{"id":22537,"date":"2016-10-01T17:52:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-01T21:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=22537"},"modified":"2016-10-01T17:54:24","modified_gmt":"2016-10-01T21:54:24","slug":"d-douglas-fratz-november-18-1952-september-27-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2016\/10\/01\/d-douglas-fratz-november-18-1952-september-27-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"D. Douglas Fratz: November 18, 1952-September 27, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t remember the first time I met Doug Fratz, but I know the first time we were under the same roof&#8212;though I don&#8217;t think I knew it at the time. It was in 1971, at Phil Seuling&#8217;s annual 4th of July Comic Art Convention, and thanks to Mike Zeck, a comics fan turned comic pro just like me, a photo turned up from that day a few years back.<\/p>\n<p>Here we are  more than 45 years ago &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"scottedelmandougfratzjuly1971\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-22538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971-768x450.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971-1024x600.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/ScottEdelmanDougFratzJuly1971.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s me in shadows to  the left, in the front row as always, wearing my denim jacket emblazoned with studs and a barely visible &#8220;War is not healthy for children and other living things&#8221; patch. (Yes, I was a hippie.) And there to the right, half a dozen rows back, is Doug, his hair at the time equally as long as mine, if not longer.<\/p>\n<p>I have no idea what panel we were waiting for when Mike ran to the front of the room and snapped a photo of the crowd, or whether Doug and I actually met that weekend. No matter. We met sometime within the next few years, and I became a constant reader of his fanzine <em>Thrust<\/em>, which eventually changed its name to <em>Quantum<\/em>, earning five Hugo nominations along the way. And when it came time for me to edit <em>Science Fiction Age<\/em>, and later <em>Science Fiction Weekly<\/em>, he became a frequent book review contributor.<\/p>\n<p>When we last spoke, just a few months ago at the Kansas City Worldcon, we reminisced about  Discon II, the 1974 Worldcon which had been the first for both of us. I&#8217;d hoped to see him again at Capclave next weekend. Instead, I&#8217;ll be taking his place on a panel there about book reviewing, when I&#8217;d much rather have been in the audience hearing <em>him<\/em> talk on the subject. He was a nice guy, an excellent critic, and will be greatly missed.<\/p>\n<p>For more details about Doug, check out his entry at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/fratz_d_douglas\">Encyclopedia of Science Fiction<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t remember the first time I met Doug Fratz, but I know the first time we were under the same roof&#8212;though I don&#8217;t think I knew it at the time. It was in 1971, at Phil Seuling&#8217;s annual 4th of July Comic Art Convention, and thanks to Mike Zeck, a comics fan turned comic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[769,250,85],"class_list":["post-22537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-d-douglas-fratz","tag-mike-zeck","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22537"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22549,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions\/22549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}