star Rover
• Symphony
• Time Stream [early ’50s] (with Paul D. Cox and J. T. Oliver)
• Worlds Apart [1951] (with Paul D. Cox and J. T. Oliver)

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Person

1927—1973

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