  I was introduced to Ian Gunn first
through his cartoons. As artist liaison for ConFrancisco, the 1993 World SF
Convention, I wrote him, and a number of other fan artists, to contribute to the
convention publications. At MagiCon, the 1992 World SF Convention in Orlando, I met
Aussie Roger Weddall, whom I asked about Ian. Roger told me that Ian was a decent
bloke, mid-30s, shaggy head of hair, full beard, medium height, heavy set, and very
funny.Roger revealed a reverent sense of
wonder in his description of Ian's significant other, Karen Pender-Gunn. Compared
to Ian, he told me, Karen was very quiet and reserved, stoically tolerant of Ian's
antics. If she was loud at all, she showed it in the bright colors she liked to
wear.I had no idea when I might ever meet
Ian and Karen in person. Then I met and married Diana and jokingly told her I'd
take her to Intersection, the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow,
Scotland, for our honeymoon. She took me seriously. Then Ian and Karen won GUFF,
the fan fund that exchanges fans between Australia/New Zealand and Europe.At the convention, Diana and I found
Ian's name listed on a programming item in the fan lounge. We walked into the
partitioned area in the middle of the cavernous convention center and instantly
recognized Ian and Karen, he big and fuzzy at the podium, Karen glowing and purple
several rows back in the audience. The two obviously recognized us, mostly likely
because of my Texas cowboy hat; they smiled and waved back at us. The bad acoustics
drowned out the speakers' voices with the rumble of the crowd scattered throughout
the center so we sat close to Karen and chitchatted until the panel ended.Ian and Karen took us over to the
Australia-in-1999 Worldcon bid table in a corner of the convention center where Diana
and I bought pre-supporting membership from them and they gave us black and white
stickers of a space platypus for our badges. In return, we gave them fuzzy brown
kangaroo stickers we were using to promote our intention to run for DUFF, the fan
fund that exchanges fans between North America and Australia/New Zealand. The
centerpiece of the bid table was a larger-than-life inflatable plastic platypus.
Out of a large cloth travel bag Diana pulled the furry platypus hand puppet we'd
brought all the way from Texas. Ian expressed mock jealousy that Texans had stuff
with a more warm and fuzzy feeling for Australia than the Australians themselves.We showed them the room in the ritzy
Moat House attached to the convention center where we 'rich' Americans were staying
(rich at least until we paid our hotel bill). We all took a cab to the more modest
Central Hotel attached to the railway station in the center of Glasgow. We attended
the bid parties thrown at the Central. Diana and I assisted at the Australia in
1999 party by handing out our kangaroo stickers and lending Ian the platypus hand
puppet. Ian brought the beast to life, working its mouth with one hand and wagging
its tail with the other. His distinctive Australian accent and laugh only added to
the magic. Women and children were petting the puppet as if it were real.
Twice during the run of the convention
we went out to eat together, the first time to a cozy restaurant called The Attic in
a converted shop basement, accessible by outside stairs. Here Karen introduced Diana
to the sinfully rich and very British desert icky sticky toffee pudding and made a
friend for life. Richard and Nicki Lynch joined us at the second restaurant, the
more upscale Papingo, which means 'parrot' in old Scottish, but which I for some
reason thought was Portuguese, perhaps because the colorful decorations reminded me
of Lisbon. The mirrors on the wall made our party of six seem even bigger.At the table, the women discussed
food, or something else of little immediate interest to us cartoonists. They
commented on the haggis but no one had the nerve to order it. Ian and I shot puns
and jokes back and forth at each other. We scored points virtually even until I
remembered the perfect dinner conversation piece. I took from the table one of
business cards advertising the restaurant and put two creases in the middle of it at
right angles. I pulled on the edges and the card folded closed like wide mouth.
The surprise and delight in his face told me that I had scored big points with the
paper hand puppet. I gave him a note card and showed him how to create his own. We
drew faces on the creations and distracted the women by trying to engage them in
conversation with our 3D cartoons. Richard Lynch, ever conscious of recording fan
history, pulled out a camera to take pictures.The night of the Hugo Awards, to my
complete surprise, I ended up with a rocket after the ceremonies to carry around to
the parties. At the Baltimore-in-1998 bid party we found hundreds of hard plastic
party favors in the shapes of crabs, lobsters, sea horses, tuna scattered across one
of the tables. Ian proceeded to entertain us by showing us how to play tiddlywinks
with the red, blue, green and yellow toys, shooting them into his drink cup. When
he filled his cup to overflowing and the room became overcrowded and stuffy, we
decided to retire to the breezy hallway outside. On the way out I stopped at the
LoneStarCon2 party, the next table over from Baltimore in the same room. There Texas
fan Karen Meschke, desperate for a taste of home, traded me a fifth of Captain
Morgan's Rum for a can of Dr. Pepper I'd brought with me across the Atlantic.In the hall, we sat on the floor, I
with my Hugo rocket in one hand, the bottle of Captain Morgan's in the other. Diana
and Karen offered rum to everyone who passed by to keep me from getting totally
wasted drinking it all myself. Several fan editors surrounded us, including Henry
and Letha Welch and Benoit Girard. Feeling unqualified to draw at the moment, I
suggested that Ian sketch them something. He pulled out a sketchpad and pen and
imme-diately started inking. A caricature of Benoit produced an exclamation of
delight and amazement from the recipient. Henry suggested that Ian draw a portrait
of me. The whimsical picture of a gangly Texan under a cowboy hat looked just like
me.After the convention, Diana and I
decided to sightsee in Edinburgh. Ian and Karen went to the train station to see us
off. They had plans to travel to Edinburgh, too, to visit with fans there, only
later. First they wanted to see what they were told was the last working police box
in the United Kingdom, a look-alike for Doctor Who's Tardis. Ian and Karen stood on
the platform waving goodbye to us, and we sat at the window inside the train waving
back. Diana mentioned regret that the travel plans of Ian and Karen did not
correspond more closely to our own and I agreed. She and I briefly discussed
delaying our departure to spend more time with them but because of Diana's interest
in old buildings and our limited time in Britain, Edinburgh Castle won out over the
Tardis. As if unwilling to prolong the goodbyes, the Aussies looked away.
Exchanging a few words, they suddenly took off toward the front of the train and out
of sight. We wondered what caused them to run off before the train even started to
leave. A moment later they plopped themselves down in the seats beside us.They explained that they spontaneously
decided that spending the day with their American friends appealed to them more than
seeing a police box. Being Doctor Who fans ourselves, we understood the
difficulty of the decision. We asked them about their luggage. They jumped on the
train with nothing while we ourselves had numerous bulky cases. The Edinburgh fans
were taking theirs ahead for them. Now they would actually beat their luggage
there.Diana and I remember little of the
scenery between Glasgow and Edinburgh, catching only glimpses of it. We spent the
trip conversing with our friends, away from the activities and demands of the
convention. Ian told us outrageous stories and jokes while Karen groaned and pleaded
with us gullible Americans not to believe a word of what he said. Having a new
audience for his humor only encouraged Ian. I reciprocated by feeding Karen equally
outrageous lines that she fell for and Diana told her she should know better than to
believe everything a cartoonist said.At the Edinburgh railway station, we
momentarily parted ways, Diana and I to find our bed and breakfast and stow our
luggage, Ian and Karen to inform their Scottish host that they had changed their
plans slightly. We met again at the gates to Edinburgh Castle. Ian was dressed in
conservative navy blue, Karen in immaculate white. Ian and I immediately ran ahead,
eager to see what was around the next turn in the walls, behind the next door, around
the next battlement. I told Ian we had nothing like the centuries-old castle back
in Texas. He told me they had nothing like it back in Australia either. Over a
metal plate covering a hole in the cobblestone castle walkway, Ian pointed out a
sign with an exclamation point on it, saying that it was called a bang, indicating
the use of explosives. I told him to stand beside it. He struck one of his many
silly poses and I took a photo of a Gunn with a bang.Karen and Diana, exhausted from the
climb up the steep hill atop which the castle sat, protested our pace, but in vain.
We peered back at them with goofy grins through gun slits in the walls. The women
momentarily slowed us by insisting on lunch in the castle's public cafeteria. Later
we all took turns taking photos of each other beside one of the huge black cannons
with the roofs of Edinburgh in the hazy background. We mused at the soldiers' pets'
graveyard on a ledge outside the walls. On the way out, I chuckled at a sign that
had the words "WAY OUT" and said, "Way out!" Ian, more familiar with the sign, was
more amused by me.Outside the castle we walked down the
Royal Mile toward the main bus route. Along the way, we popped into the famous
Camera Obscura. I took a photo of Ian and Karen from the rooftop with the Firth of
Forth in the background, laughing at the alliterative place name and again amusing
Ian. Farther down the street, Karen spotted a picture of a kangaroo in an ad outside
a clothing shop. She insisted that we take her photo in front of it, explaining that
she and Ian were making a record of all the Australian references they found on their
trip that had nothing to do with Australia. Ian and I agreed to let the women enter
at least one clothing shop to satisfy their lust for shopping, unfulfilled by the
castle gift shop.We reached the main bus route a little
sad, knowing that our week together was finally coming to an end. We found a bus
stop and checked the schedule. There was only a few minutes to say our goodbyes.
Ian's and Karen's bus came and its door opened. We hugged each other, taking a
moment too long. The doors closed without Ian and Karen inside and the bus took off.
We enjoyed our additional twenty minutes together before the next bus came, and after
quicker goodbyes, Diana and I watched our Australian friends disappear into the
Edinburgh traffic.# # # #
I later contributed a cartoon to an
Australian fannish calendar that Ian Gunn and Kerri Valkova published. Finishing it
shortly before noon one Saturday, I immediately called Ian to tell him was on its
way, miscalculating the time difference between Texas and Australia. A sleepy Ian
answered the phone and informed me that it was three o'clock in the morning in
Melbourne.The next spring David Bratman, the
Hugo administrator for L.A.con 3, called me and asked if I had Ian Gunn's telephone
number. I gave him the number but warned him to take into account the time
difference when he called. I waited 24 hours to give David time to call and then,
unable to contain my excitement, dialed Australia. I again miscalculated the time
difference and again woke Ian at three o'clock in the morning. "Congratulations," I
told him."For what?" he asked."Hasn't anyone called you?" I
responded, slightly dismayed that I'd jumped the gun, "You've been nominated for the
Best Fan Artist Hugo!""Bloody Hell!" he exclaimed, sounding
suddenly wide awake."When David Bratman does call you," I
said, "act surprised."We exchanged numerous packages with
our friends, Ian and Karen sending Australian toys, postcards, maps, and trinkets to
the U.S., Diana and I sending Texas memorabilia and science fiction kitsch Down
Under. My favorites were the Yowies, assemble-yourself plastic models of Australian
wildlife, that came in packages of chocolate candy. The amazing toy wombats, frilled
lizards, fairy penguins, and bilbies more than compensated for our disappointment
that Ian and Karen kept the candy for themselves.Ian and Karen never woke us with a
phone call in the middle of the night, but they did call. Once, Ian told me that he
had someone he wanted me to hear. A tinny voice came on the line and uttered a
single sentence in an unintelligible drawl. "Who was that?" I asked Ian.
"Woody from Toy Story," Ian explained.
"He sounds just like you." He rang me all the way from Australia to pull the string
on a doll for me. I was speechless. One New Year's Eve, they called to wish us a
happy new year. It was shortly before noon in Texas on December 31 but already three
o'clock in the morning of the next year in Australia.Ian Gunn drew wonderful critters,
including armadillos. Diana, as a co-editor of the LoneStarCon2 progress reports,
published several of his cartoons. Ian, when he became editor of the Melbourne SF
Clubzine Ethel the Aardvark, reciprocated by asking me for filler art.
Seeing his seemingly endless supply of creatures in print encouraged and inspired
me to draw. In two of his densely populated fanzine covers, I discovered where he
had hidden several of my own cartoon characters.My frequent tendency to forget the
time difference between us may have come from my feeling that we were closer than
the 10,000 miles that separated us. It seemed that Ian and Karen ought to live
right next door to us. Thinking back on Scotland, we were lucky to say goodbye to
them three times. We never wanted to say goodbye at
all. - - - - - - - - - -
Rodney Leighton wrote us that "[I] was totally captivated by the sheer joy that Teddy
had in meeting Ian and their marvelous friendship. Yet, there was an undercurrent of
extreme sadness. I was laughing throughout while almost crying reading most of the
article. Teddy expressed the joy of knowing Ian exceptionally well while also
sublimely expressing his great sorrow at the loss of his friend." As for the hall
party at the 1995 Worldcon, Henry Welch wrote us that "I fondly remember the last
evening at Intersection with Teddy, Ian, and Benoit and our families. I firmly
believe that if there were more than 24 hours in a day that the conversation may
have gone on for much longer than it did. It's days like this that make fandom
worth all the time, expense, and effort."There was more to M24 than
remembrances of lost friends. Our "Communications" theme was well-represented by
Eve Ackerman's fine article, "Reading for Fun and Non-Profits," about her experiences
as a volunteer with the Radio Reading Service for the visually impaired and Curt
Phillips' "Nights of Thunder," a vivid vicarious experience for our readers about a
NASCAR race that inspired this compliment from Irwin Hirsh: "I liked Curt Phillips'
article for its terrific word picture it gave of an event I'm otherwise not
interested in." The issue also contained Polish fan Malgorzata Wilk's "Science
Fiction Under Martial Law," the third part of Mike Resnick's "Worldcon Memories,"
Dave Kyle's look back to the beginnings of comics fandom, and Forry Ackerman's visits
to faraway Russia and China, replete with cultural challenges and the inevitable
communications difficulties. Mimosa 25 made its appearance
in April 2000, about seven months after our three week trip to California, where we
were Fan Guests at the NASFiC, and then on to Australia where we attended Aussiecon
III and spent another week seeing the sights in Melbourne and Sydney. The cover to
the issue was another of Julia Morgan-Scott's super spectacular scratchboard
extravaganzas that aptly depicted the issue's "Aussiecon" theme. One of the articles
in the issue was an introduction of sorts to the Land Down Under by a fan who got to
see much more of it than we did:Mimosa 25 cover by Julia Morgan-Scott All other illustrations by Joe Mayhew |
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