EDITORIAL

Some time ago we got wind of this stern comment from the White Horse. "SLANT," said some anonymous critic, "is too promaggy." We were aghast. Could this vile accusation possibly be true? Whitelipped and trembling, we stole a guilty look at the last issue ... and reeled away, sick with self-disgust. It was true! No use to conceal the fact from ourselves any longer; the mag was tainted with pseudo-professionalism. It wasn't just the vile prose we were printing - the very physic al form of the mag was contaminated. Its condition was critical. Not only had it contracted symptoms of chronic legibility, but neatness was breaking out all over it.

Obviously there was only one thing to do. We must retrace our steps, in search of the True Path from which we had strayed. We began by tearfully saying goodbye to the long happy months of setting type, lifting it out of the stick, picking it up off the floor again, correcting typoes, distributing it again, and finding the rest of the typoes. But these sacrifices were only the beginning. Relentlessly I went on to invent a new method of reproducing stencils which produced a nice black impression (pages 6 to 45), and then cunningly bought 9000 sheets of paper just too thin to take it. Now we were back to the joyful days when our readers used playfully to ask us to make it clear just which side of the page was which. Other experiments, like slipping when w e should have sheeted, were equally successful; and with this issue I think we can safely say that we have regained our amateur status quo.

But please, no applause. It was nothing, really. In fact we'd be just so happy if you wouldn't make any comments at all on the appearance of this issue, just accepting the whole wonderful thing with silent gratitude. Not just on account of our innate m odesty, but because I have an uneasy foreboding that we are about to backslide again. The dread symptoms are re-appearing and I'm afraid I must warn you that the next issue may be almost as lamentably legible as the last.

Among the more readable items will be the second installment of the Temple Memoirs, dealing this time with the affair of Ego and the duplicator, which is probably the funniest thing of its kind ever done, and an unusual thing by Vince Clarke. There'll be some other stuff too, but you know more about that than I do. Would all of you brilliant minds in my glistening audience please note that under the new type set-up (or non-set-up) SLANT will be going frequent, needs material again, and that the deadlin e for the next issue is the end of April. Yes, 1953.

For this issue, thanks to Marjorie Houston, for cutting the stencils for pages 6 to 29, and to Hal Shapiro for the cartoon idea on p. 46. The poem on p. 67 is variously ascribed to Bill Venable and Nan Gerding because I'm not sure which of them wrote i t. It appeared unsigned in their FAPA magazine.

Data entry and page scans provided by Judy Bemis

Updated September 26, 2003. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.