Editing Fortean Times (section)

==History==

===Origin===
The roots of the magazine that was to become ''Fortean Times'' can be traced back to Bob Rickard's discovering the works of [[Charles Fort]] through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories: "[[John W. Campbell|John Campbell]], the editor of ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]''  (as ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Analog]]'' was then titled), for example," writes Rickard, "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories."<ref name="Rickard">{{cite book | editor-last1=Rickard| editor-first1=Bob| editor-last2=Sieveking |editor-first2=Paul |date=June 1992 | title=''Yesterday's News Tomorrow'': Fortean Times Issues 1–15 | edition=Fortean Tomes, 2nd edition, 1995| publisher=John Brown Publishing | isbn=1-870870-26-3 }}</ref>

In the mid-1960s, while Rickard was studying [[product design]] at [[Birmingham School of Art|Birmingham Art College]], he met several like-minded [[science-fiction]] fans, particularly crediting fellow student [[Peter Weston]]'s fan-produced ''Speculation'' magazine as helping him to "[learn] the art of putting together a [[fanzine]]", some years before he created his own.<ref name="Rickard" /> Attending a science-fiction [[fan convention|convention]] in 1968, Rickard obtained Ace paperback copies of all four of Fort's books from a stall run by Derek Stokes (later to run [[Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (bookshop)|Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed]], and take a role in the day-to-day running of ''The Fortean Times'').<ref name="Rickard" />

After reading an advertisement in the underground magazine ''[[Oz (magazine)|Oz]]'' (in 1969) for the [[International Fortean Organization]] (INFO), an American group "founded in 1966... by Paul and Ronald Willis," who had acquired material from the original [[Fortean Society]] (started in 1931, but in limbo since the 1959 death of its founder [[Tiffany Thayer]]), Rickard began to correspond with the brothers, particularly Paul. Rickard was instrumental in encouraging the Willises to publish their own Fortean journal – the ''INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown'' began intermittent publication in spring, 1967 – and sent them many British newspaper clippings, although few came to print.{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Rickard later discovered that the production was fraught behind-the-scenes, as Ronald Willis had been seriously ill, Paul thus finding it difficult to "keep up with things" on his own.<ref name="Rickard" /> Ultimately, the Willises were instrumental in inspiring Rickard to create his ''own'' periodical. Ron Willis succumbed to a brain tumour in March 1975.<ref name="Rickard" /><ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=April 1975 | work=The News #9}}</ref> Bearing a date of  November 1973, the first issue of Rickard's self-produced and self-published ''The News'' was available directly from him.

===''The News'' (1973–1976)===
The magazine which was to continue Fort's work documenting the unexplained was founded by Robert J. M. "Bob" Rickard in 1973 as his self-published, bimonthly, mail-order "hobbyish newsletter" miscellany ''The News'' — "A Miscellany of Fortean Curiosities".<ref name="Rickard" /> The title is said to be "a contraction taken from [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]]'s ''The News from Nowhere''",<ref name="Rickard" /> (although Rickard may be conflating/confusing Butler's ''[[Erewhon]]'' and [[William Morris]]<nowiki>'</nowiki> ''[[News from Nowhere]]''). ''The News'' had fairly regular bimonthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p (£1.80/$4.50 for a year of six issues<ref>Early advertisements promised a monthly, 12-issue subscription for the same price, but monetary and time constraints caused Rickard to move to a bimonthly schedule, and use any 'extra' monies to merely produce a greater number of pages</ref>) for 20 pages, ''The News'' was produced on Rickard's typewriter, with headings created with [[Letraset]], during (as Rickard says in #2) the late-1970s [[Power outage|blackout]]s. The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of ''The News'') drawn by Rickard from a [[Selfridges]] advertisement originally created by [[Bernard Partridge]].<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=November 1973| work=The News #1}}</ref> From the second issue, pictures and photographs from various newspapers were interpolated within the text. The price was raised slightly for #6 — which also had its page count upped to 24 pages — due in large part to rising postal and paper costs.

Helping behind the scenes was [[Steve Moore (comics)|Steve Moore]], a kindred spirit whom Rickard met at a comics convention when the latter was a subeditor at [[IPC Media|IPC]]. The two found they had much in common, including a love of Chinese mysticism, and Moore helped inspire Rickard to publish ''The News''.<ref name="Rickard" /> The early issues featured some articles by different individuals, but were "largely the work of Bob Rickard, who typed them himself with some help from Steve Moore."<ref name="madplanet">{{cite book | last1=Sieveking | first1=Paul| author-link1 = Paul Sieveking | last2=Rickard |first2=Bob |author-link2=Bob Rickard |last3=Moore |first3=Steve |author-link3=Steve Moore (comics)|year=1991 | title=''Diary of a Mad Planet'': Fortean Times Issues 16–25 | edition=2nd ed. 1995| publisher=John Brown Publishing | isbn=1-870021-25-8 }}</ref>

====Key ''News''-people====
Moore and Paul Screeton (then editor of ''The Ley Hunter''), both urged on the first few uncertain issues" and Moore frequently joined Rickard to "stuff envelopes and hand-write a few hundred addresses" to disseminate the early issues.<ref name="Rickard" /> Rickard also highlights amongst the key early ''Fortean Times'' advocates and supporters: Ion Alexis Will, who discovered ''The News'' in 1974 and became a "constant [source] of valuable clippings, books, postcards, and entertaining letters"; Janet and Colin Bord, later authors of ''Mysterious Britain'' (Janet also wrote for ''Flying Saucer Review'' and Lionel Beer's ''Spacelink'', while Colin's Fortean article in ''[[Gandalf's Garden]]'' was particularly cited by Rickard as bringing him/them to his attention); Phil Ledger, a "[[nomad|peripatetic]] [[marine biologist]]", and ''The News''<nowiki>'</nowiki> "first enthusiastic fan"; [[Ken Campbell (actor)|Ken Campbell]], Fortean theatre director and [[playwright]]; [[John Michell (writer)|John Michell]]; graphic designer Richard Adams and Dick Gwynn, who both helped with the evolving layout and typesetting of later issues; Chris Squire, who helped organise the first subscription database; Canadian "Mr. X"; Mike Dash; and cartoonist [[Hunt Emerson]]. Emerson was introduced to Rickard in late 1974, when after seven issues, he "wanted to improve the graphics", which Emerson certainly did, providing around 30 headings for use in issues #8 onwards. (Emerson's still-on-going monthly "Phenomenomix" strip in ''FT'' had its prototype in #11's three-page "Fortean Funnies").<ref name="Rickard" />

====Notable ''News'' content====
Other early contributors included writer and researcher Nigel Watson (chairman of the Scunthorpe UFO Research Society), who wrote "Mysterious Moon" for ''The News'' #2. Watson later wrote a regular column of UFO commentary entitled ''Enigma Variations'' (from #29), and articles on the subject of [[UFO]]-related murders and stories of sexual assault by aliens. Phil Grant wrote about [[Ley lines]] for #3, and Mary Caine, who revised an earlier article (from ''Gandalf's Garden'') on [[Temple of the Stars|The Glastonbury]] [[Landscape zodiac|Zodiac]] for issue #4, which also had the debut of the "Reviews" section, beginning with comments on a book by [[John Michell (writer)|John Michell]], the ''Sphere'' reprint of Charles Fort's ''New Lands'' and [[John Sladek]]'s ''The New Apocrypha''.
Issues #2 and #3 noted, ''The News'' was published "with an arrangement with INFO", this was revised from #4 to it being "affiliated to the [[International Fortean Organization]]". From #5, Mark A. Hall produced a section entitled "Fortean USA", continuing on from his earlier, discontinued, newsletter ''From My Files''; issue #5 also had William Porter's article on Llandrillo printed, after being delayed from #4 for space constraints. [[Janet Bord]] contributed "Some Fortean Ramblings" alongside [[William R. Corliss]]'s "The Evolution of the Fortean Sourcebooks" for #7, and issue #8 was the first issue of volume 2, after Rickard decided to end volume 1 with #7 (not #6 as fully bimonthly titles do), since that issue was dated November '74, thereby attempting to keep each volume aligned with a year.<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=July 1974| work=The News #5}}</ref>

Issue #8 (or, volume 2, issue #1) got the special "Christmas present" of headings by Hunt Emerson, after Rickard was introduced to Emerson by Carol and Nick Moore, as Hunt was working on ''Large Cow Comix''. Described by Rickard as "as much a disciple of [[George Herriman|George [Herriman]]]... and my [Rickard's] favourite artists from ''[[Mad Magazine|Mad]]'' ([[Will Elder|Bill Elder]] and [[Wally Wood]])" as Rickard was of Charles Fort, the two got on well, with Emerson producing not only a series of headings, but also later strips and covers for issues to the present.<ref name="Rickard" /> The death of INFO co-founder Ron Willis was announced in #9, which described itself as providing "bimonthly notes on Fortean phenomena", and an index to the first year's issues (#1–7) became available. Colin Bord penned "Amazing Menagerie" for issue #10, while [[Paul Devereux]] and Andrew York compiled an exhaustive study of [[Leicestershire]] in "Portrait of a Fault Area", serialised in #11–12. Issue #11 featured Rickard and Emerson's first "Fortean Funnies" cartoon, while #12 had a price rise to 50p/$1.25, a logo change (from Selfridges' herald-on-horseback to the more descriptive Fort's face-encircled) and a tweaking of its tagline to "bimonthly ''news &'' notes on Fortean phenomena." Issue #14 first mentioned Rickard and Michell's then-in-production book ''Phenomena!'', which would be more actively trailed from #18. Issue #15 — now with 28 pages — announced that Rickard had decided to bow to popular opinion and retitle his miscellany with a more descriptive title. Thus, with a subtitle of "Portents & Prodigies", ''Fortean Times'' was born.<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=April 1976| work=The News #15}}</ref>

===''Fortean Times'' (since 1976)===
After 15 issues of ''The News'', issue #16 (1976) had the magazine renamed ''Fortean Times'', which "new title emerged from correspondence between Bob Rickard and Paul Willis" — the two having talked of creating a Fortean version of ''[[The Times]]'' newspaper, "full of weird and wonderful news and read by millions worldwide".<ref name="madplanet" /> Its cover bore the descriptive text "Strange phenomena — curiosities — prodigies — portents — mysteries," while the inside cover kept the "Fort face" logo from later issues of ''The News'', but bore the revised legend "A Contemporary Record of Strange Phenomena".<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=June 1976| work=The Fortean Times #16}}</ref> Included within was an offer for a "4-colour [[silk-screen]]ed poster" created by Hunt Emerson for this landmark issue. From the start, this new format compounded earlier financial difficulties for Rickard, following on from #14's plea: "we need more subscribers or we die!".<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=January 1976| work=The News #14}}</ref> (''Fortean Times'' issues #16–18 — as ''The News'' #1–15 before them — were solely edited, published, and in large part written and typed by Rickard himself. Even by passing on rising postal and paper costs to the readership, which Rickard constantly reiterates that he is loath to do, the early ''Fortean Times'' was constantly facing an uphill financial battle.) Early editorials of the new ''FT'', therefore (in fact beginning with ''The News'' #15) featured a notification of donations received, naming and thanking the hardcore readership (which included many current and future contributors) for monies received, which aided the move towards higher production values. With donations helping to offset costs, the price was held at 50p  until issue #20, whereupon the magazine dropped to a quarterly schedule from Spring 1977 (issue #21) — but raised the page count (and price) to continue producing the same amount of material for the same yearly fee (40 pg, 75p ea. or £3/year).{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Issue #18 received a new semiregular feature entitled "Forteana Corrigenda", aimed at correcting "errors in the literature" that had crept into various Fortean works through misquotation or other difficulties. After 18 more-or-less solo-produced issues, long-term supporter and helper Steve Moore was credited as assistant editor for issues #19–21, becoming co-contributing editor (with Phil Ledger, Stan Nichols, and Paul J. Willis) on issues #22–26 and associate editor from issue #27. He was joined by contributing editor David Fideler, and subsequently (also as co-associate editor) by [[Paul Sieveking]] (#28— ) and Valerie Thomas (#31–32). Issue #20 announced that [[Kay Thompson]] (a staff member of ''Ley Hunter'' magazine, then under the editorship of [[Paul Devereux]], with whom ''FT'' shared an address for several issues) would be helping to type parts of subsequent issues to further delegate the burden from Rickard. Moore, Sieveking, and he were also later joined editorially by author [[Mike Dash]] (who is mentioned as particularly overseeing the publication of scholarly occasional papers), before Moore moved from full editorial to largely correspondent duties for a dozen issues after #42, returning as a contributing editor in Autumn 1990 (#55). The four — Rickard, Sieveking, Dash, and Moore — are often collectively referred to as "the Gang of Fort", after the [[The Gang of Four|Gang of ''Four'']].{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Issue #21 had the debut of ''FT'' semiregular column "Strange Deaths" (later descriptively subtitled "Unusual ways of shuffling off this mortal coil"), while issue #22 updated ''FT''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s to include <small>([[Ivan T. Sanderson]]'s)</small> The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, alongside INFO. Issue #23 featured an article by [[Robert Anton Wilson]] on, aptly, "[[23 (numerology)|The 23 Phenomenon]],"<ref>Wilson, Robert Anton. [http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html "The 23 Phenomenon,"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928122012/http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html |date=September 28, 2008 }} ''Fortean Times'' (May 2007).</ref> made available a second index (1975, to ''The News'' #8–13) and included a 12-page "Review Supplement", issued as a separately bound supplement since the then-printers had difficulty binding more than 40 pages. With #24, the printers were changed to Windhorse Press to overcome this difficulty, and ''FT'' became officially 52 pages in length, the changes cemented in issue #25 with a new font for the title and a change of address — c/o London-based "SF and cosmic" bookshop Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed, run by Derek Stokes (who had sold Rickard the four Fort books 10 years previously). The same issue ran an obituary for [[Eric Frank Russell]], of whom Rickard was a considerable fan. He writes that Russell turned down an invitation to contribute material to ''The News'' back in 1973, having "earned his rest" after 40 years as an active Fortean. Rickard further states that Russell was one of the key Fortean-fiction writers he read in [[John W. Campbell|Campbell]]'s ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]''  and ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Analog]]'', and the author of "the first Fortean book I [Rickard] ever read": Russell's ''Great World Mysteries''.<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Obituaries cont.| date=Spring 1978| work=Fortean Times #25, p. 43}}</ref> Issue #26 trailed "a special series of 'Occasional Papers' in Fortean subjects" to be edited by Steve Moore, and #27 — the 5th Anniversary issue — welcomed Michigan-native David Fideler (whose ''Anomaly Research Bulletin'' was then due to cease publication, although its subscribers, ''FT'' promised, would be absorbed by them) as ''FT''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "man in the New World".{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

====Paul Sieveking and ''FT''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s format change====
In 1978, mutual friend Ion Will introduced Rickard to Paul Sieveking, who recalls, "the Forteans used to meet every Tuesday afternoon above the science-fiction bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed in Soho to open post and interact. (Indeed, this was the semiofficial address of ''FT'' until that shop closed. With #35, Summer '81, the address was changed.) Sieveking joined the ''FT'' team with #28 as co-associate editor, and writes, highlighting the intrinsic early difficulties in printing ''FT'' that that issue "was printed by an Israeli entrepreneur in northern Greece and shipped to London."<ref>{{cite book | last1=Sieveking | first1=Paul| author-link1 = Paul Sieveking | last2=Rickard |first2=Bob |author-link2=Bob Rickard |last3=Moore |first3=Steve |author-link3=Steve Moore (comics) |date=April 1990 | title=''Seeing Out the Seventies'': Fortean Times Issues 26–30 | edition=Fortean Tomes 1990| publisher=John Brown Publishing | isbn=1-870021-20-7 }}</ref> That issue (#28), bearing a cover blurb of "Strange Phenomena", featured an early advertisement for the bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed, drawn by [[Bryan Talbot]], while the editorial promised that the ''next'' issue would not only see the availability of Index 1976, but also be in a "larger and more professional format, typeset throughout, [with] better graphics, layout, and legibility."<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=Winter 1979 | work=Fortean Times #28}}</ref>

Indeed, #29, under a cover by Hunt Emerson,<ref>The cover was later used for the ''Yesterday's News Tomorrow'' collection of ''The News'' issues #1–15.</ref> was printed fully typeset in A4 (thanks to art director Richard Adams of AdCo, and,according to Rickard's preface to ''Yesterday's News Tomorrow'', Dick Gwynn) and even distributed on a limited basis through [[WH Smiths]]. The move away from production on Rickard's typewriter gave "The ''Journal'' of Strange Phenomena," (as it was now subtitled) greater ability to produce longer, better laid-out articles. These opened with a seven-page guide to "Charles Fort and Fortean Times" by Bob Rickard, explaining the background and philosophy of ''FT'', as well as outlining the influence of Fort,  "who is still largely unknown", writes Rickard,<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Charles Fort and Fortean Times| date=Summer 1979 | work=Fortean Times #29}}</ref> and also included the first of Nigel Watson's "Enigma Variations" columns and [[Loren Coleman]]'s "Devil Names and Fortean Places" article sat alongside comments by Colin Bord, [[Tim Dinsdale]], [[Vernon Harrison|V. G. W. Harrison]], and Rickard on [[Anthony 'Doc' Shiels]]<nowiki>'</nowiki> 1977 "[[Loch Ness Monster|Nessie]]" photographs. The magazine itself dropped the description 'non-profitmaking' from its publication information, and ceased to name its stated affiliations to INFO, SITU, and "other Fortean journals" in favour of the more general aim to be a "friend to all groups and magazines continuing the work of Charles Fort".<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=Summer 1979 | work=Fortean Times #29}}</ref> It also contained a considerably higher number of advertisements, including both inside covers — making the page count slightly higher than previous issues, which had previously counted the cover as page 1 — and an early advertisement by [[Brian Bolland]] for [[Forbidden Planet (bookstore)|Forbidden Planet]] (which would ironically begin to take off only after the closure of Stokes' bookshop).

Issue #30 announced that while "over the last couple of issues [the] subscriber list... nearly doubled," so too had the "printing, production, and postage bill," necessitating a price rise to 95p/$2.50 — albeit softened by another length increase, to 68 pages. Now published not merely by Rickard, but by Fortean Times Ltd, it was typeset by Warpsmith Graphics and printed by Bija Press. The cover was painted by Una Woodruff (whose ''Inventorum Natura'' was reviewed within) to illustrate [[John Michell (writer)|John Michell]]'s article on "Spontaneous Images and Acheropites," drawing on his 1979 [[Thames & Hudson]] book dealing with — and titled — ''[[Simulacra]]''. Bob Rickard produced an article on one "[[Clemente Dominguez]]: Pope, [[heresy|Heretic]], [[Stigmata|Stigmatic]]"; [[Michael A. Hoffman II|Michael Hoffman]] speculated on the occult aspects of a serial killer in "[[The Son of Sam|The Sun of Sam]]"; Robert J. Schadewald wrote about "The Great [[Raining animals|Fish Fall]] of 1859", while Hunt Emerson produced the first cartoon strip under the title "Phenomenomix".{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Sieveking took over full editorial duties from Rickard with #43, helming the subsequent four quarterly issues (to #46) to give Rickard a chance to "revitalize",<ref>{{cite news | first = Bob | last = Rickard | title=Editorial| date=Autumn 1984 | work=The Fortean Times #42}}</ref> which he did, returning with #46 to the position of co-editor. Moore, Dash, and Ian Simmons (and others) variously edited the magazine for the next 18+ years, and although main editorship passed from Rickard and Sieveking to [[David Sutton (writer)|David Sutton]] in 2002, they both continued to contribute. Sieveking semiretired at the end of 2019, handing most of the "Strange Days" news editor role to [[Christopher Josiffe]]. Sieveking continues to write the archaeology column, compile the "Extra, Extra" section, and edit the letters pages, also acting as the main quality-control proof-reader (as well as producing an occasional feature). Sieveking's wife [[Val Stevenson]] was book-review editor for several years, eventually passing this role on to [[David V. Barrett]] in 2019.{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}

During the 40+ years of its publication, ''Fortean Times'' has changed both format and publishers on a few occasions. Early issues (particularly of ''The News'') were produced in black and white (for ease of photocopying), and the whole was largely produced by [[typewriter]] until #29. Colour, professional printing, and wider distribution followed, and a 6.5- x 4.5-in size held sway for several years before the magazine settled into its "normal" A4 (magazine) size in the 1980s, after which glossy covers followed. Several changes of logo and font have occurred throughout its life.{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}