Meeting Richard Lupoff at the ERB Centennial

When I did my presentation at the Edgar Rice Burroughs Centennial, there was a nice bustle of activity after it was over as people came up and wished me well and said they were rooting for the book to be successful.  As things were thinning out, a tall, angular man in an Aloha shirt came up and signed up to buy the book, then said:  “I’m Dick Lupoff and I was very interested in what you were saying.  I just wrote an 11 page essay on what went wrong with John Carter.”

I don’t get starstruck that easily — but Dick Lupoff is one of the icons of science fiction .  Wikipedia says:  

Dick Lupoff began his writing career in science fiction fandom in the 1950s, working on a number of science fiction fanzines including Xero, which he edited in the early 1960s with his wife Pat and Bhob Stewart. It received the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1963. The roster of contributors included such names as Dan Adkins, James Blish, Lin Carter, Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, Roger Ebert (then 19 years of age), Harlan Ellison, Ed Gorman, Eddie Jones, Roy G. Krenkel, Frederik Pohl and Bob Tucker. In 2004, a hardcover anthology, The Best of Xero, coedited with Pat Lupoff and featuring a nostalgic introduction by Ebert, was published by Tachyon Publications. It was in turn nominated for the Hugo Award. Lupoff also wrote reviews for the fanzine Algol, and he was an editor of Edgar Rice Burroughs for Canaveral Press.

Dick wrote “Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure” which was the first non-fiction I ever read about ERB.  He’s way up there on my list of great ones……

His wife Pat was beside him, and they’re one of those couples that just have an aura about them.  We chatted for a few minutes — I don’t think Dick even knew that I knew who he was until he was about to leave and I came charging out from behind the table insisting to get a picture and talking about him being “one of my heroes”……

I’ve seen the essay that he wrote and it’s delightful — I just can’t publish it because it’s been promised to someone else, but we’ll link to it as soon as it’s up. In the meanwhile, I think I can say that we’ll be hearing from Dick Lupoff here at JCF soon.  Stay tuned……..