AustLit

In 1954, internal disruptions within the Futurian Society of Sydney (F.S.S.) began to affect the group's ability to function and by 1955 the situation had become so bad that the Society's membership collapsed. For the next four years, the F.S.S. was kept alive largely through the efforts of Graham Stone. In 1959, he began publishing Notes and Comments, with some assistance from Alan South and Kevin Dillon. The journal ceased when Stone was offered a job in Canberra and the F.S.S. subsequently went into hibernation.

Source: Vol Molesworth. A History of Australian Fandom 1935-1963, pp.57-59.

A news bulletin-style zine, The Sydney Futurian continued on from The Futurian Society of Sydney's former publication The Futurian Observer, which had ceased in 1943. Although no specific editor has been identified, the core group of individuals who revived the society in 1947 and who oversaw the publication of the zine during its first few issues were Vol Molesworth, Eric Russell, Stirling Macoboy, Laura Molesworth, and Graham B. Stone. Another member who soon afterwards played an active role in the zine's publication was Arthur Haddon.

The first issue of the Sydney Futurian, a four-page duplicated publication in foolscap format, was issued in September 1947. By the time the final issue was published in late 1948, up to 75 copies were distributed throughout the English-speaking world (Molesworth p.15). The eighth issue was specially timed and prepared for distribution at the 1948 Toronto Science Fiction Convention. The editors in this issue called for the formation of a world-wide science-fiction fan society, to possibly be named the World Science Fiction League.

The Sydney Futurian ceased in 1948 following the society's December meeting (no. 112), at which it was decided that a committee should be formed to set up a plan for a larger magazine. Vol Molesworth suggests that in hindsight this was a tactical error, as the zine which followed (the F.F.S. News) only lasted three issues (p.18). Although the committee later gave its report suggesting the publication of a 40-page magazine comprising feature articles, short fiction, and news (and to be named Boomerang), this never eventuated.

The very first Australian news zine to be published, the Futurian Observer (or 'Obs' as it was affectionately called by fans) was initially edited by teenagers Bert F. Castellari and William D. Veney. In later issues, Veney was replaced by Ronald B. Levy. Fifty-seven issues were published between January 1940 and March 1942, with the zine being forced to close down when the two editors were called up for active war duty.

Kim Huett, who has begun the process of digitising the back issues (made available courtesy of Bill Burns), writes of the zine: 'Obs is the unexpurgated chronicle of the first age of fan in Australia. In those slim issues appeared everybody and everything that made Australian fandom of the forties what it was' (Futurian Observer Archive, n. pag.).