Fortean Times
Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing, I Feel Good Publishing, Dennis Publishing, and Exponent, as of December 2021 it is published by Diamond Publishing, part of Metropolis International.
In December 2018, its print circulation was just over 14,800 copies per month. The magazine's tagline is "The World of Strange Phenomena".
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 Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction , for example," writes Rickard, "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories."In the mid-1960s, while Rickard was studying product design at 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 " the art of putting together a fanzine", some years before he created his own. Attending a science-fiction convention in 1968, Rickard obtained Ace paperback copies of all four of Fort's books from a stall run by Derek Stokes.
After reading an advertisement in the underground magazine Oz for the International Fortean Organization, an American group "founded in 1966... by Paul and Ronald Willis," who had acquired material from the original Fortean Society, 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.
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. Ultimately, the Willises were instrumental in inspiring Rickard to create his own periodical. Ron Willis succumbed to a brain tumour in March 1975. 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". The title is said to be "a contraction taken from Samuel Butler's The News from Nowhere",. The News had fairly regular bimonthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p for 20 pages, The News was produced on Rickard's typewriter, with headings created with Letraset, during the late-1970s blackouts. The first issue featured a cover drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges advertisement originally created by Bernard Partridge. 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, a kindred spirit whom Rickard met at a comics convention when the latter was a subeditor at IPC. The two found they had much in common, including a love of Chinese mysticism, and Moore helped inspire Rickard to publish The News. 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."
Key ''News''-people
Moore and Paul Screeton, 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. 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 of valuable clippings, books, postcards, and entertaining letters"; Janet and Colin Bord, later authors of Mysterious Britain ; Phil Ledger, a "peripatetic marine biologist", and The NewsNotable ''News'' content
Other early contributors included writer and researcher Nigel Watson, who wrote "Mysterious Moon" for The News #2. Watson later wrote a regular column of UFO commentary entitled Enigma Variations, 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 on The Glastonbury Zodiac for issue #4, which also had the debut of the "Reviews" section, beginning with comments on a book by 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, since that issue was dated November '74, thereby attempting to keep each volume aligned with a year.
Issue #8 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 ... and my favourite artists from Mad " 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. 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 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 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.
''Fortean Times'' (since 1976)
After 15 issues of The News, issue #16 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". 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". Included within was an offer for a "4-colour silk-screened 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!". Early editorials of the new FT, therefore featured a notification of donations received, naming and thanking the hardcore readership 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 — but raised the page count to continue producing the same amount of material for the same yearly fee.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 on issues #22–26 and associate editor from issue #27. He was joined by contributing editor David Fideler, and subsequently by Paul Sieveking and Valerie Thomas. Issue #20 announced that Kay Thompson 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, before Moore moved from full editorial to largely correspondent duties for a dozen issues after #42, returning as a contributing editor in Autumn 1990. The four — Rickard, Sieveking, Dash, and Moore — are often collectively referred to as "the Gang of Fort", after the Gang of Four.
Issue #21 had the debut of FT semiregular column "Strange Deaths", while issue #22 updated FT