CAPTAIN FLASHBACK A fanzine composed for the 404th distribution of the Thots While Base Scraping: Turbo-Charged Party-Animal Amateur Press An Editorial by Andy Hooper Association, from the joint membership of Andy Hooper and Carrie Root, residing at 11032 30th Ave. More obsessive modeling and messing about NE Seattle, WA 98125. E-mail Andy at with toy soldiers. The Later Swiss presented no [email protected], and you may reach Carrie at problems, and even building an entire Navarrese [email protected]. This is a Drag Bunt Press Company from scratch was easily accomplished. Production, completed on 2/20/2020. But when I decided to cross the Danube to take on the Avars, that proved to be a more ambitious CAPTAIN FLASHBACK is devoted to old project than I had projected. They arrived in the fanzines, miniature wargames, film noir and other mail as expected in a tangle of loose figures, all fascinating phenomena of the 20th Century. All fallen off of flimsy cardboard bases. But written material by Andy Hooper unless indicated. rebasing 45 cavalry and their horses, along with Contents of Issue #15: another 20 horse archers, completely depleted Page 1: Thots while Base Scraping: my stock of 40mm by 30mm plywood bases. In An Editorial on Sundry Topics order to get them all onto legal stands and ready Page 2: Comments on Turbo-Apa #403 for the gaming table, I had to rummage around Page 5: A Key to Interlineations in Issue #14 Page 12: Fanmail from some Flounder: Letters to CF in the box of recycled bases and select a pile for Page 13: I Remember Entropy Department: rehab. There were a few patches of old glue and “The Emperor Strikes Back” by Allyn flock that had to be attacked with a knife, but Cadogan, from FAST & LOOSE #9 edited most of the work was accomplished by rubbing by Alan Bostick & published in June 1980. each of the little rectangles with sandpaper until they were relatively flat, if not exactly clean. The plywood bases are rather expensive you see, “laser-cut” and guaranteed to be of uniform size. Plus they smell divine when they come out of the Ziploc bag. Situations frequently arise where figures are needed in some other configuration and must be removed from the base I have already glued them to. In this case, I certainly don’t discard the bases; they wait to be recycled, like tiny fragments of architectural salvage. I should have known the Avars would deplete my deep bases – the basic option demands that all their troops be mounted, with up to 12 stands of cavalry. The later version includes some light infantry recruited from Slavic people conquered in their progress across Europe. These were not included in the lot I purchased on eBay, but Contemporary Avar Reenactor from Hungary orphan troops are constantly being created by [Continued on Page 6] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue #15, February 2020 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You see, Mr. Simpson, a man will walk straight into hell with both eyes open… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mailing Comments on Turbo-Apa #403: OCCAM’S WHISKERS, Georgie Schnobrich: I love the idea of the immense, wine-stained COVER (Jim Hudson, Kitties!): This set a new dictionary that forms the center of your Fantasy standard for future artist working in the medium of Book Club’s holiday ritual. I like the idea that the cats. Pretty amazing for an “emergency” cover. dictionary and all your wine stains will persist Also, the cover stock was so slick that the APA years after those who spilled the wine are gone. tended to slither off the coffee table. Over the forty years that I have been playing it, the FINANCIAL REPORT: I was a little surprised to Dictionary game has become more and more see that we still had something like $40 in balance; difficult, as more and more people seem to know I would still like to make sone contribution to the the definitions of even the most ridiculous words. 2020 central fund for Turbonery. Do you really feel like mainstream culture is AN WISCONZINE, Greg Rihn: You say that you skewing back toward the mundane again? Cosplay have concluded that “we’re doomed,” as a is so commonplace now, and comic book movies consequence of climate change and other insults to make billions of dollars…this afternoon, we were the planet. I’ve no doubt at all that you’re right in in the supermarket, and I overheard a cashier some significant sense; we’re long overdue for exhausting one of his colleagues by describing some major correction in human population, and what I assume was aWorld of Warcraft battle in climate change is likely to provide it. But I wonder obsessive, excruciating detail. I feel like the world if we will ever realize that “the world has ended” is fairly comfortable with all the stuff we like now even if pandemic and agricultural disaster kill a and doesn’t hold it against us like they once did. significant portion of the world’s population. I On the other hand, we’re still hopeless nerds think the key item is electrical power, with which anyway. It doesn’t matter if Star Wars is most of the effects of climate change can be mainstream or that everyone can answer a ameliorated or ignored. As long as the power stays Jeopardy question about Octavia Butler; it still on, Americans in particular will likely remain doesn’t make us cool. relatively rational. Turn off the power, and Jeopardy has been making us feel particularly old everyone will be wandering the streets with a this week, as there have been quite a few questions crowbar within about 16 hours. we regarded as having relatively obvious and well- Given how deep the roots of fandom run in known answers, and which all three contestants Milwaukee, I would think that history of its first met with completely blank silence. On the other century would be a particularly interesting hand, I don’t know what would make a contestant undertaking. I know you hardly feel qualified to of any age confidently assert that an invasion of write such a work, being such a recent transplant England had once been mounted from the Duchy of only 35 years residence, but I doubt anyone of Luxembourg. But then, we live in a time when would do a better job. Many of the people I think the Secretary of State is confident that reporters of as most central to the Milwaukee fandom I cannot find Ukraine on a map, so what do I know? encountered in the late 1970s are gone now; it MADISON FOURSQURE #39, Scott Custis & would be nice to know that someone else Jeanne Gomoll: I am getting pretty excited to see remembered them. your TAFF book, Jeanne. Things turn into books I hadn’t thought any further about Rebel Salvage without warning these days. I ‘ve been thinking until a few weeks ago, when I had a sudden flash about our own trip to Britain and Brighton in 1987 of insight and imagined three different sets of and wondering how it will intersect with yours. rules, basic, intermediate and advanced games with That was the trip where Carrie encountered the late increasingly demanding economics and more Ross Pavlac in a laundromat in Inverness, among punitive encounters with pirates and security many other adventures. I’m sure we have some personnel. I think Sam was ready for something in photos from that trip somewhere; it would be fun the intermediate range, while his sister just wanted to scan and share some of them. to make enough money to hire a Lemur for a co- pilot. I’d like to be able to please both approaches. 2 I corresponded a lot with Steve Stiles in his last bathroom at all times. It was heartening to read few years, selling some of his fanzines and seeking that you had made a lot of progress since your insight on old reprint projects. I liked Steve more surgery, and I hope that continues. than his art, which is a bit of a blasphemy in LETTER FROM THE FARM, Marilyn Holt: It fandom, but sincerely felt. He was a monstrous was extremely illuminating to read your remarks complainer, a little bit vain about his work and on Andi Shechter’s opinions of her former generally helpless in the face of modern husband Alva Rogers. I had never felt comfortable technology; despite this, he was always fine even bringing his name up, because she was so company, the immediate Statler to anyone’s completely taciturn about their relationship. She Waldorf. I have an unpublished piece by him that gave the very strong impression that her emotional will soon see the light of day as well, and oh, if life had begun again when she met Stu Shiffman only I could have been a little bit quicker. and didn’t really care to talk about earlier I was not surprised to read that Icon has undergone relationships, including her marriage to Rogers. I some significant cultural changes in the past few seem dimly to remember asking her something decades as well as a lot of turnover in personnel. about Alva because he and A Requiem for Surely the people who ran the convention in the Astounding had come up in conversation; all I can 1980s have all succumbed to liver disease by now. recall is her saying at some point that he was a “despicable bastard.” I’m a bit sorry I brought it up Jeanne, your reprint of “Corrugated Confessions” at the memorial; it would have been more from the 1991 SFFY was a highlight of that fine appropriate to ignore him.