Saturday, 30 June 2007

Fanzines Reviewing Fanzines - Telos Unearthed


Although Telos came to something of a messy end with issue 15, it got a far more fitting send off a year later with Telos Unearthed, a fanzine edited by Telos (and later RTP!) contributor Peter Adamson. RTP! reviewed the special issue back in issue 4:
Telos Unearthed is classy. From the side splittingly funny Saucer Smith to the creative Cydonia, there is something for everybody. However, I found the sum up of each issue the most satisfying, as there are few copies of each issue around. The majority is new material, but even the reprinted material has been turned upside down and reworked to give a better look.
The Radio Times comic commentary was most worthwhile as I knew of several people who would like to know more about these—and perhaps even see the damn strips as well. Most intriguing were the reader's memories, including Graham Muir's eulogy and Paul Scoones' frank thoughts. These are several things to which RTP! people would be familiar with, including work from Jeff Stone and illustrations by Sir David Ronayne.
Peter Adamson is to be congratulated for assembling most of the old cast of contributors which almost looks like an RTP! roll call. A fine one-off publication and a much better send off than issue 15 could ever have been. If RTP! ever gets to the end of its tenure, then you can be sure we'll be draggin' Peter out to do it, eh Peter?!
Was my 'reader's memory' really that bad, everybody?

- Wade Campbell
Wade's comment about the 'RTP! roll call' makes one wonder if RTP! would have existed had Telos not folded, or if they had co-existed side-by-side would they still have had the same contributors?

No comments: