Early Fan Art

Here you’ll find our favorites from the rich and varied art that appeared in fanzines throughout the 1930s and 1940s. As with authors, editors and publishers, several noted professional science fiction illustrators began their careers as fans. Sadly, the vast majority of the original work has been lost, but we can still mine the ‘zines for the rich trove of sublime and/or ridiculous images that lie therein.

Stay tuned to this page as we hope to update it frequently.

To give a sense of the vast range of subject matter, quality and form that we’ve encountered in our research to date, we hope you enjoy this very brief sampling:

Arthur F. Williams, Browsing n8, 1944
Fred Warth, Ad Infinitum, n1, July 1944