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 (as
Analog was then titled), 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 "[learn] the art of putting together a
fanzine", some years before he created his own. 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".) 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
blackouts. 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. 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.
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. 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]... and my [Rickard's] favourite artists from
Mad (
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.
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". 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!". (
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). 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
Gang of Four. 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's to include (
Ivan T. Sanderson's) The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, alongside INFO. Issue #23 featured an article by
Robert Anton Wilson on, aptly, "
The 23 Phenomenon," 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
Campbell's
Astounding Science Fiction and
Analog, and the author of "the first Fortean book I [Rickard] ever read": Russell's
Great World Mysteries. 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's "man in the New World".
Paul Sieveking and FT'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." 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." Indeed, #29, under a cover by Hunt Emerson, 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, 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,
V. G. W. Harrison, and Rickard on
Anthony "Doc" Shiels' 1977 "
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". 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 (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'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,
Heretic,
Stigmatic";
Michael Hoffman speculated on the occult aspects of a serial killer in "
The Sun of Sam"; Robert J. Schadewald wrote about "The Great
Fish Fall of 1859", while Hunt Emerson produced the first cartoon strip under the title "Phenomenomix". 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", 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 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. 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. ==General content==