I’ve been going to conventions since I was fifteen. I started with Phil Seuling’s July 4th comic-book cons, but quickly moved on to science-fiction ones as well. I lived in Brooklyn back then, which meant that I had plenty of Manhattan cons to choose from, and as soon as I discovered them, I went to as many as I could.

During those first few years, I’d go to as many panels as possible, and always sit in the front row, hoping to learn the secrets of the universe. As soon as the panels would end, I’d pop up to get autographs of each participant in a sketchbook I always carried. (Yes, that’s right. I was one of those.) Last night, while searching for something completely different, I came across the sheet below, which I believe was from the 1972 LunaCon. It immediately brought me back to those early days I spent wandering the Statler Hilton Hotel, when gods still walked the Earth.

The first column includes autographs from Lester Del Rey, Arthur C. Clarke, John Jakes, Baird Searles, and Gordon R. Dickson … but then there’s a final name I can’t identify. The first name seems to begin with an “F” (Fred? Frank?), but it might also be a “J,” and the last name starts with a “W”, with (maybe) a crossed “t” at the end. I looked through the Ws in various SF encyclopedias, and couldn’t find a name that appeared to match the scrawl. Anyone have an idea who that could be?

The second column starts with someone named Marilyn Chris, but I can’t remember who that was, or why I got her autograph. The only Marilyn Chris I can uncover is a soap-opera star—but why would she have been at a LunaCon? She doesn’t seem to have starred in anything science-fictional. Is there another Marylyn Chris out there? After that is another mystery name, what looks like Robert S. Kalb or Kalf—but who is that? Again, Googling hasn’t helped. Then come the familiar names—Richard E. Peck, L. Sprague de Camp, Charles Manson, George Alec Effinger, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hans Stefan Santesson, and Frank Belknap Long.

And no, Charles Manson wasn’t really at a science-fiction convention. That’s the signature of Merry Prankster Paul Krassner, infamous for (among other things) having published Wally Wood’s Disneyland Memorial Orgy centerspread, back when he was the editor of The Realist.

Any idea who those three mystery panelists were? Does anyone have an old program book which could clear things up?